-Sub Normality-

no contact from platoon 242.
 towards the end, the command structure will rapidly break down like it was a feeble lie all along.
 towards the end, they say, you'll cross the point of no return and feel it.
 time grinds to a halt and the universe shrinks and square meters take on detail of a city map.
 all that exists will be in front of you. towards the end, when it matters most, the best will be brought out in some and the worst in others, and you'll know how it came to this.
 you'll find out who you really are.
we are worse than surrounded. the end will come soon now.
 this place has become limbo, and the ceaseless red sky offers nothing, and the rumbling grows louder.
 for now i and the others are calm because the General is calm.
Generals planned this and Generals sent us and Generals supplied us and Generals sent one of their best to lead us and Generals are now planning without us, but the definition of the word has shrunk here to exclude all in the universe but one.
towards the end she moves casually though the food was last concept nine days ago.
 she confers with the remaining lieutenants as every morning since day 1, though only fragments of words can survive the journey through the agonizing haze that has replaced the air here.
she smiles and keeps her armor in deplorable condition.
we smile back.
 what has passed for a command structure around here teeters on the brink.
like it was a lie all along. as the end crests the horizon into view, suddenly the General comes to us, one after the other and yet never leaving each, and because i am the youngest i am first.
there is no inspiring speech, no steeling or nerves, no talk of nation or of heroes.
 she kneels what may long ago have been very close, and i can feel her shin perfectly through both sets of armor.
 my eyes close and i know she briefly whispers something, or painedly tries to, and towards the end the form of communication is all.
 and then her hand is there, her hand is there against my lowered face, stroking so slowly, so gently, that every thing else recedes.
 time grinds to a halt and her hand is running through my hair and i am six years old and pretending to be asleep and i count each time it silently brushes past my ear and then forget counting, and i feel the universe shrink to contain our nearness though we have barely spoken and our complete openness though we do not know each other's first names and i feel her gaze perfectly through closed eyes and it is everything that will ever matter.
 my eyes are closed and she is there and her hand is so gentle.


                             that is all.


eventually the end comes.
the command structure dissapears, but there is no anarchy. the point of no return comes and goes but this place looks the same.
and the universe indeed has shrunk.
 let them come.
 there is no room for them in here.
 they can never get in. they take and they acquire and they annex and yet they have nothing.
they have nothing, forever, and what we have is temporary but it is everything.
 we had it all along.
even here, the last place i would ever have looked.
we are going to lose this war, and history will jeer.
we never had a chance.
our tactics are naive.
our armor is not thick enough.
 it was not made for this.
we have found out who we really are when it matters most.

never have i been less ashamed of anything.
 in the end, what else can i say?