A.W.O.L 9/11 (Fiction Excerpt)

That which we now call the world is a result of a host of errors and fantasies which have gradually arisen in the course of the total evolution of organic nature, have become entwined with
one another and are now inherited by us as the accumulated treasure of the entire past.
-Nietzche

Prison rot. Acid less flashbacks caused by the prospect of light. Once again freedom, but one that will forbid me from ever publicly acknowledging the past year of my life—my association with the Air force or the government at all.

Dishonorable Discharge: AWOL

I wait for release. But it doesn’t come. They tell me everyday I’m going to get out. They do it just to fuck with me, so why should I believe it now?

Today: I lift weights in between bench sweat wiping duty, and act as a human doormat for these fucks I’m conditioned to think are superior to me.

Superior, because they brainwash cleaner than me. Uncle Sam washes their brains of any thoughts he doesn’t condone. He scrubbed mine with steel wool and it wouldn’t come clean. Therefore they are a better breed. Better, because they are effective drones. Something I could never become.

I tried once. Suspended my humanity until the force of military dis-belief caused it to snap. Pop: this culture of killing isn’t my thing. It never was.

As a child I would fake colds every time my father tried to bring me deer hunting. I wasn’t able to justify the murder of an animal for meat. How did I reason that I could kill another human being over the fall of a building? And that’s what this war they were going to send me off to fight was about.

The American Towers of Babble downed. Our Ego, the iconic soul of our country was under attack. It wasn’t about the lives of the three thousand who died. It was about the architecture and what it represented. But the White House’s chief tenant couldn’t admit that—his lease on the Pennsylvania Avenue property would be in jeopardy. So he propagandized, and convinced the nation that it was truly about the heroes who had died.

September eleventh marked the onslaught of a new era: The Dis-invincibility of an Untouchable Empire. America as fair game. I’m sure there were other ways out of my situation. I could have faked injury or insanity; pulled pantyhose over my thighs and hit on the other guys. I could have milked my bad knee. But I couldn’t feign support of the imperialistic ideals of this pseudo-democracy anymore. I hated taking commands from an overfed aristocracy. I realized that I didn’t just disagree with the premise of the Anti-terrorism war in Afghanistan , I loathed the entire fabric of bullshit that constipates the belief system of the United States of America .

I wouldn’t fight a war when its sole purpose was to massacre the populace of a country for the actions of a man they presumed was hiding out there. For the acts of a man who our own president at one time supported. For the acts of a man whose family frequented the President’s Texas Ranchero for Tex Mex dinner parties.

The concept gave me indigestion.

An excerpt from an abandoned novella I started years ago. Never published or posted anywhere...I don't think. Very loosely based on the story of a friend who went A.W.O.L. way back in 2002 or 2003.