8

~Our Dream~

We're poised to finally have everything we ever wanted, all my wildest
dreams are finally coming true. Violet is coming back with me to America, we'll
make our home there.

I'm so sick of working at the docks,
I'm going to pursue my dream, to write music and play.
This path is right, traveling the world.
I'll be editor and run my own stories some day.

This is our dream, and it's one I never want to wake up from.
She is my real dream, together we're going to share what is to come.

I've got so much hope, she says I'm sweet and charming�
How can that be true?
I don't know what she sees in me, but I'll be everything she ever wanted.
Violet it's you�

You who I want to give the world to,
who I want to do a thousand things for I've never done for anyone.
I'll build you a kingdom of happiness, and dedicate it to you.
Even if we never have a real mansion�

I'll write my songs, and you write your stories
and we'll dance to each other, wrapped in the glory
of youth and determination.

I'll scale any wall the world puts between us�
I'm so glad that I found you!

Nothing ever mattered, I never want to wake up from this dream!

~The Wheels of War Turn~

It was only two weeks after we got back to the States', when I was drafted
into Vietnam�

I could almost see them, in the jungles so lush, an ocean away,
tigers crouched in the brush.
Burning fields of tall grass, licking blood from their lips,
and waiting for the ships�

Ships that would carry men like myself, some eager to deal death,
some simply out of obligation.
I wasn't afraid to die, and it didn't really cross my mind�
I was building a life with Violet, yet picking up a gun in resignation.

I hated it, yet I was helpless, I had to fulfill my obligation.
It was just Violet and I, as I kissed her goodbye, alone
in the crowded train station.

I was getting on the train as she caught my arm, made me look back as if it
was all just a bad dream. I swore to her I would not forget our dream.
I said sadly, "It's only for awhile."
"I don't want you to go."
I kissed her again, told her I had to go�
"I know�"
Was all she would say�

So I waved goodbye, without a tear in my eye, though my heart wrenched
as I felt the train wheels turning.
They felt like the wheels of war, and from that day on my life was no more,
as an ocean away, the fields of tall grass were burning.

~Burning Dream (First Interlude)~

So I arrived in boot camp. I felt so lucky to have been drafted, especially
after the drill sergeant had finished screaming at me. I was worthless scum, my
whole family was worthless scum, other similar pleasantries. If I wasn't under
federal law I would have hit him plug in the eye. As the training went on I began
to keenly miss those days in Hakone, Japan, and even more than that, my precious
Violet. I had disdain for most of the other grunts I was training with, which
earned me a bad reputation rather quickly. They came from poor backgrounds,
like me, but unlike me they had an ignorance they didn't even attempt to disguise.
I never spoke of Violet with them, lest the inevitable crude, sexual jokes begin.
During most of my time there, I had to force my feelings deep down and force
a smile I couldn't be further from feeling. It's a bad habit that I still catch myself
in once in awhile, even today.

Finally, we were shipped to Vietnam.
We spent months, wading through high water, picking through dense
foliage. Sometimes we found burnt out villages, where the Vietcong had been.
And when we found Vietcong in a village, we were the ones who left it burnt
to a cinder. I wasn't afraid of anything�no, that's not entirely true. I felt
myself changing, and for the worse, in this place and with these people. The
poetry and passions I took for granted on the outside were as alien to these
soldiers as their lifestyle was to me. Hakone, Violet, and even America,
seemed a million years away. Had I ever known such places? What about
Violet? Was I going to return to her a stranger? Was I going to return to her
at all? If I feared anything it was that�but most of the time I found I could
not think of anything beyond my own survival at the immediate moment.

I never killed anyone until the very end of my brief tour� The
Vietcong attacked my unit's camp one night. The air was heavy, it was going
to start raining soon� I heard the gunfire from my tent, the shouts, and
rushed out, gun in hand, like everyone else. I literally laughed at death as I
started emptying my clip at the attackers. I thought it was a bitter joke that
I was going to die here, so ignobly, without my Violet. There was an explosion to
my left, and I realized it was a grenade. The tall grass was burning, smoke rising
up to meet the cold, star lit sky. I didn't even have time to react before a second
explosion struck much closer to me. I felt the shrapnel hit me, and I fell to the
ground, mercifully blacking out. There I lay, face down, the sounds of bullets,
screams and fire fading with my consciousness, and the smell of tall grass
burning�

Smoke�
Burning�
Violet�
Our dream, my dreams, burning away to nothing.

I awoke in a hospital bed. My left leg had taken the worst of the blast.
The doctors assured me I would be fine. My body healed quite quickly and
cleanly, nothing damaged, only a scratch or two on my side to show I had ever
been hit. My leg however was a different story. I would walk with a slight
limp for the rest of my life. The doctors gave me pain killers, and in a hazy
sort of delusion, I was just grateful to be back in America. Never mind all the
suffering I had been through. My pride had been left in Vietnam, charred in
that fire. In my drugged, dreary mind I saw Violet, our old dreams, and clinged
to them like a life preserver. I was practically out of my mind. It was as if Vietnam
and the pain killers had combined in some way to make me forget who I was.
I was a mental vacuum� a stranger.

And I felt it as I wrote to Violet, getting
more and more desperate in my hospital bed to get well and be with her. To
touch her, prove my love to her through something more than words.
Her letters seemed strangely distant, like the way I felt from reality.
Our correspondence became erratic, and I had to wait longer and longer for each
of her letters. I wouldn't give up though, wouldn't let go. I wrote her, I told her
I loved her. I got the distinct impression she was treating me like an old senile grandmother she was embarrassed to be related to. Without my pride, I began to believe in a paranoid way that I had done something terribly wrong, and I needed to be forgiven. I panicked, and in my drugged mind, I saw her as an ethereal saint, my salvation�

But from my hospital bed I caught a hint of a smell. A smell of something burning�
Not tall grass, but our dreams of happiness.