Memorial for Lost Molecules

by the Checkered Demon

When my Son graduated from high school, I saw him as weakened and he was. As a latchkey kid, he'd fallen in with a few tweakers in the California apartment block he and his Mother lived in. They'd buffer the speed with beer, and the alcohol snagged him. He became his Grandfather's grandson, lost in the jug at 18. He lived there until 27.

I'd told him he could use a hitch in the military and he'd laughed. It was in fact laughable, since he would never have passed the physicals. I'd hated the military myself, so why would I advise my own Son to take that route? I'd seen how many fuck-ups they've sorted out maybe? Me for one. Well, maybe I wasn't sorted totally out, but It DID at least set me off in that direction. It was, I think, that I would rather have seen him honorably dead somewhere in Arlington than where he was then.

Many a parent's boy or girl lie out there, or as debris in foreign soil, or as molecules no one ever could find. There really are heroes in the seaweeds and the mountains and deserts, in the air that we breathe. Mostly they live in the minds of those who bred them, or loved them and those who were there when the bitch-God of war took them.

The last Monday in May we honor them, or maybe mock their naïveté for being stupid and dying for the man, man. The mockers are always the ones who've profited the most from their loss. No one can ever convince me Democracy is pretty. It slaughters the brave and abets the lame in return. We obsess over cow farts when cows don't fart. We don't educate all children, because criminals are easier to manage than revolutionaries. Our situation isn't pretty, but still we fight for it. Obviously there's some sort of madness afoot.

So on Monday I'll raise a glass to them all, and have another with my amputee friend who claims he sometime wishes the medics weren't so good. We owe them our thoughts.

Note from Lynn:  My apologies to CD and to readers for the tardiness of this post, it's entirely my fault.  The sentiment is every bit as valid today as it was a few weeks ago, I hope you enjoyed the piece as much as I did.

(c) 2018  The Checkered Demon