Mind of Brian

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Bad Acid

The Future 

     We were in the jungle. The night was squeezing every fear out of us. Every time we heard a branch break or a twig snap, we were ready for combat. We were ready to kill or die for our country. Those were our only two options. Others saw killing innocent civilians and babies as the hardest thing to do. To tell you the truth, I find killing them the easiest. They never put up a fight. Not once. Death is Darwinism; Survival of the fittest. That’s all I’m doing. I’m killing humans because they don’t have a natural predator and because of that I have a career.

     It’s a career that required no College education which is nice because I always sucked at school. I couldn’t even get into College if I tried and actually read the material. But I sure can kill. It’s nice when you actually find something you are good at. It’s true what they say, that it’s important to find a job that you would do for free. I found my job. And just the taste of blood is payment enough. Although they do send checks to my family back home. I never see a penny of it and probably won’t unless I survive, and we all know the odds aren’t in our favor. Otherwise, they wouldn’t pay so much to our family members. I have kids and I want them to have a better future than I had. There’s nothing wrong with that. It was once called the American Dream. Now that we’re not dreaming anymore the cold cruel world of economics has taken over. Money is everything. Without it you mine as well kill yourself or at least kill others. Go out with a bang. It’s expensive just being alive. Just paying the tax for clean air is half your salary. It used to be that universal medical coverage ate up your salary, but that went the way of the dinosaur once all the baby boomers ate up Medicare. They left me with no pension for when I was to retire. They also left millions of others in the same position. I’ve been paying social security my whole life and now it’s gone. Just like that. They even promised that they would fix it. Each president after Reagan promised the same thing. And now, Social Security is gone like the dinosaurs, so much for promises.

    So let me tell you a little about myself. My name is Don Wa. My father was Korean and my mother was Italian. They’re both dead now. They couldn’t afford to pay the tax on clean air and so they suffocated. I was raised by my grandmother Ruth who did get the last round of Social Security and therefore was still able to afford to live. Ruth was all right. She treated me as her own as best as she could. Sure, I never got any Christmas presents or anything like that, but at least I was alive. That’s more than I can say for half our society. People volunteering to be put to death so they were no longer a burden on society and their kids will get a big bonus check from the government that will cover their expenses for the next five years. Not bad, everyone benefits, right?

     So I know what you’re thinking. I’m not psychic or anything, but I bet your thinking why Don Wa are you in the jungle and what’s the war all about? The truth is I don’t know and nobody else knows either. We are being paid to kill and that’s all right with me. Like I said, I’d do it for free. The rush is amazing. Especially if you’re in hand to hand combat where you can see the enemies eyes bulge as you choke them to death. That’s my favorite part, everyone has their own favorite, but that’s mine. We landed in the jungle over a year ago. After boot camp my troop came here. And to be honest with you, I have no fucking ideas where we’re at. It’s a secret location. We were brought here in the dead of night by cargo plane and dropped off. I’m not even sure if this is a military exercise or if this is battle. I’ve heard rumors. The rumors are that we are killing our own by friendly fire. Whether it’s true or not is anyone’s guess, but the fourteen people that I have personally killed, and yes I did receive my bonus money for each kill contrary to what you hear around here about the government stiffing you, were all Asian. Some of my friends though, claimed they have killed white people before I arrived, but until I see it with my own eyes I won’t believe it. Although anything is possible, I suppose.

     The worst thing about being out here is surprisingly not the killing or the threat of being killed. It’s not even the weather. It’s the fucking drug Speed that us troops have to take everyday. Some people love it, but to me it’s like sensory overload. Our commander gives us each three speed pills a day. He watches while we swallow it so we can’t sell it, although some people are able to regurgitate the whole pill later and still make their profit. I on the other hand take my pills as they are given to me. Call me old fashioned, but I still follow orders. Maybe it is my downfall.

     My troop is called Present Company. We are called that because we are always present whenever a war breaks out. This is my first war, I think, although I do seem to have trace memories of another war which I can’t explain, somewhere in the desert. Maybe I was fed a time activated amnesia pill by my Sergeant. They give us our amnesia pill before battle. I don’t know how they do it, but if you are captured the pill is time released and you can’t remember anything. This is perfect for security reasons, for protecting our troops. Torture is no longer an option because the captured troop can literally not remember anything. I think the pill has something to do with hormones. Once you reach a certain hormone level, your pill kicks in. I’ve heard horror stories of it accidentally kicking in on a General during battle and he couldn’t lead his troops. His whole squad was killed. I think the General was a diabetic or something and that’s what accidentally caused the problem. They’ve now got that problem ironed out, I think although you still see a couple people space out on the battle field every now and then. They just stand there like zombies and get killed, but what’s a couple of more deaths anyway? It just leaves more resources for the rest of us, right?  At least that’s how I see it.

    They spray us everyday with some type of chemical that kills mosquitoes. That’s important because in today’s day and age, mosquitoes are used for germ warfare. It’s a constant battle coming up with chemicals that will kill mosquitoes as they adapt to the new chemicals so easily. It’s like a game of cat and mouse, each side trying to affect the other. I heard over twenty thousand troops died last month due to mosquitoes alone that adapted to the new chemicals before we could improve upon them. Hey, we lose that much every month around here anyways, if it wasn’t the mosquitoes it would be something else, right?

     The chemicals they spray us with stink. We have to wear ear and nose plugs when they spray us down in order for the chemicals not to affect our brains and cause cancer or whatever it’s causing these days. The symptoms are always different. Sometimes Cancer, sometimes a stroke, other times instant death from heat exhaustion. At least that’s what they tell us. So far our companies had good luck in that area. We’ve only lost a few troops due to chemical inhalation. That’s what they call it. Sometimes we’re being killed like the bugs they’re trying to kill. Ironic, isn’t it?

     And who is to say that chemical warfare is wrong? They’ve been saying that since the beginning of time. This is war. There are no war crimes now. Anything goes. Imagine a crime occurring during war, war is a crime isn’t it? There is no wrong or right out here. Death is death. Chaos is Chaos and Speed is Speed. Nothing changes out here, not even the weather. And why is chemical warfare frowned upon when nuclear warfare is not? At least with chemical warfare you can get rid of certain types of people. You can target them like they did with the Aids virus that knocked out the gays and blacks, just got rid of then like yesterdays news. In my lifetime, I have never even seen a gay or black person. They have all been eliminated for the greater good of our society. At least that’s what they tell us. Be thankful you’re alive, they say, because you won’t be for long. It’s the law of the jungle.

    Did you really think that the Aids virus came from black people having sex with monkeys? There’s nothing racist about that is there? That’s what they told us in the beginning when the virus was first released. It only took twenty years to wipe out both the blacks and the gays. Not bad, for a virus. When white straight males and females suddenly understood that they would not be infected, the search for a cure was abandoned. The money for Aids research ended up going to the military which used it to create other viruses which they patented. Other countries legally had to pay the U. S. a fee to use their viruses. The U.S. had been known to sell their viruses even to the enemy. Even during times of war or military exercises or whatever this is. All I know is that I’m still alive and I don’t know why.

   It’s not like I’m a great soldier or anything. I’m probably average at best. I suffer from low self esteem supposedly because my mother didn’t love me as a child. At least that’s what it says in my military files which I was told the first time they court-martialed me for not killing the enemy with enough enthusiasm. I really was just unaware. I thought a kill was a kill, but they informed me that I must taste the victim’s blood, so now I do. I generally take a knife and cut the dead victim on their arm and suck in the blood. After battle everyone must come back with their faces painted in the victim’s blood. If you don’t, don’t even bother to come back to your company cause they’ll kill you themselves for not fighting hard enough. It’s the new American Way.

    What else can I tell you? Not much really. Just do your best to stay alive. Only one percent of us actually survive our five year tour of duty so make everyday count. Kill as many as you can and welcome to our troop.

  There are a lot of things to be aware of. That’s where the Speed helps. Makes you see straight when your eyes are tired. You know sharks never sleep and they are the world’s most dangerous predator right after humans. Lack of sleep never bothered me though. Sure, it was an adjustment going from eight hours a night down to two hours, but they acclimate you slowly. Every couple of weeks you sleep one hour less. That’s how it works and it does make you a better soldier if for no other reason than you are awake more often than not and therefore able to kill more. Your senses become more acute out here. You can listen to the bugs all night chirping like birds. If you listen long enough and close enough you can hear a pattern. I swear I’m not making this shit up. I’ve spent many nights awake on guard duty in the dead of night. I know what I’m talking about. At least I think I do. That’s what’s funny about being out here, wherever we are. Your thoughts change. At first you don’t realize it because you’re only thinking about staying alive, but that dies off fast when you realize you might rather be dead. Your thoughts change as you go from being an individual to being a soldier and part of a company. There is no I on the battlefield, there is only We. Everyone saves everyone else’s life around here. That’s just the way it is. They can strip us of our humanity, but they can’t strip us of our instincts, our instincts to protect our own. I used to think a lot of my grandmother, but she doesn’t seem real anymore.  The longer you’re out here, the less real your past seems to be. That’s the way it works. I sometimes now forget how my grandmother even looked so at the end of each month when they let you look at your personal belongings as a bonus for staying alive. I always look at the picture of my grandmother first. So far, I think we’re still related, but that can change. Maybe next month I won’t recognize her. I don’t know why that is; maybe that’s just the way of the jungle. The present moment becomes more important than the past. And I don’t know why that is, because in the past I had a lot more fun, I think. Well anyways, it had to be better than war or whatever this is.

      Last night I heard shots in the distance, three of them. We knew they were getting close. We can sometimes see the flames from a distance as they burn down the jungle and attempt to flush us out. They don’t realize how advanced our technology is when it comes to gas masks and flame retardant clothing. We’ve been in this part of the jungle for over six months now and they’ve been burning it the whole time. I don’t remember where we used to be. Somewhere, not here. And yes, I am afraid. I do get afraid sometimes, we all do. That’s where the Speed really helps out, with fear. Speed helps to erase fear ten minutes after you swallow your first pill of the day. Your insecurities wash off of you like the sweat pouring off your body. Instant confidence. It’s better than the instant coffee they make you drink out here. In addition to the speed, they keep us hopped up on caffeine. I don’t know why. I don’t even like coffee that much, it’s an acquired taste, but they make us swallow it by the gallon. Who knows what else they put in your coffee? Because before the war, I tried drinking coffee a couple of times, even though it was considered a delicacy, and it tasted nothing like this. Free coffee, all you can drink, it was just one of the many perks you earned for going into battle. Coffee in the outside world was as rare as the bald eagle which had been extinct for years.

     When I first got here, everyone treated me like a picture. Like a memory of theirs that was just passing through. No one knew if I would appear in their memories the next day. But I did, I stuck around. And the longer I’ve been here the more real I’ve become, because if you are able to last a year out here, you start to Know. What you Know is completely your own. Everyone gets a different piece of the puzzle that doesn’t make sense until you check it with someone else. And with everyone dying around here, it’s almost impossible to keep the Information going. That’s what we call the Information. It’s a catch 22, because it seems when you come really close to really Knowing, you end up dead. Coincidence, I think not. That’s why I try to Know as little as possible. It’s safer that way, I think?

    It’s safer than Knowing, that’s for sure. I’ve seen the soldiers as they get closer to Knowing. Their pupils are always dilating and their skin becomes tinted green. It is almost as if they were blending in with the jungle. They were becoming part of it and they become deeper shades of green as their Knowing continues until they have completely blended in with the jungle and disappear. Where they go to is anyone’s guess. The consensus around here is that they die. Because once they blend in, you never see them again, ever.

      I’ve stayed alive by being cunning. I know what shifts to volunteer for and which ones not to. The guard is always the first to go. They pick them off with a sniper. There is always more fire around a full moon. That’s just my own personal theory. Others have theirs. They judge their choice not on a full moon, but on what day of the week it is. I think that’s a bit too arbitrary. The heat sensor the enemies using now cooks you like bacon. You actually fall to the ground and sizzle like bacon when you’re hit. The molecules in your body speed up like the molecules in food inside a microwave oven. You remember microwave ovens don’t you? They caused cancer in half of the American Public at one time. They didn’t call it nuking your food for nothing.

    Sometimes in the jungle I dream of outer space and wars being fought on other planets. I don’t know why that is. I don’t know why I yearn for a cosmic connection. It’s like something is pulling me forward beyond myself. The line between myself and others is blurred. Sometimes I feel like I can actually merge with them. Then we share the same thoughts which each other. Did you really think your thoughts were your own? They just pass through you and on to others like a breeze, affecting people along the way. Everyone still technically has free will so your response is your own. There is still some comfort in that.

    One time me and Slimmy were walking the trails. Slimmy is from the bayou and his nickname is obvious. We were talking about peace before the war and it was as if I almost remembered it, like it was buried somewhere in my subconscious. Slimmy said he remembered it too but by the end of our walk we had both forgotten. That’s how memory works out here. It’s like instant revelation and then instant forgetfulness. The only thing that Slimmy and I can agree on now is that we both used to love to drink Coca Cola on hot days when it was cool and refreshing. We like it especially since they went back to their original recipe which includes cocaine. Any day in the jungle would classify as a good day to drink it. Every day that is except for when it’s raining. Every month or so, it rains here in the belly of the beast. It rains for a week straight and there is no fighting during that time. It’s an unwritten rule that everyone stop fighting during the rains. So that’s the time we really get fucked up and start snorting our Speed. Of course our Sergeant turns his back and acts like he doesn’t know, but I’m sure he snorts too alone in his tent. You have to, just to stay sane. The rains come down 24-7. Torrential downpours and you would die just from boredom. The rain makes everything stop except for our minds. We take special Speed during that time. We take the blue ones. The blue ones keep you up for days at a time and make everything hilarious. I cannot stop laughing for days and that helps make up for all the time I’m ready to kill or die during the rest of the month. It is the eternal equalizer. Some call it fertilizer because it fertilizes your imagination and lets it grow and we all agree after the rains that if the enemy took as much as the blue speed as we did then war would be over because we all laughed so hard and it’s too hard to hate. I know that sounds illogical, but it’s true. That’s how we feel and no one ever said your feelings must be right. It’s all part of free will: happy/sad, good/bad, day/night, right/wrong, rain/rain, and life/death.

    Some people really believe that you choose your death. Subconsciously that is. That you actually set up your own death through your subconscious mind. I think that’s a little weird, but some people believe it. They believe it like people used to believe in the Bible. That it was the word of god. I think shit happens and because of that you better duck as soon and as often as possible. Your instincts and heart are what get you through this. Not your mind. I like to think that I can’t control the situation, only my reaction. I do this for the illusion of control which keeps me motivated. Even if I can’t control my environment I like to think that I can. It makes me feel omnipotent. Like a deity. While others are subconsciously creating their deaths, I am constructing my life. If only one percent of us make it out of here alive, I’d like to be part of that one percent. Most of the others in my platoon have already given up on some level. You can just see it in their eyes. It’s like the eyes of an animal as they are led out to slaughter. My eyes are strong. My eyes are wise.

   Sergeant came up to me yesterday and started a conversation. Very odd that he even talks to us. He pulled me aside by my camouflaged uniform collar, which keeps changing it’s colors automatically to suit the environment, and dragged me into his tent. There, he gave me the lecture of my life. He put it on my shoulders that I should motivate the troops because I am the oldest at twenty four years of age. I thought that was a little flimsy of an excuse, but I understood what he was saying. Searge didn’t even like to leave his tent anymore. He didn’t want to meet the new guys because ninety nine percent of his troops die. He used to like to meet his troops, his warriors, but those days are gone. He is a recluse now, a hermit, spending almost all of his hours inside the tent being high as a kite. Since Searge controlled the Speed he also controlled who how much he ate. He ended up eating much more than he should and they’re wasn’t even enough Speed for all the rest of us. That’s when I knew we had a problem. Speed is one of the only things us troop got. To take that away is illegal not to mention immoral. I knew his own troops were going to kill him.

    Sergeant was a funny man, A funny man if you knew him and a funny man if you did not. Searge was the only guy at first to get all of the jokes. Doesn’t matter who spoke them, he understood them all. It was his gift of being able to communicate through humor. When I first got here, he was funny, really funny. But that washed off after a while like the rain washing down the roof of a stucco house. It was a gradual process. You couldn’t just point to one thing. It was a combination of many. Whose to say what causes one man to go mad? For some it is war, for others it is death and violence. For Searge, it was just being here day in and day out, going days at a time without food or nourishment due to the rationing. Some aboriginal groups have been known to fast on purpose in order to attain some enlightenment; we did not have that option. We starved because we had to. I couldn’t imagine starving by choice. A person changes when their belly isn’t full. They become mean and agitated and hard to handle. We all became that way. Maybe it’s just one of the tests they’re running out here without our knowledge. I do hear things. Things that go bump in the night. Our most recent freak-out occurred two days ago. There was something wrong with the water they gave us in our canteens. One taste and I knew it was foul. I spit it right out, but some weren’t so lucky. They were so thirsty they guzzled the whole thing not wasting even a drop. An hour later they were all naked and giggling like little school girls. I think the water was tainted by a new form of LSD. I’m not sure who gave it to us, our government or theirs. But it doesn’t really matter does it? The point is, Searge was right there with them lying naked on the ground and loving it. It was the last time I saw Searge smile, like he was a child again without a care in the world. That’s before the Pandora box opened and all the troops started crying violently like it was some big mass hallucination or something. There was not a dry eye in the house, me included. Searge hasn’t been the same since. It seems like all his smiles have been sucked out of him and he is now just some sort of walking zombie who doesn’t say much. It’s sad how quick a man can snap. Especially out here where you can’t tell what time it is or even what year it is. The jungle surrounds you like a long lost friend. It listens to your secrets. It listens to your lies. It sucks the truth right out of you and leaves you for dead. I’ve seen men die without their souls. If you believe in that kind of stuff.

      Hardee and Wicker like to throw down the Tarot cards from time to time. I think it’s freaky. Like it’s not bad enough living out here in this war zone, but now we get to predict our own deaths. According to the tarot cards I was supposed to die last week. Either I’m really lucky, or I’m a shitty oracle. Either way, I’m still alive. Believe it or not, the tarot cards are right more often than they are not. The cards we use are from the Van Gough deck. They’re supposed to represent choice. All I know is that they’re as real as anything else out here. You can hide from yourself, but you can’t hide from the Tarot. It will find you alive or dead.

     I can’t tell you when or where I learned how to shoot a laser titanium lx gun. It seems like I’ve always known how to do it, like riding a bike.

    When I first got here, or was it yesterday, I had to get used to the stench. The stench, that’s what we call it out here. It’s the smell of rotting dead bodies lying in the jungle. The stench is always around us since we are downwind. We can smell our own men and others, but we can’t tell the difference. The enemy smells the same. Maybe the enemy is us. I hear things. Not just things that people say, but the way they say them. I can read their body language. I am an expert at it. Or at least I like to think that I am. It helps with my survival skills. A person might be saying something, but you can actually see and hear a different story if you just concentrate hard enough. For instance McCallister was telling me how much of the enemy he would kill this week when we got deployed. McCallister was practically foaming at the mouth with his patriotic speech. But I bet the others that McCallister wouldn’t see the light of day. That he would be killed in battle and he was. The others desperately wanted to know how I knew that. I would not tell, because I wasn’t quite sure, it was a feeling, an intuition, which can’t be explained. The more quiet I was about not sharing my intuitions, the more excited those around me started to get. The only ones that weren’t excited were those names I called out that would not be on this planet much longer. And so they made me their oracle. I now inhabit Searge’s tent. He’s dead now from not distributing Speed properly to his troops. I won’t make that mistake although I’m sure I could. Call it an intuition. So I am the new oracle who predicts life and death. It’s really not a hard situation to be in when you consider that 99% of our troops will die in battle regardless of what I say. That’s just the laws of the jungle. But they don’t believe that. They’re new. They think they’ll live. You usually don’t know the truth until the commanding officer tells you. And since I am now the commanding officer, I think I’ll wait a few months before I rain on their optimism. It’s a choice every commander has to make. It’s required.

     The new guys always want to know how to stay alive. I tell them to wear their gas masks at all time. Just take them off for meals and then get them right back on. That’s the instructions I was given when I got here, so I figure it must be worth something. I never wear mine anymore. But I rule as do as I say not as I do. I am the oracle now so I can get away with a lot of stuff. So they run around with their gas masks on all day which is great because it cuts down on conversation and I can spend the rest of my time pretending to be predicting the deaths of my troops.

    When you’re the oracle, people look at you differently. They never make eye contact because they are afraid you are going to see into their soul and predict their death. Some believe that if I can’t see their soul they won’t get killed. And they’re right up until a point, but I don’t tell them that because I want them to fear me. I want them to respect me before I am killed. Is that too much to ask? They think if you don’t think it won’t become true because you’re thoughts effect reality. By not thinking about something you are ensuring that it does not manifest itself in reality and therefore you are not creating it. That’s a nice little cosmic myth similar to karma that has been proved not to exist.

      The thing that really creeps me out about this place is the bugs. They’re huge. I’m surprised they don’t get up and walk like people do. I’m not afraid of them or nothing, but lets just say they’re not my favorites. The bugs that fly around are the worst. They’re the size of small bats and make a buzzing sound when they fly. The sound is so primal I feel like this world was just created yesterday. Maybe it was? Most people don’t care about the bugs because they kill them and eat them. Bugs are a good source of protein. I even eat them when our rations are low and no, they don’t taste like chicken. This is not like Earth where everything tastes like chicken. These bugs taste horrible. I’d rather eat my own feces, but theirs no protein in it. So, I eat the bugs just like the others. The texture is all wrong; crunchy and chewy.

     Did you ever wonder what we dream about here? You would think it’s all about your loved ones that you left behind, but it isn’t. You dream about the fighting. You dream about dying with honor like it was one big commercial for war in your dreams. Maybe it is. It’s so damn patriotic that I sometimes wake up gagging on my own vomit. Maybe I have an allergic reaction to war, I’m not sure. But you wake up with ideas. Ideas like today would be a great day to kill a bunch of people. Your testosterone is really going. You have the attention span of a laboratory rat. And I’m not talking about one of those super smart intelligent rats either; I’m talking about the dumb ones. All you want to do is kill. All you want to do is wipe the blood of your enemies on your face in glory. And then it happens. Shots are fired.

    Chaos breaks loose like an animal being released from its muzzle. Green streaks fire across the horizon like fireflies. Only these fireflies will kill you, The smell of toxic fumes, of chemicals, gas masks on and breathing. No more outside oxygen. Your eyes are tearing from whatever invisible chemicals got in your eyes before you got your mask on, but that will soon subside once the mask starts pumping the chemical away from your face. So you grin and bear it like the soldier that you are. You take off forward and in formation running towards the shots that are being fired at you. You are so pumped up with adrenalin that you don’t realize it would be safer to run the other way. We are like Pavlov’s dogs heading into the hunt anxious to kill our prey. There will be no prisoners of war. Heart racing, blood pumping, eyes view something out of the left corner and you hit the jungle floor instinctively like a mother protecting her children. The Earth rocks like a child being rocked to sleep, except the jungle is falling all around you. Leaves and trees. Someone has tripped a fault mine and you have a five point two on the Richter scale.  And just like that, the jungle becomes quiet again as both troops will spend the next couple of weeks licking their wounds and healing their psyches. The nightmares I have right after battle are almost as bad as the fighting itself. I am in shock and I know it. So is everyone else, but that will pass eventually. The nice thing is I can retire to my tent where I can lay in the fetal position for days on end. I tell others I am scouting the future. Whatever the hell that means, and they buy it without question because I am in charge and because I am the oracle. The only thing for them left to believe in.