Archive for the ‘Ken Brady’ Category
Resolution
Thursday, January 1st, 2009
It had been a night of hard partying for Jeremy, as it always was on new year’s eve. He viewed the last night of the year as an opportunity to relive all the best parties of the past 364 days – and there were a lot of them – thrown together with the best of the present. With a little creative blending, his implanted processors could recall his best memories, relive the ups, downs, drunken shedding of clothing, face-plants into the jacuzzi, and stream it all through his shades for a monster party that he would blog about for days.
Only, this morning, head pounding, shades missing, he was at a loss for words. He tried to get out of bed, realized he was on the floor, and climbed shakily to his feet.
He walked around his rented Vegas suite naked and almost totally blind without his shades. Everything was blurry and low-res in reality. He squinted through the sun’s glare, and noticed the suite looked like crap without augmentation.
He sat on an exploded bean-bag couch and tried to focus. His shades had been on all night. Except for when Christina wore them while going down, Julie shoved them inside her bra, and some twins from Hong Kong did things with them that made Jeremy wash the lenses in the sink afterward. Oh, and there was that cat. It had been an awesome night.
Sometimes Jeremy wondered if he really needed augmented reality.
Still, he felt lost without his constant media update, and he did need to get some work done at some point today, so he stood and staggered around, calling for his shades. About to give up, he turned into the last room to find the cat sitting on the rotating bed, shades propped on his nose, headphones in his ears.
“My shades!” Jeremy said.
“Yeah, yeah,” said the cat. “I got your augmented reality right here. Shit’s dope, man. Do you have any idea what the market is doing this morning?”
“Man, I can’t even deal with talking cats right now,” said Jeremy. “I mean, I just woke up.”
“So happy new year, right?” said the cat. “You work on your hangover, and I’ll take care of things. I’ve got stuff to do.”
With that, the cat jumped from the bed and disappeared behind a sofa.
Jeremy sat down on the bed, and promptly fell over. As he drifted off to sleep, he heard the mixed sounds of stock market reports and feline porn drifting through the room.
He resolved to do things exactly as he had been doing them. It was going to be one hell of a year.
Omaha Beach Blanket Party
Thursday, December 11th, 2008
We always go in where the confusion will mask our advance. Setting up the equipment amid walls of smoke and flame is best, as it’s less likely one of us will be killed before things really get rolling.
The time portal is open just long enough to get our supplies through, and then it’s June 6, 1944, 8:02 a.m. and we’re on the shale and sands of Dog White, surrounded by barked orders, screams of pain, continuous machine gun fire from the pillboxes above.
As the 116th swirls around us, Jackie pushes play on the boombox and the carnage mingles with the upbeat sound of Pink Martini. I get first serve, so I step to the restraining line and vault the ball over the net. Cheryl returns the ball to our side of the net and Koogie misses the damn thing. Down to the ground it goes, him diving after it. Good thing, as tracers tear through the space he’d been standing moments before.
A few members of the 5th Ranger Battalion pause to look at us like they’ve never seen anyone playing volleyball in the middle of a battle, but they are soon distracted by the job at hand. Someone from Company C has just blown the first gap through the wires with a bangalore torpedo, and the Rangers head off to join the main assault.
We focus on the game. The volleys are fast, brutal. Cheryl takes a bullet to the thigh, but still returns a particularly difficult shot. It’s fitting that she troopers on, even while injured. After all, this is war. If she survives, we’ll patch her up when we get back. Just as soon as we finish the game.
Some survivors will say they saw tanned people in ridiculously skimpy swimsuits playing volleyball on Omaha Beach while death rained down around them. No one will believe them, of course. Battle fatigue. Part of the horrors of war. But if you look really hard at some of the photos from the archives, I bet you’ll just barely see us. Or maybe you won’t.
The recognition isn’t why we go. It’s all about the game. Roller hockey during the Siege of Sevastopol, soccer at the Battle of Glendale, disc golf at the Battle of Yiling. Next we may try softball in the moments just before the Hiroshima bomb drops.
It’s enough to know we were there, that we were a part of history.