Pell-Mell Into Some Fusillade

Overheard at the artillery field…

Let’s take out that minuscule target with a 240 mm cannonade.
No need to sight anything let’s just shoot willy nilly.
Let’s just load them up and fire and screw the captains and the colonels.
Let’s shoot everything that moves: officers, infantry, birds, planes, squirrels, deer, and deer flies.
Let’s kill everything, blow on pinwheels, and shoot ourselves in the head with our sidearms.
Whattaya’ say, A.? Whattaya’ say?

I wanna kill everybody, too.
Boy they trained us well.
I say, what the hell? Why not?
They’re using us for fodder.
Why don’t we get them before they get us—kill stuff— and run pell-mell into some fusillade?
Let’s do it, S. Let’s do it.

Pinwheels turned.
Someone fired.

What I’m Reading:

“All that day I felt like that, like the sound of future bombs might dissipate, become no more than white noise like the freeway or the sea, or that I might stop hearing them altogether. Sleep like who I was before I knew any better.”

— Vanessa Veselka / Zazen