Serendipitously

 194.

I can feel its wetness - but not its heat. My audience of three are all watching with interest, intent on taking away some logical scientific conclusion from the impromptu experiment. I wonder how many discoveries were born from accidents of this very nature. I can name four, referred to as serendipitous, found along that flowing round-about of chance and wisdom; the microwave, penicillin, velcro and LSD. I wiggle my toes to continue the serendipity and wonder if there is a separate in-line fuse that controls the sensation of water, or in this case coffee, on the skin and another for the detection of degrees of heat. I look at the Neurologist for the answer. As if shaken from a dream she looks at me and recites a text-book answer to the question I had only thought, not spoken.

"Sensory receptors in our skin send messages to the brain via A-delta and C fibers where they are perceived and interpreted as pleasure or pain. Is is obvious that you are experiencing some degree of interference in one or several of those fibers," she informs us.

Julie has grabbed a handful of paper towels as Hank bear-hugs me from behind to avoid any additional carnage, but the Neurologist orders them to cease their autonomous responses with a command voice, "Stop."

They both freeze looking at her for instruction.

She moves quickly to the medical counter, opens the top drawer and pulls a reflex hammer from its tool tray. She hurries back to the scene of the crime and kneels at my feet, completely disregarding the mess made by the spill. She begins to tap, first the big toe and then in descending order until the five have been tested. After each four-beat measure she looks up for my response, a central nervous system call-and-answer divertimento. As hard as I try I can neither perceive nor interpret her drumming.  

She tries the left.

Like an echo traveling inside a dark train tunnel I vaguely feel a slight, almost imperceptible ping. And then another of similar muted and diminished volume. There is a delay involved as I see her tap with the hammer but don't receive the associated message for a short period of time. The delay is lessening as she proceeds as an on-coming train gets louder. It is as if I am listening to the delay of thunder after a lightening strike. It is odd. I am suddenly cold and shiver.

"What was that?" she asks.

"What was what?"

"You sent an electrical charge along your spinal column ending at your feet, in response to what?" she probes.

I consider her question, offering what I take to be a weak answer of, "I felt cold and I shivered."

"But you felt no pain from the coffee and very little from the reflex taps?"

"Right."

"Amazing."

I am suddenly fatigued. The almost twenty minutes of standing has maxed-out my limited endurance. I ask the Neurologist if we are done, Julie if she has any news and Hank to help me back to the safe confines of my bed.

Three affirmatives and our test is concluded. Julie caps the experience with a suggestion to keep it between us until we have more data to share.

Three more affirmatives.

I shut my eyes.

Joe on the Toe

 193.

I find it fascinating that something that I have done, effortlessly and without conscious supervision my entire life, would provide such a thrill. I am standing for the first time since the ambush, alone and under my own - compromised - power. Flanked by the Neurologist and Hank, the security guard assigned to guard my body, I run an anatomical diagnostic, what we used to call during intensive physical training a total systems check. Starting at the base I send all my focused attention to my toes. They tingle as if being attacked by an angry porcupine. My assessment is that having laid dormant for so long they need some 'wake-up' time to resume their primary responsibility of keeping me balanced and upright. I am enjoying this.

I repeat the TSC up the line, taking critical notes along the way as I test the theory suggesting that energy flows where your focus goes. The Neurologist is apparently intrigued by this as well, taking her own notes of my progress, or lack thereof. I feel my ankles, the first area where I notice the right-left imbalance. Up the line past the achilles, soleus and gastrocnemius and into my knees goes the inspection. With each stop I make mental note of the condition and status of each group of tendons, ligaments, muscles, bones, their blood flow and electrical connections. By the time that I get to my core, the crossroads of the lower body with the upper, I am exhausted.

During the process I have managed to move forward about a foot. Hank has been extremely patient during the probe, keeping an effective distance should the test suddenly head south. The Neurologist, seemingly amazed at my clumsy motor responses to what she tells me are extraordinary physical accomplishments, is all smiles.

Encouraged and a touch emboldened by all this 'progress', I continue the testing procedure.

There is a respectful knock at the door. It opens to reveal Julie standing with two grande cups of coffee, green mermaids unabashedly announcing the brand. We all freeze as she makes a quick assessment of the current situation.

I watch in super slow motion as her jaw drops open and both mermaids drop to the marble floor, sending their steaming contents, one a latte and the other black, rushing across the polished expanse towards my naked feet.

When the caffeinated tidal wave reaches them I feel no pain.

The Statue

192.

The petite Neurologist stands in front of me. I use her shoulders as a gymnast uses the parallel bars. Hank the agent on duty stands to my left ready to assist with the lift and then move aft for posterior stability. My countdown has reached its nadir as our collective musculature flexes in unison.

I am upright for the first time in three quarters of a calendar year, instantly amazed by my wobbly, dizzied and unstable imbalance. I note the dramatic loss of mass muscle through atrophy and sarcopenia. My legs look like those of a factory-farm chicken. I stand wholly dependent on my pair of assistants, both of whom are now effectively acting as occupational therapists.

"Let's try a small step," offers the Neurologist, Hank breaking the tension by adding, "For mankind."

I recall 10,000 to be a target daily goal of sedentary folks starting step counting experiments and quickly do the math. Athletics, training and my career in the military and law enforcement (chasing bad guys) add up to a number sufficient to walk around the world three times. This is not, however, my first step in the direction of a goal, nor my first rodeo. I have roped goats and lived to brag about it. But something is off with this one. My inner gyroscope feels askew, coated with accumulated rust. It feel like the first step off a bar stool after a whisky drinking contest with a gambler and his hollow leg. I lean on the Neurologist and drag my right foot forward about six inches. Re-establishing balance in the new goofy-footed stance I will the left leg forward to match its partner. There is no response from my hip flexors and zero lift, but I am able to slowly and it seems to me, effectively, match the distance traveled by my right leg by dragging it from the leverage created at my knee. I am pleased with this tiny virgin step and stand, still dependent on the therapy duo, a whopping half-a foot from the hospital bed.

"Let go," I plead with my support crew. They balk at my brash suggestion, "Not a good idea," says Hank. I consider that he is perhaps more concerned about an indecent on his watch than my safety and try to assuage his devotion to duty, "It's OK I got it, stand by let's see what happens. I gotta try."

The Neurologist inhales deeply and I feel her gently loosen her grip on my arms. We are dancing and it is time for my solo. Hank, as if I was on a weight bench and he spotting, stands behind, ready to intercept failure.

Her hands release my arms. Slowly, carefully, ready to re-establish control at the first sign of danger. Hank does the same from behind.

And I am standing on my own in a weight-bearing statuesque pose of promise.

On Three

 191.

Hank, as he introduces himself to me, sheepishly slips on his shoes, ties the waxed laces and shuffles the six steps that separate us. He stands next to the motorized and wired bed that has been my home for eight months and looks at me with a face of fascination. I read his look as "yesterday you talked and now you want to walk?'

I take charge of the situation, waiving any formalities and all precautions.

"First we need to pull these wires and carefully move the harness out of the way. Then we lower the port side guard rail, and lastly you give me a hand swinging my legs over the side. From there I just need you to stabilize the test run."

"Run?" he snorts, "I am not even sure I should allow you to do this without medical approval and now you want to RUN before you walk?"

"I use the term loosely Hank, it might be more a two-step than a tarantella. And don't worry about medical approval, the sooner I am able to walk out of this joint the happier they'll all be."

He smirks and shrugs, indicating a willingness to follow orders despite their area being an arguable shade of gray.

"Let's do this."

Recognizing the value and big-picture importance of the next few minutes, I draw a deep breath and commit to objectivity. As they say in screenwriter circles, the moment of truth is at hand. I am a little concerned and a lot worried. What-if's circle my consciousness like buzzards over a downed calf.

There is a muffled knock at the door and without waiting for a reply the young Neurologist walks in. In less than the time it takes to recognize a traffic light's descent from amber to red, she access the situation, its intent and the associated danger.

Most, perhaps all, would ask something along the lines of, 'What are you doing'?, 'Stop this instant', or even the more contemporary and emphatic 'wtf?'

She does none of the above, choosing instead to, without hesitation, offer assistance.

If there was any residue of doubt regarding my decision and determination to discover, she has effectively removed it.

I am now flanked by Hank and the Neurologist. The former well over six feet and two large and the latter a tiny maybe five-four and a buck and change. The imbalance is so obvious that we take a timeout to reconsider and realign.

"Let's try front and rear," The Neurologist suggests in the same voice she used just yesterday in her stunning closing oratory of hope.

We both agree and make the on-site change.

I take another deep breath and use my best quarterback command voice to call the audible, "Ready?"

"On three."

If I Can Walk

 She was right. Of course.

Having condensed the Hollywood-style ambush into a concise fifteen-minute capsulization, I am left with a thousand questions. Chief among them is the alarming failure of our intelligence and subsequent ineffective response to the strike. I stand primarily responsible for one of the hits, as, with guard down, on the cusp of putting the many months of preparation and planning into action, I allowed an enemy combatant to eliminate any further participation on my part. Exactly how this happened has been the focal point of my every lucid review over the last eight months.

Equally as disturbing is Julie's choice of modifiers in describing the circumstance of TOM's death. 'By all indications?' he died of a major heart attack? What the actual fuck does THAT mean? What did the autopsy show? Why is there any doubt? What took place immediately before the alleged myocardial infarction?

Even more troubling that my own appalling lack of spatio-temporal awareness and TOM's elipsis-like series of question marks is the issue of The Queen's demise. An internal hostile takeover? Towards what objective? These are domestic terrorists not House Republicans, further, they were, by the ring leaders own intel, actively working on a major hit, a dubious target normally augmenting malevolent motivation, not diminishing it. In a frustrated state of investigative review, I am left with what is perhaps the most oft used line in the TV police drama screenwriters tool kit.

It just doesn't add up.

She was right.

I have a thousand questions.

I look around the dimly lit room that has been my home since early March. On the small leather couch sits the security officer assigned to whatever shift we are currently on, graveyard being my best guess. He is reading a magazine, shoes off, the smell of bad coffee wafting from a styrofoam cup. I cough to get his attention.

"I need your help," I open the conversation, a mile from the normal muted silence of the room.

"With?"

"I want to see if I can walk."

Take the Cannoli

 190.

Julie relieves a security officer whom I have not met. As is her custom she does so ten minutes before the top of the hour, a habit we had drilled into us by a special ops instructor who insisted that one was twenty minutes late if not ten early. I am fairly sure that it is a Monday. I am prepare for this to be a red-letter, Oscar winning day regardless.

She has a quick change-of-shift conversation with the new guy, hangs her down jacket up on a brushed aluminum hook and caries her backpack to the chair waiting at bedside to my left. Once seated she searches her pack as she eyes the metrics behind me and asks about my present disposition.

"I'm good, what happened to TOM?"

"Whoa, did you have a quad this morning? Easy does it cowboy, we have the whole day."

"Sure, but let's agree that from this moment forward everything, everything, is on an accelerated schedule, a tactic of which I am sure you need no additional explanation." I say, somewhat surprised by the sound of my no-nonsense tone.

She takes a deep breath, spending the bulk of the exhale gathering the patience and presence it will take to accurately tell the story.

I gather from this that she has opted for the SparkNotes version, more a binary report than the retelling of a beloved tale. For an odd reason I hope I am wrong and she takes poetic license to embellish as necessary.

She is looking over several sheets of paper, what I am sure are the culmination of many hours of detailed note taking, what I also assume to be a painstakingly unbiased accounting of the abject failure of our mission, the passing of our highest ranking officer and the unknown whereabouts of our major asset. People have been tried for treason for less.

She begins. "You and Drysdale had completed the final phase of drone testing, and were putting the time frames in place for the test in Colorado with Warden Daniels."

"What about The Old Man?" I childishly interrupt.

"I'm getting to that, please calm down and let me finish with the broad strokes, there will be a thousand questions when I am done, so please let's do this my way," she asks with parental tough-love.

I nod in contrite agreement.

"Davis and I were solidifying the arrangement with Adleson and his goons. TOM was mollifying Senator Hartaugh keeping the whole operation moving towards its intended dramatic conclusion and Ms Hayes, was quite busy squelching an internal mutiny among her band of domestic terrorists, keeping her cover intact and finishing the engineering details of the drone lift." At this she pauses to allow me to grasp the down-steam consequences of each situation. Satisfied with both my comprehension and attention, she continues, "We were at D minus two when the fat hit the shan. It was straight outta The Godfather. Over the course of an hour somebody, obviously with good intel, managed to sneak to your six and get off four rounds at point-blank range, TOM had what by all indications was a massive heart attack and the Queen was, we suspect, kidnapped during a clumsy coupe by her crew of bloodthirsty thugs."

At this she again pauses. She looks at me with an odd stare as an auditioning actress might after a read. She tilts her head right while raising both brows waiting for a response.

"Take the cannoli, leave the gun."

A Spark of Hope

 189.

Everyone has left the room but Julie. She is holding my hand, fighting back tears. I cannot discern whether they are of sadness, pity, hope or joy. I feel, however, invigorated and empowered by the news, at least the closing summation offered by the Neurologist. I clear my scratchy throat and echo in my new voice the three words that are to become my mantra,

"There is Hope."

This refrain brings a quick smile to her face and I know that she knows it comes from a deep place of sincerity and total commitment. She knows me well. I will not give up. Had I of joined the Marines, as my father did, instead of the Navy my tagline would have been 'always faithful', never-say-die. She knows also that I will give the proverbial 110% in the effort, and I think this might be partially the reason for her concern because that fierce hard-line attitude, one she has witnessed in the heat of many battles, could very well be my demise.

"There is always Hope," she says with equal parts sympathy and compassion.

I want to squeeze her hand to cement the agreement but cannot control the torque of my fingers. I recall the term, the nodes of Raniver, and try again. Disconnect, lines down, no communication. I grimace. Not from pain but from the failed test. Noting my facial articulation, she asks,

"What is it, anything I can do"

I swallow the remaining saliva and string together what I envision to be a request but upon delivery sounds more like a command.

"I need a rehab timeline, what happen to TOM and please update me on The Queen."

Julie is taken aback by my longest complete sentence since my 'return.' She stands upright, still clutching my hand and dons her professional game face.

"You need rest. I will have a complete brief ready for you in the morning. We can go over it together because it will be verbal. Security is tight and we are not out of the woods. No paper trails. Now try to get some sleep."

Satisfied with the plan I try again to squeeze her hand. I feel a slight electrical tinge in my index finger and I consider that she may have felt it also. It may as well have been a thousand volts of emotional current, or what I recall as our first kiss.

A spark of hope from the nodes of Raniver.

Hail Mary

 188.

The lead medical specialist, whom I see as a dour cardboard cutout, replete with stethoscope and monogrammed overstarched white lab coat indicating he enjoys alphabet soup, summarizes my condition with rehearsed ambivalence. Like a dog listening to masters commands and only hearing his name, I take away only two words, and their ramifications, from his accounting.

Inoperable and irreversible.

Everything before and after those two words fly over my head like a brisk autumn wind. I look at my trio of compatriots and read fear in their eyes. Julie stands four feet from bedside between Harlan and Davis, she is the only one of the three looking at me. I watch with fascination as she fights the inevitable tsunami of tears. Both flanking soldiers have their heads pointed towards their shoes.

It seems that the perp responsible for the ambush, three cowardly and amateurish shoots in the back, failed in the first rule of the assassin, make it lethal. The shot to my head is the one most worrisome as the shrapnel penetrated and destroyed a good part of the protective cranium guarding the soft tissue cerebellum responsible for fine tuning bodily movement and balance. Adding to the complexity of the situation is the wound to my shoulder, severing 90% of the nerves serving my dominant side. The combination of the two creates right-side incapacity the severity of which has yet to be reversed by modern medical technology.

The cutout doctor is wrapping up his cardboard summation but all I hear is a sickly reverberation of dread. He asks the other specialists in attendance if they have anything to add. They are silent, further adding to my depth of hopelessness. I actually feel bile collecting in my stomach and lubricant beginning to coat my esophagus and throat. The meeting is about to adjourn when one of the specialists, a petite woman with a empathetic smile, whom I assumed to be a neurologist, adds, in a soft and tentative voice, attempting, it seems to me, to use both specific medical terminology and civilian plainspeak in her verbal oped.

"Our strategy behind the induced coma was to allow complete endemic reduction in the hope of neural restoration. The fledgling experimental process centers around the myelin axons that influence electrical flow and action potentials known as the nodes of Raniver. In your case they continue to trend positive. There is a chance, however slight, that time, the new technique overloading the nodes with steroidal anti-inflamatories might provide benefit."

She has the room. All eyes are on her. She notices the sudden change of energy flow and looks for a suitable closing statement. I am a cheerleader, a rabid front-row fan screaming for an encore, the beleaguered coach sending in the last-ditch call for the Hail Mary.

"So there IS hope."

The Bad News?

187.

I am reminded of the secret once again. The answer to how to do anything is found in two embarrassingly simple, but majestically powerful actions. They are:

1) Take the first step.
2) Keep going.

Be it a marathon or election to public office, the actions necessary for achievement are the same. Start and move relentlessly towards the shining light of your goal.

This is not to say that there will be no challenges, setbacks, pitfalls, roadblocks, detours, obstructions, gunshot wounds, temptations, tests or tragedies, but that the committed spirit sees them all as part of the growth process necessary for survival and the eventual success of the primary objective. There will be bad news and occasionally worse news. If it doesn't kill you, you will be stronger for the experience. Yes, there will be the occasional alligator observing your drainage of the swamp, but, and I chuckle at the mixed metaphor, as the Arabs say, "Dogs bark but the caravan moves along.'

Step one accomplished, the decision to get back into the game, I see the gator and hear the hound, as I prepare for the medical prognosis. I need to know the odds. Am I looking at a year of convalescence? Have I suffered injuries that under normal circumstances render patients permanently disabled, handicapped, paralyzed or sentenced to a compromised live of limited mobility and motor function? I am looking for the truth. I can handle it.

Davis and Julie along with the hospital's speech therapist have been assisting with my ability to talk. It has been painful. But progress, the second part of the secret equation, has paid a decent dividend of improvement. I can carry a conversation, slow and meticulous, but successful. Both my partners understand my plight and, as teammates, support my efforts unquestioningly. Today is the first of many big days as I meet with the team of specialists and the showrunner, the lead MD, to discuss the current medical reality and their expert opinion(s) on the prognosis of recovery, full or otherwise. And of course the time it will take to get there.

My concept of the passage of time diminished, it seems like a sudden death enternity
until the staff assembles in my room to address the state of my state. There are four doctors and three of my teammates, Harlan, our lawyer, joining Davis and Julie in attendance. I have been cleaned up, propped up and topped off with the first non-intravenous food in eight months in preparation for the session. I am prepared for a good news - bad news session but concerned about my right arm being the weak link in the food to mouth utility of the fork tool.

The meeting, feeling more like a deposition, begins with the lead doc addressing me by what I assume to be an alias created for security reasons.

"Good afternoon Mr Larsen, you are looking great today, how are you feeling?" he begins.

I make the standard facial so-so gesture indicating that things could always be better and, of course a lot worse.

"At your request we have been asked by your counsel who holds your advance directive, to address your current physical and phycological state of being in order to provide a timeframe for recovery and an, I assume, a return to your former employment, however hazy the exact details of that position may be," he looks at my three colleagues over his glasses and continues, "so as much as I feel that this is premature, given the extent of the injuries sustained by the GSWs, we will provide our analysis and suggestions for the best possible course of action, which of course includes the element of time."

The others silently nod in agreement.

In sinister failure of appropriate bedside manner he nonchalantly flips a page on his clipboard, looks at me, at the half-eaten plate of scrambled eggs, back to me, and asks,

"Which would you like first, the bad news or the bad news?"

And Sometimes Y

 186.

I decide to act. I make the conscious decision (although made in a drug enhanced state of semi-comatose) to serve my highest calling. I am a warrior. I will not go meekly into that murky twilight. I pledge to give it my best, my absolute best shot.

Often I have lectured on the importance of knowing, with brutally honesty, the starting point. We are we? Are we lost? Are we weak? Do we fully understand and commit to the motivation behind the need for this choice in the moment of truth? What needs to be assessed? Are our limitations body-based, stemming from lack of information or skills, or of a feeble spirit? Do we, can we, will we take the crucial first step in the direction of our goals and then commit to the continuation of the steps, and this is the crux of the equation, NO MATTER WHAT?

That is the deal-breaker that keeps 90% from their goals. Something happens. The slope increases, the temperature drops the bad guys start using automatic weapons and ignore conventional rules of engagement. Shit, as they say, happens. And that nine of ten give up and go home. I cannot stress this concept enough. No matter what means no mater what. In my case it implies the reality that I have spent the last eight months in a hospital bed induced into a state of comatose. A state I wish to leave. My consciousness has had sufficient recovery time to access the homeostasis and make this a voluntary decision. I need to rally the corporal and chaplain, the troops of body and spirit, and get back in the game. Posthaste.

I open my eyes and allow for focus and chroma adjustment. I hear the sixty-cycle hum generated by the heating-air conditioning apparatus in discordant harmony with the life support system I am temporarily dependent upon. I test my tactile perception with thumbs and index fingers, alarmed at the left-right imbalance. I sniff the atmosphere and detect the unmistakable odor of lysol and fear. It reminds me of jellied gasoline, napalm. There is a person asleep on the tiny couch to my right and I turn my head in the attempt to identify the snoring sentinel. I test my vocal capabilities to announce my intentions but all I can muster is a crude slur of vowels,

"Aeiou."

The sleeping dog lies.

"Aiioouuu."

Movement. Truth.

Louder this time, with inflection on the third syllable, like perhaps an Italian code, "Aeiiiiiiiou?"

Sitting now in the shallow darkness I can see Davis look at me with a questioning angle of head, as if he is trying to break the code and provide the proper response. I need him back on my team and despite our sometimes tumultuous history, he needs to be the conduit between my current pathetic state of non-being and a functioning tooth on the team's cog. He rises and covers the five steps with ninja-like grace ending with a whisper to me at bedside.

"And sometimes why."

The Grand What

 185.

Should I be able to rise to this occasion, a circumstance I am still not entirely sure of its detail, if I am somehow able to dismiss the why and cut to the chase of the what, as in what do we do now? progress and perhaps even a modicum of growth could result. That is a dumpster full of should have and could haves I admit to myself in another therapy session where I play the dual roles of patient and therapist. The why (rye) is important only when looking for a motive, it is the what (wheat) that truly counts. This ancient grain of truth is baked into the action I will take. The therapist looks at the humble baker and repeats the phrase applicable to all warriors, "Do what must be done."

The moment of truth at hand, I decide to act. Eight months of muscular atrophy and an idled mind has left me in a frail state of compromise, challenged. This circumstance is no different than any other. The sun comes up and then it goes back down. Chop wood and carry water. The enlightenment of the path, the effort, the commitment and of complete dedication to the mission is now my choice. I can chose to wallow. My body is bent. I have just learned that my colleagues have suffered worse fates, that my teacher has gone and that the mission I co-authored, one most thought to be impossible, was indeed, a bridge too far. I could blame all this on that. I could sleep. Retire. Or…..

…..Or I could soldier up. I could adhere to the one guiding principle that has supported my effort, maintained my morale and propelled my every action, sometimes, like this, despite overwhelming odds and in the face of mortal danger. When the warrior is ready evil will surely appear.

I see the abstract as plain as a biplane contrail against a deep blue sky. The universe is, once again, sending its absurdly comical message to my stubborn ego-child soul.

Regardless of the situation, the degree of danger, all the reasons behind the unfortunate series of events that has led you to this day, there is, once rendered to the base purpose of your being, your ultimate goal, and the path only you can tread, one spiritual commandment.

My eyes pop open like a toaster spitting blackened bread and I see the message across the expanse of my personal eternity. The Grand What.

"Continue Your Practice."

A Verdant Valley of Peace

184. I am being pummeled by the bad news of this heavyweight. The left cross of TOM and the right hook of The Queen - sandwiched between the series of Saunders jabs - has me dizzy and damaged. I feel saved by the bell until the reveal that the bell is actually a frantic staccato of beeps from the EKG machine indicating that I have reached critical mass heart rate. Acting like a referee, the doctor waves Davis to his corner, asks for my compliance in an immediate deep breathing effort and moves to twist a dial on one of the tanks stationed at bedside. I feel the immediate effect and drift out of the ring and into a foggy limbo. Experience warns me that I am too weak to continue this bout. As counter I opt for a temporary retreat to live to fight another day. I am in a dark forest falling involuntarily down a narrow path. I try to hit the brakes but my knees instantly buckle and balk. The erie sound of feral beasts moves towards me as I try to stop the slide. I feel my fingernails try to set into tree trunks and scream as they are bent backwards in the futile attempt. This is not my fault. It is a trick. Some new drug designed to break my spirit, a test. A flash of light acts as a edit point between scenes. I am back at the top of the hill, see the forest and step into the trail. Immediately I start the fall, like we used to play on the slip n slide as kids. No stopping once begun. The scent of my memory swirls in the moist air. I have been here before. I see a tree and recall my earlier failure. Might have been a lesson. I look at by bloody right hand and think, yup. I hear the beasts, louder, closer and it seems in greater number. This is NOT my fault. I am the victim in this nightmare. Another flash and I stand atop the hill. I KNOW what is going to happen if I step, onto…the…path I will…but it is habit now and the insanity of doing the same thing again and again hoping for a different outcome is lost on me. The tree passes, the knees stay busted and I hear the animal's bloodthirsty caterwaul of pending sustenance. I am aghast with my stubborn insistence that someone other than myself is responsible for this. Flash. Forest. Trail. Tree. Bloody palm. Animals snarling with the overdue arrival of dinner. ALRIGHT IT'S MY FUCKING FAULT. I accept the responsibility. I am sorry people got hurt. Given the opportunity I will make it right. Flash. Forest. Trailhead. I walk past it and into a verdant valley of peace.

MIA

184. It is an unmistakable sting. The chill runs like an electric current up my spine upsetting whatever stasis has grounded the absolute reality of this eternal eventuality. We are all going to get sick and die. The variables being in the how and how much. How will we go and how much drama and suffering will accompany it? No matter the level of enlightenment and acceptance it is the personal reaction to the binary fact that a person you once interacted with in a positive, flowing, professional, personal and loving way, has walked through an invisible portal, never to return. It is a loss that only the passage of time will prove as one of nature's very few absolutes. We are human. We decay and die. This happens when completely unexpected and we will be woefully unprepared when it knocks on our door. I am woefully unprepared for the news about TOM. He was my friend, mentor, father-figure and up-chain commander for almost thirty years. I was just provided the intel that he is gone. Not even the morphine drip can mask the pain I am feeling. My knee-jerk reaction is brusk and violent. Who did this to me? How did it happen? Was it a part of the operation of which I currently lie in convalescent incapacity? Who is responsible? I can feel the bitter tinge of anger's revenge build in my veins as I look for my badge and gun. Having the experience of an earlier response Davis senses this and puts a gentle hand on my shoulder. His touch sends a painful charge through my upper torso and I wince. Go ahead and dump a truckload of salt in the wound, I challenge, any further injury is secondary to the insult of this news. "We are in lockdown, all operations suspended until further notice. The primary objective is for you, and Saunders, to heal up and get back on your feet," Davis says in a neutral monotone. "Saunders?" It is the first word I have spoken in eight months, my voice is shallow and filled with what sounds to me like sand and gravel under a truck tire. "She got hit as well, part of a, we think, a retaliatory strike by, well, it's still conjecture at this point, but without orders and TOM, we are…" I cough and try again. "The Queen?" I watch as Davis purses his lips in an interesting combination of silent codes, a cultural mixture of omerta and the fifth amendment. He locks on to my stare, leans twenty degrees forward, loosens his lips and whispers, "MIA."

Hello Stranger

183. Pain and I are not strangers. We have met. We know each other like three hundred hitters know bees in the bat. Like linebackers know stingers. Like boxers know that only the first one hurts. Like lovers know that it will soon follow the temporary and fleeting sensation of bliss. Like the darkness knows the light. I lie still on my back, a position I have held like a plank for eight months. I fantasize running, leaping, pivoting on a dime in a high-speed, high octane dance with the dark-side of doom. I feel a surge of adrenaline as my physical self reacts to the stimulus I have created and, filling the prescription ordered, dial it back in a segue to a more peaceful and calm setting. I walk on a isolated beach of golden silicone and turquoise amazed that the air temperature perfectly matches the ideal comfort level of my bare skin. The tropical breeze reminds me of how tiny this collection of atoms and carbon truly is. I look at a passing fairy tern floating serenely on an invisible thermal and connect with her humility and presence. We are one. Alive and awake along this path, lost in a paradise of self realization. Needing to prove its existence I reach my arm to touch the bond that connects us. I feel a stronger wind on my face, a warm, gentle, loving touch of life. It is Julie's hand on my cheek I find opening one eye and then the other, slowly, in appreciation of the passing states of consciousness. Does she know where I have been, what I was just experiencing, the beach, the peace, the bird, the serenity, the breeze and our connectivity with all? She must. Certainly she does. It had often been one of the litany of reasons for my deep affection for her, the respect one affords to a superior. You know what I would like to know. A single tear escapes her right duct and, gathering speed, falls from her cheek onto the linen beds-sheet with what sounds to me like a liquid explosion. You have my attention darling one. She moves so close to my face that I can smell her hair. Another tear escapes, undecticed this time, dropping silently as my olfactory radar is overwhelmed and distracted. "TOM is dead." Hello stranger.

Completely Disagree

182. It strikes me as ironic, assuming that I fully trust everything learned since I opened my eyes for the first time in eight months, that they, the medical staff, now wants me to rest. I will risk sensory overload and muscular fatigue to fill the memory gap, but in this case what I recognize to be the while veil of morphine is masking a convex of pain. I submit to the free-fall watching the chute open as I mentally jot a note to self before splashdown, 'Did they take our Queen?' I am the anchor of a four-man really team. I watch as the three athletes ahead of me fight a courageous bout with an obviously more talented team. They are twice as fast, trying half as hard. I am appalled by the dichotomy, a sensation that I have become conditioned to see as a personal challenge. The opposition's anchor is starring at me beneath an air mixed of two parts over-confidence and one part fear. I look at the gap I must make up and then at the race clock. It is frozen, its light emitting diodes stuck in digital eternity. The shadow-self notices my gaze and follows my eyes to the clock. I sense the atmosphere change to 50/50, fear on the rise. The unknown, great doubt, the troublesome, the cosmic prankster dealing from a deck of jokers and grim reapers. I prepare to play the hand, now overflowing with a deep-cell charge of destiny amid the sudden transfer of momentum. I got the hammer. Deep breath, smooth hand-off and hit max in three strides. And then the light. My eyes open to the reality of my frailty and weakness. I am ashamed of my own inability to balance humility with ambition. I want to tell the runner that mere victory is not the goal, that winning is nothing without the strident dedication to understanding its opposite. You can never lose. One either wins or learns. THAT is the race. And no one wins every time. Pick your races carefully. The exponential growth is in hitting the tape with nothing left to give. Take that lesson and leave the suffering at the recycling center. The light. It seems that Davis has replaced both Julie and Drysdale on watch. I bring him into focus and for one obscure second he shares the facade of the runner. I shake the cobwebs from my opiate dream and nod him a silent salute. The doctor is standing next to him looking up from his device and scanning the data on the monitor behind me. I am dying to get a look at it but allow the moment to unfold on their terms. "Hey bud, welcome back," Davis consoles. I try to talk but a softball size hairball is firmly logged in my throat. I manage a guttural grunt in appreciative response as the doctor again assumes control with a scribbled prescription for rest. "Easy does it Mr. Larsen, we have to take this slow. Please try to relax, there is plenty of time," he says unconvincingly. I see the frozen race clock and completely disagree.

Larsen?

181. With traction unavailable, in total darkness I realize the only thing between my living consciousness and the eternal void is my will. I commit to the effort, asking likewise from my atrophied body, doubtful mind unwavering spirit. I am slipping deeper by the minute into a black hole of nothingness. Far above I see a pinpoint of light. I appears glimmering like a star in a galaxy ten thousand light years away and I recognize it as my last best hope. I move towards it with all the inertia I can weightlessly create. I can feel my lungs cry for a leaner mixture as fuel drains. I have one shot at this docking or it's over. I use a primal scream as bombastic propulsion commanding every muscle cell to aid and abet. I rise slowly at first, then, with proof of theory established, give it one…..last…. push upward, away from the tractor-beam pull of everlasting hopelesness. And open my eyes. In front of a blinding lamp creating a halo effect around her head stands Julie. She looks surprised to see me and somewhat bemused at the relative clumsiness of my entrance. I am frantically trying to access the situation. Discarding my first though as this being heaven, I scan the room, quickly deciding that I am in a hospital bed and Julie is visiting. There are flowers on the table and I hear the familiar ping of life-support data being displayed on a monitor behind my aching head. I then preform a damage assessment and feel, besides the dull ache at the back of my head, numbness in my right arm and an unresponsive right shoulder. Julie senses my questioning and moves closer to announce, "You were shot from behind, three hits, head, shoulder and arm, close range, hollow point. The staff induced a coma to speed the quality of recovery. You have been out for almost eight months." I can see from her expression that she fears the update has been too much, too soon. I look to the door and see two people enter the small but friendly room, one is a doctor wasting no time in checking vitals and the other Drysdale who might have been on security just outside the door. I think about standing an eight-month watch and close my eyes with gratitude and fatigue. Eight fucking months? I can hear the doctor call for the specialist as I open my eyes for the second time. I see Julie and Drysdale sanding bedside. A ocean of joy washes over me as I try to fit a few pieces of the puzzle together. Drysdale moves in to squeeze my arm and we visually connect in an affirming moment of fellowship. "Firecracker?" They look at each other answering the question non-verbally. "TOM scrubbed it after the, uh, ambush." Julie finally offers. The specialist arrives and immediately dismisses my lifeline to information and, hence reality. I am left with a thousand questions and a runaway imagination. "I need you to relax Mr. Larsen, please." Hearing the beeps from the EKG dramatically increase in frequency with the bad news, I agree and close my eyes while drawing a deep breath to allow the combination to slow my alarmed basal response. Larsen?