It’s silent among the weeds of the fan whir. The sun teeters on the edge of darkness. The growing, green trees splinter light. Stars and planets wait offstage for the curtain of night to come down like a new dimension, the darkness swirling, the celestials stirring, and I in a coffin of the mind easing nervously toward the end of day, toward iron prayers and diamond-studded wishes. To be alive on this crisp portico, a stone-gray welcome to the magical house, that Sunday afternoon architect feeling, drawing pencils and windows and walks along the edge of the forest shrouded in a misty fog. There’s that gut feeling of school and books and polished hallways and the smell of children meticulously aging. With each step another second goes by; a good run could erase a decade.

I love her like lightning, I think, out on patrol. My olive-green helmet feels funny on my head. The gun feels cold and heavy in my hands. I can’t stop thinking about it: I could have been an architect. Instead, I’m this soldier of life who must suffer through this war like so many others. Our cold, wet eyes toss glances toward the wind and beyond. There stand the white clapboard houses, green lawns at their feet, neatly trimmed bushes like art again, and I think about what’s between her legs. That secret love spot buried beyond a veil of clothing. Does she feel it there in all its wanting desire? Or is it just a thing that always lives there, inconsequential to her days of stress and banged up glory? How would I ever know…?

And I drink from a cup of sadness. An end of day coffee along with a pastry from the French bakery on Church Street. I think of tomorrow, but I shouldn’t. I should live in the moment, for tomorrow will come soon enough, and with it the war rages on, and I am ready to shoot to survive. And when the killing is done, I will sit in the raucous gardens with my sketchpad and draw unearthly dreams, hallways and windows, memories of love, memories of war. And space will come again and the stars will be splattered like sparkling blood, and the wanderers of the world, chalices of life in hand, will try to rest again in a corner of the universal room, the roof undone and wounds exposed to the heavens and all those doctors of love.