Beaucoup Rouge (Nathaniel Weah, Liberian Refugee, Les Etats-Unis) 2012

It would have been better off if we could have made it to the Cote.  But that was not an option at all.  Some four hundred miles and some change to Cote d’Ivoire was not going to work, on foot.  Even if we would have had a vehicle to drive to that country’s border, taking the roads was a death sentence to the men and most assuredly rape, torture, indoctrinated into the sex trade and, after all of that, a death sentence to the women as well.  No, we had to go north and get the fuck out of Dodge, tout de suite.

Ten miles north to Sierra Leone’s border or over four hundred miles east to Cote d’Ivoire’s border?  One can do the math very quickly.  Going south toward Hell, Monrovia, a definite no-no.  And to the west of us, well one might as well say nothing, a no-no aussi, the vast unmerciful Atlantic Ocean and we in no way had a seafaring boat or a water vessel at all.  My whole family are farmers by trade, mostly growing rice that kept our family comfortably living.  But since the first Breakthrough cout d’etat in 1989, comfortable living was a thing of the past.    

Robertsport, Liberia, located fifty kilometers north of Monrovia, we still lived the way we did before the war.  But in 1998 that all changed.  For some reason some of the rebels left Monrovia and started making paths in every direction from the center of the madness, Monrovia, and of course one of their paths was headed our way, north to Robertsport.   And that is when our quasi-safe environment changed into a nightmarish, crimson filled reality.  My disbelief of the wicked, barbaric actions by our fellow countrymen upon us will never be forgotten while awake nor while asleep. 

Tres, tres mal, to say the least.

(to be continued)

WMD (Anonymous, Level Five Security Clearance, Retired Federal Employee) 2014

Everyone had heard that dreaded acronym while Bush Jr. was in office.  Now, it was the known dreaded acronym once again.  What was once an acronym meaning, "Weapons of Mass Destruction," was rightly being known as the principle and integral part of the federal government, its baby, Weather Manipulation Division or wrongly accused WMD from what the populous was supposed to think, Nuclear Arms.

People, like me, were sworn by secrecy not to let, 'the cat out of the bag,' so to speak.  The federal government on a global scale did not want the populous at large to understand that there was a new kid on the block of fear, and it had nothing to do with nuclear arms.  It had everything to do with controlling the heavens, the environment.

The Weather Manipulation Division had started way back in 1954 in the United States.  In its infancy stages the wonders of its capacity was shown to the powers that be.  And all the world wanted its precious panacea qualities.  Third world countries wanted it to keep their people fed by adding elements into the atmosphere so it would rain in their perspective, 'neck of the woods,' so they would not have to trade for the most basic need, sustenance. And the greatest country in the world, 'The USA,' would not let another country benefit from such an awesome discovery.

And to the demise of many rulers: Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Hugo Chavez...obtaining that Pandora's Box, would be a death sentence. (to be continued)

The Past Tense (Thirty-Two Years Old, White, Enlightened Female) 2009

Patience was never my forte.  I get antsy when I'm idle or I have to wait.  I'm starting to experience more people like myself, to the point I am starting to see how horrible I am with my impatience.

Rude, boorish...I'm starting to see all of those uncivilized qualities in so many of my fellow humans that have been within me most of my life; now, I am starting to change that behavior; albeit, not overnight.

No, one, like I, cannot undo thirty-two years of conditioning in one good night's rest.  But one, like I, can slowly change those mal-formed characteristics that one has. And one day, in the near future, I will be able to say about my ill behavior:

"I had those same dastardly qualities at one time.  Heavy on that, 'HAD.'"

Tick! Tock! Mother Fuckers! (Anonymous) 2017

My heart races often times now.  I have seen the end.  And I see it every day coming.  This great symphony of life building and building until the fiery, beautiful and kaleidoscopic finish, the crescendo. 

And it's going to blow the fuck up! 

Just in time.

It's Just My Nature? (Forty-Three Years Old, Ex-Marine, Black Male, Murderer For Hire) 2005

He often smiled about the things that Hollywood and the dreaded television instilled into people.  Especially the violence.  The violence they made so pretty, so "cinematic,"  so cool...violence, he was here to inform you, was far from all of those things.  Violence was so fucking ugly.  But the sad part about that was he was good at it.

The Marines taught him how to kill with dignity.  He liked to call it, "The Pure Kill Philosophy."  When you murder someone you do not do the murder in malice.  When he took another's life he never relished in it.  Never drew it out.  Never watched them suffer before their perspective lives ended.  Never, like Hollywood and television showed the ignorant, defile the human being that you are about to murder with actions or words before they see their last vision of this life.  A Clean kill.  A pure kill.  No matter who or what that person was they, at the very least, deserved that respect in their last second of this life.

He had only murdered men and that was the only object of his violent nature he would let come to fruition when he was paid to exact punishment on the men he thought deserved such abominal actions that he would carry out on them.  He had learned in the Marines, there are some people that needed to die.  But the reason he had separated himself from the Marines some ten years ago was he started not agreeing with the people he was commanded to terminate.  Asking the simple question, "Why?" was not an option when he was a Marine.  And he didn't like that.  He didn't like that at all.  He liked killing, no check that, he loved killing.  But what he didn't like at all was the fact in the military he didn't have reason, he didn't have choice.  Choice was what made all the difference in the world to him as far as what he was very good at, murdering...(to be continued)  

The Chill Factor (Forty-Eight Years Old, Broke Black Prophet, Near Salvation) January, 2013

There's always something My Dear Sweet Sistahs and Brothahs!  Always something!  Let me tell yah.  Don't make any sense at all...but...it is what it is! 

And I don't like that shit! 

You say, "Fuck You!".  I say, "Cool.  Cooler than cool."  Yao Ming?  But that's just me.  Definitely not You.  And we both know that's two different mothah fuckin thangs.  And I guess, that's what I 'm trying to get at.  People say all the time about some shit, "I refuse to live my life like that!"  And I will say to your ignorant ass, "Cool.  Cooler than cool."  But that's just me.  Not them.  And what I mean by them is, your ass doth not make the populous.  Four billion and some change and your ass absurdly thinking it's still just about little old you?  Well, I'll be damned. 

And I will still say, "Cool.  Cooler than cool."  And again, that's just me.  Not them.

After The Big Bang (Fifty Years Old, Johnson County Indiana Farmer, Black Male) March, 2021

Everything is broken.  Mistakes.  Too many to even mention or to list.  And I guess one gets comfortable with the way life is instead of where this life may eventually go or turn into.  I was lucky to be a loner.  Fifty years old and having no children nor wife is probably the reason I am alive today.  I have only had to worry about myself.

Everthing is this grayish dark yuckiness.  And the sky.  Even the sky is still gray.  The sun?  The sun hasn't shone it's brillance since Yellowstone erupted.  I haven't come across another human being.  I often think that maybe I am the only person alive; but I know that couldn't be.  Could it?  Definitely not.  I have put it through my mind many of times thinking that living in rural Johnson County and being the only Black living out in these sticks that I may be the only "nigger" or white person alive.  Wouldn't that be a hoot.  But I know it wouldn't.  No, that would be too much for me to handle.

I go farther and farther away from my farm.  Since the Big Bang and the Fall Out I am now traveling six miles from my farm every day, in each direction, with not a sighting.  It's seems as though I am in a bad dream or a very bad reality.  I pray every night that it isn't the latter.  But again, like today, I awake to nothingness.