Rhyme nor Reason

Chapter 3

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting rocks we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had froze in their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the whistle
Of wind sidewinding softly behind anvil rock.

Stealing, this poem from Wildfred Owen, was all I could muster to keep me from falling back. If the rhyme could reveal the illogical concept of war then perhaps it might be used to explain why we hurtle uphill to no particular place that you definitely do not call home. In this case, not home is Camp Muir.

Sitting down, with a typical backpacked brown bread cheese sandwich, were the tomatoe somehow always manages to always find itself on the outside of the bread layers and the cheese forms a paste that sticks to your gums like toffee, I find myself contemplatingmy life here at Dark Cedars, so far it's been all prologue, even chapters 1 and 2 were prologue, as there's just no way to begin the story. Why no rhyme or reason so far? Well, I have two different voices competing, trying to make one story. But, there's no hope for a single story, there are two voices in my head; one from the time before, and one for the future, both are scared, real scared. Only hurtling up this damn hill seems to make the mind forget itself. Is that it? These bent beggars are marching asleep to forget away there city troubles, while I'm here marching asleep to forget my former troubles and my future troubles, there ain't much sleep for a man like me, so I should take it when I can get it.

A short time later I wake, my glove is frozen to a stone, my hand is lost inside the glove, numb to my arm, my arm is weary, unable hardly to lift my pack. But I feel better, clearer, despite the mind bending altitude tricks. It is time to stumble like the low slung sun back down over the sharply broken white glass horizon line. The comfort of a warm fire, with good whiskey, and quiet company will get me there. Where? To the beginning of the story, that's where. There may be two voices in my head, but they both had to have emerged somewhere, and that's where I should start, if I am to make sense of any of this.