THE TWENTY-SECOND DAY, THIRD PART, 30 Days Has September
The NVA soldiers moved back and forth in the tufted growth mud distance, like sidewinding snakes across a desert of nearly flat sand. The numbers, I instantly knew, although it was impossible to see individuals at distance even through the mildly magnified gun sight,...
Island In The Sand, Part XVIII
ISLAND IN THE SAND Part XVIII They ran after the Ninety-One robot, as it accelerated, taking the railroad track passages in bouncing leaps, correcting its’ treads for directional control upon each landing. They made no effort to control the noise of their flight,...
THE TWENTY-SECOND DAY, SECOND PART, 30 Days Has September
My chest and face hit the mud at the same time, the impact so hard that water was pressed out of my uniform blouse and sprayed up into a fine mist around me. My helmet and liner landed a good five feet away, but I didn’t care, as I fought to take any air at all into...
Island In The Sand, Part XVII
ISLAND IN THE SAND Part XVII They all agreed on two things about the newfound rifles. They were too loud and shooting them hurt the shoulder, and sometimes the hand, of the person shooting them. Some sort of ear plugs would help with the sound, but there was...
THE TWENTY-SECOND DAY, 30 Days Has September
Corporal Mike Riorden was the Ontos Commander, although everyone called him Rio, like the city because his roots were from somewhere down in South America. The Ontos crew loved the Ontos, and I was almost certain their love had little to do with the machine’s armor or...
Island In The Sand, Part XVI
ISLAND IN THE SAND Part XVI Sol and Tal emerged from the opening carrying what appeared to be long-barreled weapons. Each boy squeezed through the opening carrying one of the weapons vertically. The weapons were almost as long as the boys were...
THE TWENTY-FIRST NIGHT SECOND PART, 30 Days Has September
My body remembered each and every turn and drop, as I literally fell toward the fast-approaching bottom of Hill 975. I let the mashed mess of fern fronds, dead leaves, twigs and mud mix possess me like I was a well-massaged larva just popped out and plunging toward...
Island In The Sand, Part XV
ISLAND IN THE SAND Part XV Star stopped what she was doing and stood still. After a few seconds, she began to get control of both her emotions and her breathing. It was ridiculous to get mad at machines, no matter how sentient they might seem. It was like getting...
Island In The Sand, Part XIV
ISLAND IN THE SAND Part XIV Star was leaning against the back door to the operations center, when it opened. Star fell backwards, but her flipping body never hit the floor, as many small hands caught her and brought her to a halt in mid-air. Star didn’t hesitate or...
The Hustle, The Escalator of Life
The Hustle, The Escalator, The Rush of Life. When you put the brakes on, by going on vacation somewhere far away, traveling abroad for a while, or simply holing up and pulling the cords out of the walls with respect to electronic equipment, you discover that life...
Island In The Sand, Part XIII
Island In The Sand Part XIII Star flipped in mid-air, brought her body around in a twist to land face down, her hands and knees ready to take the impact on the hard flooring. Her mind raced, but like a fast blinking strobe seemed to give her only brief shots of what...
Reflections From Hawaii, 2018, The Whales are Back
Dateline: Oahu, Hawaii April 16, 2018 The whales are back. For two nights the coastal waters grew silent, the songs and cries of the whales went to places where humans have no clue. The great unknown under the sea remains just that, for the most part. Look up...
Reflections From Hawaii, 2018, Bobby’s again
Dateline: Oahu, Hawaii April 15, 2018 Bobby’s Place The second box on the way back to the continental 48. What’s in the box? Well, nothing I have to indicate to the post office might be dangerous. But that’s it. I went to Bobby’s Market nearby....
Reflections From Hawaii, 2018, Pride of America
Dateline: Oahu, Hawaii April 15, 2018 A ship in the night. The Pride of America, the big ship is called. 80 thousand tons and 921 feet long. Sailing out of Honolulu Harbor late on Saturday night. Norwegian owned, American built in Mississippi. 2100 passengers. Going...
Reflections From Hawaii, 2018, Whales Again
Dateline: Oahu, Hawaii Aprile 12, 2018 The whales. They are dropping off the brats. I have worked out from the early morning calls and crying of the whales, between four a.m. and dawn, that the big pod of parents and relatives have some close-in pool not far from me...
Reflections From Hawaii, 2018, Off the Grid
Dateline Oahu, Hawaii April 12, 2018 Off the grid. The constant communications grid, that is. I have electricity, cards, gas, water and the rest, but no television and the newspaper available like some sort of grade school thing. It is night once again. Night for you...
Reflections From Hawaii, 2018, Eeyore
Dateline: Ohau, Hawaii April 11, 2018 Eeyore Eeyore of the Forty Acre Woods, of Winnie the Pooh fame, has nothing on the character that has appeared across from my pool at the abode. There’s a bush over there and it looks every bit like Eeyore, either that or I...
Reflections from Hawaii, 2018, More Whales
Dateline: Oahu, Hawaii April 10, 2018 A whale. Just one single whale spume, flying up at 6:52 am about half a mile out or a little bit less. What does that mean? That means the whole whale thing is not the figment of my imagination. So, the adventure of the whales...
Reflections from Hawaii, 2018, Nightfall
Dateline: Oahu, Hawaii April 9, 2018 Last night I was up late. I go to bed late and I get up early. What is that? Going all the way back to after I got home from Vietnam. Now, I’m not up looking for some enemy who can’t possibly be out in the night....
Reflections from Hawaii, 2018, Whales
Dateline: Oahu, Hawaii April 7, 2018 Do whales cry at night, or sing, or whatever? I am a couple of miles from pods of passing whales, as they do in large numbers in this part of the world. A beaten rock shore sits right at the edge of my principal abode where I am...
Island In The Sand, Part XII
ISLAND IN THE SAND Part XII The draw of the storage room was so magnetic and great that Star could not stop herself from surging forward, down the extended steps and into the near end of the giant...
THE TWENTY FIRST NIGHT, 30 Days Has September
It was an impossible mission but there was no other way. Nobody in the company was going to make it up the backside of Hill 975 without getting blown to smithereens no matter how it was done. The first time they’d gone up the back side of the connection plateau had...
The Island In The Sand, Part XI
ISLAND IN THE SAND Part XI Star pulled the remains of the arrow shaft from Val’s wound gently, but steadily. There was little blood, which surprised her. The boy grimaced with pain but only after she used the alcohol and Kleenex to swab the area clean of...
The Island In The Sand, Part X
ISLAND IN THE SAND Part X Star and Jameson stepped carefully away from the end of the plank, slightly distancing themselves from one another. Slowly, they circled the power plant until they could see the tunnel entrance in the distance. They moved together toward...
THE TWENTY-FIRST DAY SECOND PART, 30 Days Has September
The monsoon day wore on, its rain relentless, the river mildly rising in the volume of water passing, and in sound, but nothing we weren’t used to enduring down in the bottom of our own private hell, known as the A Shau Valley.
Island In The Sand, Part IX
Island In The Sand Part IX Star awakened at the beckoning of a soft, distant, voice.
THE TWENTY-FIRST DAY, 30 Days Has September
The sounds of the Bong Song’s nearby rushing waters, the whap whap whap of the descending chopper’s supersonic blade-tips rotating, and the rest of the valley background sounds all faded into non-existence, as four Skyraiders came down the valley from the north, no...
Island In The Sand, Part VIII
Island In The Sand Part VIII Star stared at the complex design of the underground railroad and power station. She wondered if it was even more than that, but her imagination could barely take in what they’d found already, much less even more. There was one question...
Island in the Sand, PartVII
ISLAND IN THE SAND Part VII Star’s eyes popped open and with a start, she sat up. Something had awakened her, but nothing she could identify by glancing in every direction around her. The band had hiked deep into the dark tunnel to avoid the bright light shining down...
Island In The Sand, Part VI
ISLAND IN THE SAND Part VI Star continued to move ever downward, feeling more secure with each order of “one step” she called down to the kids roped together below her. The rungs were made of smooth hard metal, but after so many hard grasps of their surface and...
March To A Different Drummer…
MARCH TO A DIFFERENT DRUMMER Dateline: Lake Geneva February 21, 2018 You cannot hear my drummer and I don’t always either. My drummer beats two snare drums, one of fiction and one of fact. I cannot tell the difference between the beats and I think the drummer...
Island In The Sand, Part V
ISLAND IN THE SAND Part V Star motioned behind her to keep the children back. The chamber they’d discovered was stunning, not so much for its huge size but even more than that because it had obviously been built by the men and women who’d preceded the impact of the...
Honor Off The Glory of Russia Cape, Part Three
HONOR OFF THE GLORY Of RUSSIA CAPE Part Three Donald snaked across the deck toward the closed door once more. He felt energized, the pain from his head wound gone, the warm fuzzy glow from the morphine a memory. He was headed straight for the light switch on the...
Honor Off The Glory of Russia Cape, Part Two
HONOR OFF THE GLORY Of RUSSIA CAPE Part Two Donald injected the morphine into the muscle of his left thigh, making sure not to hit a vein. It was called skin-popping, and using only muscle penetration he could float like a butterfly instead of passing out and losing...
Honor Off The Glory of Russia Cape, Part One
HONOR OFF THE GLORY OF RUSSIA CAPE Part One The ship ran hard into the arctic night, beating solidly into each steeply bent swell before being forced up and over, its double steel hull built more for pushing through broken ice than cutting through raging ocean seas....
TWENTIETH NIGHT SECOND PART, 30 Days Has September
I holstered Tex’s Colt .45 automatic that I had used half my canteen water to boil clean earlier. I had no oil but I knew there had to be some kept by others in the company I could get later. The Colt would operate just fine with no oil at all but only as long as it...
Island In The Sand, Part IV
ISLAND IN THE SAND Part IV The tunnel was like nothing Star had ever experienced before, not even close. None of the children had been exposed to anything like it either. When they stood before the black hole of the opening at the railhead, Jameson tripped a switch...
Island in the Sand, Part III
ISLAND IN THE SAND Part III Star awoke in complete darkness. Opening her eyes was exactly the same as keeping them closed. She felt the embers of a still warm fire nearby, but no light came from them. Star realized that when they had eaten jar after jar of the...
Island in the Sand, Part II
There was no place on earth. The remnants of humanity so decreed, each tribe following in suit, as the proposition in favor of admitting outsider children, no matter their age, fell into unanimous opposition. No orphan, wandering, or strange children of any sort would be allowed entry to any tribe.
Island in the Sand, Part I
Star floated over the top of the packed needle beds, her bobbed ponytail bouncing just beneath the lowest of the dense green branches. Her lope was long practiced, and her gait one of such easy flow she had to continually slow for the other children following in a trance. Running was like breathing to her.
THIRTY DAYS HAS SEPTEMBER, The Twentieth Night
The mess of stationery I carried was a collection of soggy, semi-wet and dried water stains holding strands of paper together. The envelopes were in the best shape because I’d rolled them into a tight tube and used one of my extra trouser springs to hold them...
I Don’t Know…
Dateline: Lake Geneva, WI January 21, 2018 I don’t know. That sentence is so much more important in my life than it was when I was younger. My own inability to know or understand some things is so important to me. I live in a world where such self-analysis and...
THE OLD MAN’S CHRISTMAS TREE, Part IV
THE OLD MAN’S CHRISTMAS TREE, PART IV Short Story by James Strauss Christmas had come and gone, and then New Years, too. There was nothing to New Years, not even on the television, except for the fact that the ball in New York came down a blessed one hour before...
THIRTY DAYS HAS SEPTEMBER, The Twentieth Day Third Part
There were fifty bodies, and right away everyone in the joined companies knew that the enemy soldiers were not NVA troops, or really soldiers at all. The uniforms were wrong and the ages were wrong. The bodies were of very young men and women dressed in peasant...
THE OLD MAN’S CHRISTMAS TREE, PART III
THE OLD MAN’S CHRISTMAS TREE Part III The damned kitten was more than a handful. It was up at all hours, would not sleep in its bed, would not get used to using the cat little box and would only eat one kind of Fancy Feast cat food, that cost almost a dollar each. Oly...
THE OLD MAN’S CHRISTMAS TREE, PART II
THE OLD MAN’S CHRISTMAS TREE Part II The old man sat, enjoying the heat radiating out from the half-burned wood in his fireplace. It played hell to find real dry stuff in the summer because people in Wisconsin who sell it don’t ever cover it. Pond-dried it was called,...
THE OLD MAN’S CHRISTMAS TREE
The Old Man’s Christmas Tree A Short Story by James Strauss The time passed slowly since he’d lost the ability to drive. His daughters had come a month earlier to take the keys and the old car. It had been a classic automobile his eldest daughter said was...
THE TWENTIETH DAY SECOND PART, 30 Days has September
I hit the flattened fern leaves and shoots on my left side, trying to hold my right arm free in case I needed to get to my Colt, and also stay away from having my strapped-on pack catapult me out of the chute. My attempt to control the descent was totally wasted as...
THE TWENTIETH DAY, 30 Days Has September
I came awake to the creaking rumble of the tracks working unlubricated against one another as they carried the Ontos atop the mud alongside the Bong Song River. I blinked my eyes rapidly and tried to straighten out against the cramping pain of what seemed to be my...
What is the Largest Airline Market in the World?
What is the largest airline market in the world? Europe? Asia? Africa? United States? Well, if you guessed the U.S. then you were correct. It is not only the largest airline market it is by far the largest. Asia is supposed to surpass the U.S. sometime in 2024 but...
THE NINETEENTH NIGHT SECOND PART, 30 Days Has September
I awoke in darkness, bringing up my Gus Grissom watch more for the tiny bit of illumination emanating out through the crystal than to see what time it was. I quickly oriented myself to where I was and how I’d come to be there. I heard the wind and river sounds wafting...
Reproducing Dumb Bunnies…..
Are we growing a nation of Dumb Bunnies? Did you know that only seven states require civics or any kind of study of how the U.S. government works of their elementary school students? Did you know that only seven liberal arts universities in the U.S. require any...
THE NINETEENTH NIGHT, 30 Days Has September
I stood with my right-hand flat, the dirty index finger of that hand slightly glued to my head by a light bond of drying mud. I stared into Clews’ eyes, waiting for an answer. Was I going to live, or die with him? Was I going to do something terrible to everyone...
THE NINETEENTH DAY SECOND PART, 30 Days Has September
Two 106 rounds went down range, both visible from the distinctive contrails they left behind as they barreled through the thick rain soaked air. The guns were fired from outside the Ontos by the crew. I didn’t know why they’d fired two instead of all six or only one....
Where is God?
It’s not easy. It’s not a road fraught with simply easy decisions. The search for meaning in my or your very tiny universe of things you or I control is very complex and constantly threaded through like a bad plaid blanket with beautiful and awful strains...Subscribe to FROM THE WILDERNESS
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