Book 3, Eclipse 12

 5:30 AM Gotland Island

The belly of the massive transport glides from a distance without sound, leaving only a behemoth wake that rattles the local docks with much clattering amidst the dithering of waves and gul-chatter.

They could be plastic soldiers. They are 20 in number and dark against the purple sky. They are, of course, brothers and fathers and sons. They are American, they are Czech, they are French, they are Ukrainian.

They had been selected from a number of volunteers who had made their way to Ukraine to join the fight shortly after Putin's invasion. Not only had these today made the cut for the first delivery, but they were hand selected by multinational leadership to fulfill any missions viewed "outside the purview" of traditional engagement.

Each new they now operated at a status that would place them beyond the protection of their nation of origin. They moved as one machine of several parts. Soon the plane was removed as a dark dream and each disappeared into the town in three groups.

The team leader of the northernmost group was clearly out front. He would move ahead 15 to 30 yards, check for a secured parameter and then signal the others to move ahead. Each group commenced from the docks after the same pattern and would meet up to find two oversize pontoons loaded with weaponry and room for the troops.

Within only moments each of the groups maneuvers in syncopated bug-like starts and stops safely across to the pontoon boats.  The brine of the ocean fills the fog as the boats soundlessly leave the shoreline.

Just two days previous the island had been taken over secretly by Russian shoulders. This days initiative simply presented a quiet opportunity to return the goods that had been taken.

Although six had been killed in the original Russian invasion, silencers were fixed and only two men were targeted for this offensive.  Upon its completion, Serge Hepscrov and the more notable assassin Kyle Smaleski would be neutralized. Led by these two, intelligence specialists indicated that nearly the entire neighborhood of families throughout the fishing village, the elderly and several children had been mowed down and left to die in a mass grave with very little of it ever being reported internationally.

9:45 AM Palanga, Lithuania

They sit in someone's living room with tea and biscuits, the family retriever happily panting and weaving a maze between their legs.

There are too many people in the room. Aromas enter from the kitchen of sausages and fresh bread.

You did well then…? Piece of cake. We're all in one piece. Couldn't really ask for too much more.

He hears phrases in the room that is quickly becoming too warm for his comfort. All he ever sees anymore is the man's face. A little girl makes her way around the living room with a balloon.

Who the hell brings a child? The thoughts nearly shoot like flame from his mouth.

It was a clean shot. It was the right thing to do. He was supposed to feel proud. Being a member of Green team put him in the right place at the right time, that was all.

He didn't want any more attention or accolades, he wanted in fact to disappear.

In fact, he really never took seriously the possibility that the man in the tourniquet would die from his bleeding. Now being the one selected for taking the shot that took down Smaleski only kept him in the spotlight.

They toasted him at the fireside "the American boy." He was only glad to have a few days of leave, to sleep and get refocused.

He wanted nothing but silence. Soundless peace.

Book 3, Eclipse 11

It had been rumored that the American president would be stopping in Odessa as a show of support to Ukrainian troops who had been defending the key trade city after nearly a month's bombardment wherein Russia had targeted several civilian complexes including a shopping mall and several condominiums.

He had fallen into a coma, he remembered only that he had attended to a man's tourniquet and that several hours later as he sat grieving news of the man's passing he could only see his face reaching out to offer his cigarettes, the man's face and then the white light and that was all until the nurse helped him come to nearly 3 days later at the hospital with six or seven others who'd been eventually been brought along behind them.

He ate like a wild animal. He drank wine in large gulps.

Better take it easy there mister, handing him a bundle of grapes… Little bits at a time will be better.

Did you make these pork dumplings? He asks. No, she says.

Delicious.

I did not make them but I will pass on a good word to the kitchen from our American heroes. Feeling better?

He sleeps another two or three hours, shedding them away as minutes and feeling again the surprise at being woken, as though the more natural thing would always be the sleeping.

He got down to the mess hall for the strong coffee and read through his orders for their next tour. He would be paragliding onto Gotland Island where three brigades were congealed to form another arms unit that was intended to snake back through to the fight at the front near Palanga, Lithuania.

Just before finishing the plate with a smear of biscuit someone approached. It was the Sergeant of the Czech troops who many called "Bull " who had led them in during the first tour. His English was also surprisingly poor.

It was clear he had been looking for him and was happy to catch him before leaving the mess hall.

In placing his hand and fixing his gaze for just a moment it became clear the man intended condolences, a shared grief. By now many in their numbers had figured out how many hours he had sat vigil with the poor man in the tourniquet. They recognized the distinction of his willingness to stay as long as he did given his injury.

You are good man, he said.

We will kill these sons of bitches.

Book 3, Eclipse 10

He sits with the wounded man.

The elderly person speaks only Czech, reveals that he is older only after taking off his hat carefully so as to not reopen the gash beside his left eye.

Just hours before the two of them fought side-by-side. Now he sits fading in and out of consciousness. The two sit side-by-side on the couch back at one of the safehouses.

Sons of bitches – he repeats this over and over, rattling through pneumonia. The only words he learned in English upon meeting the small group of "bandits" (so named by their European counterparts, Czech and Ukrainian.) He drove the truck that was filled with automatic weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

After the mine exploded, hurling the truck to its side and then down a muddied embankment, it had taken a few of them some time to find him and get him to a vehicle and out of sight before being shot at.

He tightens the wounded man's tourniquet hoping they can save the leg. He cusses and apologizes. There's nothing else to be done but to groan with him.

They all drink heavily. The men outside smoke cigarettes and spit into puddles as the rain pours down the ruddy streets. Bombs fall in the distance. How can they still hear them so far from the decimated cities?

They hear the man inside, his anguish.

Sons of bitches.

Book 3: Eclipse 9

 Whenever you can you should try to never waste time. Yes, it is precious.

I remind myself of this after feeling frustration at a lengthy interruption of one of my purposes.

As early as I'm able I will awaken to the moment as a gift of 60 seconds, I bow down and enter into it renewed.

Growling.

Call to mind someone whose behavior you would like to see change.

They should never have done that!

More growling?

Are we bloodthirsty creatures by nature or might we be capable of a more patterned life-giving way throughout our lives? Have we the capacity to learn our way as a species out of violence? And into harmonious community from one hemisphere to the other?

It was a perfect morning for him to reflect upon things like this, it having been as quiet as it was now. Eggs and toast, juice and coffee and then to the notebook where he would give himself reflection time before heading out in the Honda for afternoon rides. He wore his Cubs hat and was looking forward to opening day against Milwaukee. The Sox were also going to look pretty good this year again.

The globe was getting smaller and smaller for him. Of course, he dreamt of his military missions back in the Czech Republic, it was right over there. He did everything that he wanted on his mission as you will soon hear but for now theological questions drew him in more deeply.

Without doing too much labeling or assuming, he kindled an inspiration to keep questions like this in front of himself and others along with the course of day-to-day flow.

He remembered the practice called Transforming Enemy Images:

Upon being triggered by what someone says or does, what thoughts erupt and flood the mind? Write an exhaustive list.

What emotions are present? Can you name them? Check your list.

Can you connect to a deep and human longing underlying the upset? Name it. Claim it as your own longing. 

These are a few of the steps he used to teach at the seminary.

Conflict happens, person-to-person and tribe to tribe. How does it all operate? Why such a constant throughout human history? 

What makes harmony? What breaks harmony? How do we envision, how do we visualize the widest and broadest of our shared experience, how do we hold one enormous WORLD before ourselves…? How do we see all the people at once, and take in as much of the whole of the earth with its mammoth oceans and towering continents and prairie lands and deserts?

With its treaties… With its bombs…? 

I create… I destroy… I imagine. We are such beings who can imagine and singularly give shape to what comes into being. To create is to actively imagine first and foremost, I look ahead, I futurize. I invite my full presence and a loving willingness to witness.

I understand there are thousands of Ukrainian civilians who are now being held in "filtration camps" – we all cry out WE SEE YOU!


More growling. A voice is heard. It is vicious: They will die remembering us. We will be there among their last thoughts on earth.

Book 3: Eclipse 8

 καταστρέφω

Katastrepho

I destroy. I am a being who makes catastrophe!

These unthinkably heavy crates filled with killing mechanisms are intended to harm hundreds, to maim human beings with intention and full malice of forethought. We bring them, we aim them and we fire them in order to destroy, to throw your flesh apart and scatter you to the earth.

We do it, yes, of course… Believing God will bless these tragic necessities of human cruelty. We do it believing that one good punch will set them straight… We do it because we are present and able to stop the enemy who invades.

The man sits writing in his spiral notebook by the window at the coffee shop smoking cigarettes. Each word is a gunshot. He writes all day long. His thoughts become actions. 

I create, I destroy. 

Because they target shopping malls and we've seen the children dead.  Because more and more comes to light as humanitarian corridors, so-called, are opened and the Russian military fills buses with hundreds of civilians, allowing them to make their way to freedom in Slovakia and Poland. That is, until the trap is set fully.

Having built sufficient trust, hundreds more are piled into buses to escape the carnage; the elderly, the disabled carried in for the difficult trip from bomb shelter to who knows where. They are all suddenly informed they are arrested. They are now hostages.

The man drinks his coffee and let's his stomach burn and burn. The pages of the notebook will not turn fast enough. He must write in his own blood somehow. No one will ever read this – don't ever think that… Propaganda from within. He will not cease… He hears himself talking out loud to himself "nope, never going to happen…" If I breathe I will be writing something… Someplace, somewhere…

I will write for the disabled person urinating freely out there somewhere in there God damned bus. He is not the only one.

Book 3: Eclipse 7

I create. The ancient Greek term for poem comes from this verb. I guess it's a verb.

Guessing is a verb. A gerund?

The human is most essentially the being who creates.

Open your mouth. Create a world and land yourself comfortably down within it.

Do you thirst? Bring something to your lips. Choose it, illustrate. Do not rush yourself

For any reason. Ever. What is the drink? What does it taste like? What sensations

Does it bring to your mouth

… in terms of its various qualities

… Thickness or thinness…

… of warmth or coolness

… Be taught by your tongue about the world

your lips.

Find the black heavy gun in your own hands. Feel the hairs rise on the back of your neck.

Your throat is parched and you swallow heavily.

The Blackwater BW 15 Rifle is a premium tool for today's civilian warrior.

Very soon you may need to be able to run while carrying this weapon and it might be necessary to turn behind you with some degree of agility and be able to shoot people who are chasing you… I'm pretty sure that's what we're looking at… One possibility at least… For sure…

He smoked another cigarette and he savored the out breath and received as much relief from the silly practice as he possibly could. Making it glow brightly at its tip.

We are a sharp unit, great vision. We have great intelligence and complete confidence in the people backing us up to go in and take care of this. What an amazing network of compassionate and loving people. And they are competent, these ranks are tight.

Instincts – heart and soul. We will show up fully and perform like patriots: We will remember these times.

Anyone else just feeling odd about our capacity to kill right now… ? How many hundred rounds per second…? Good Lord.

Having come up early now the moon found its way to the center of the sky. Did it not appear more near the darkness than the earth this night and why? 

The house drew down to an eerie silence.

Go time was 3 AM.

Book 3: Eclipse 6

 He still is dreaming of a trip to Czechoslovakia to find family and get settled in so that he could enter into Ukraine to join the fight, more than likely in Mariupol where the greatest need seemed pressing.

His second cousin Rod Katchka hollered in his ear every detail of the flight that would bring him to Prague and then home in their Fiat bumping over the old cobbled streets into a village, he felt as though he'd been transported 1800 years. Katchka had functioned as a dairy man and had pretty much 100 percent of the market in the bohemian enclave of Dinksk.

The stone and mortar home despite being small wafts with the cooked fat of a local pig amidst hugs and laughter.

Stew. In a bowl in his hand with a large spoon by the fireside. The candle burns on the table. It rests beside a bottle of red wine half full beside a glass nearly empty and most of its making cozy with the French bread in his happy belly. They ate together forever in heaven it seemed. 

Hour after hour they sat at the table eating and telling stories about brothers and fathers and sisters and cousins and there was roast pork, dumplings, sauerkraut and gravy and gravy and Colatchki with raspberry, poppyseed or apricot filling. Black coffee with lemon squares and sour cream poppyseed cake, a frosted Bundt cake.

After dinner the men drank pear schnapps and whiskey and then made out to the barn to secure and load tomorrow's shipment of weaponry which they were tasked to get into Mariupol.

Everyone smoked.

Out in the snow. A strange feeling. First within himself then causing him to stop and pause. Why was his pace slowing as he made his way closer to the barn. It was as though his body became heavier with each step. Was it in his head? Was this fear and its embodied grip finding its way to the scene and trying to shake him away from a terrible choice?

A few at dinner had joked about their hopes of being shot, another who had had too much whiskey shattered a glass with tears of rage streaming down his ruddied face. He interrupted: Whoever is not ready to die will not be going anywhere with me! Get in my way on your weekend warrior fantasy and I will shoot you dead myself!

It was week 4 and the United States had just agreed to supplying $800 million dollars of military support to Ukraine.