 
We dedicated the monument, as directed. Â Then they left us. Â I’m not sure why.
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My experience came rather late in the unfolding of events.  Of course I was well aware of the new phenomena  but awareness and experience are two quite different things.  The difference between experience and understanding is vast. The distance between understanding and transformation is almost infinite.
I am ruined.  I know what ruined me.  So many people chose to kill themselves rather than endure what they might become (transform) in the aftermath of ruination.  Suicide is the right choice for anyone who has the requisite follow-through.  Suicides are the ultimate satisfied customers.  Life remains interesting to me.
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The Harvest Season air chilled and crisped as the churning storms of Growing Season exhausted into skies of diamond and charcoal.  Children would be coming to us from factories, schools and silent battlefields.  We would be housing a janitor from the Safety University and, from the Defense League, a brother-and-sister team that specialized in deactivating bombs. Letters and transmitted messages indicated we were to prepare a welcoming feast for our guests, a directive that rather excited Shezxine, my Season-wife, whose fondness for obesity bordered on obsession.
We wanted to have a fresh hen for supper.  Shezxine, and I could not remember the last time the gold-savory smell of a baking chicken had graced the lonely air of our unit.  At the war’s conclusion  meat restrictions  were lifted and we began seeing birds and sometimes goats or diggies being sold from the wooden caravans from Dreamland.  The weary Stunners, some still in their ragged uniforms, shuffled by the carts in disinterest,  unable to consume another bite of the dead.  I think to them it was a form of cannibalism.
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Shezxine’s arm twitched with an energy that appeared  intelligent and intentional.  She could not speak but her eyes were locked on to me, cooly, as if I were being viewed by another mind which was remote and genuinely curious.
Text and Images © Andrew Auten – All Rights Reserved
