for clont

I had another dream. Another mefloquine dream. The ones that are solid and vivid and don’t evaporate away when you wake up, like the morning fog shone upon by the rising Sun. I dreamed of my mother, and I was a child again. We were in our apartment. I don’t remember how I got there, but I remember that it was a memory. I was eight years old and it was a blue skied summer morning. Cicadas were busy buzzing outside and I watched a mote of dust suspended in a beam of sunlight coming through the kitchen window. I watched it too long and didn’t pay attention to where I was going.  I remember tripping into the counter and knocking a piece of pottery onto the floor, and it cracked and shattered into half a dozen pieces.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
Mother looked at me quizzically.
“It’s OK, Hiro. There’s no reason to be ashamed.”
She scooped up the pieces from the floor and put them in the corner of the countertop.
“It’s better this way,” she said. She grabbed another piece of pottery from the window sill. “Come and see!”
It was a beautiful piece of porcelain, but the most beautiful part of it was irregular lines of gold running through it. No two lines were the same, and it ran like a spider’s web, or a series of tributaries in the delta of a river. It possessed a beautiful asymmetry; it was beautiful because it was imperfect.
“Broken pottery is put back together with gold, and is more beautiful than when it was broken. You can’t build it pottery like this, because it would look fake; you’d know right away. The pottery can only be made and then broken, before it’s put back together. It’s an art called Kintsugi.”
 She showed me another bowl. It was put back together like the first one, but with iron staples. And even though all the pieces fit together perfectly, the result was exceedingly ugly. No beauty. Only function.
“Do you understand, Hiro? If something is broken, and it is put together again with care, it is more beautiful when it is made whole because it was broken, not in spite of it. Even an ugly bowl, when put back together, is more beautiful than well-made and untarnished one. Many people experience hardships, Hiro. But if they learn from them and overcome them, and are made whole instead of being made bitter or simply remain destroyed, they are better than they were before. You might experience hardships, too, Hiro; things in life that are difficult and scary. And when you do, I want you to remember this.”
“Like when father leaves us?” I asked.
She swallowed, “…yes, like when father leaves us.”

It’s kind of funny now that I think about it. What a dumb question for me to ask. Those times weren’t anywhere near as bad as the times that he came home.


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Except there’s one little problem. In maneuvering out of the way of the rocket, Hammer-Two has now maneuvered straight into the path of Expo-Two’s fire.
It’s the usual three round burst. The first shot goes straight into the canopy. Pilot doesn’t feel a thing. It’s an instant and painless death. He’s turned into chili. Second round goes in between the propellers, missing the gunship. Third round strikes the tail rotor.
The tail snaps off and is hanging by a thread. There’s dense black smoke spewing from the bird and she’s spinning all over the place.  You probably don’t think a machine can scream in pain. It does. There’s a bloodcurdling screech as the engine desperately fights for life, trying to correct itself by pumping extra torque into a limb that no longer exists.
“I’ve been hit! I’ve been hit!” the co-pilot screams. “Pilot’s dead. I can’t get her to rock back out, I’m losing her.”
Hammer-Two wobbles in the air for a moment and then begins knifing sideways through the air, screaming so close over our heads that we duck.  She flies right over the farmstead village, and then falls out of the sky like a brick.
Hei-Bai or Buno didn’t have to say a single word. We ran straight for the crash site, didn’t even bother to get in formation or stay together, we just ran as fast as we could. The bird landed in the middle of the town, right in open. Couldn’t ask for a better ambush. Chance of getting killed – high. Chance the crew was still alive – not very good. But that doesn’t matter in the field. When you’re in combat you lose your sense of self very fast. The lives of those around you matter far more than your own, regardless of whether or not you hate their guts. Maybe it’s why Koko could kill her former countrymen, or why Peng hasn’t killed me yet. But I know for a fact it’s why we all chose to run to that chopper.
As soon as we get there we turn 180 degrees and get down in the dirt. Hei-Bai steps into the helicopter’s fuselage. Other than the missing tail she looks intact. Looks are deceiving. The crash has broken apart all her insides and jet fuel is tricking into the crew cabin. The smell is everywhere.
“Hiro, get in here” Hei-Bai says. He looks at the gunner, still strapped into the crash-seat. He checks his eyes for alertness and sees that he’s mostly OK. He steps into the cockpit. There’s blood and viscera everywhere. Co-pilot’s covered in it. Half of it’s his. Hei-Bai looks at me.
“I need your help. There’s no time to worry about spinal or any of that. We’re gonna have to stabilize him here, but we need to drag him out of the seat. Can you do that? I need your help.”
“I can.” I said.
Hei-Bai, secures his neck in a head-lock with the co-pilots arms, and I unbuckle him from the seat.  He gives me a three two one, and then Hei-Bai drags him into the cabin. He leaves a trail of blood on the way out. We roll him over and Hei-Bai gets to work.