War Buds
From the journals…
It’s the year 2000, and I am making a war movie with thirty-nine high school classmates. We are filming in Video8. The closest thing we have to digital are the crappy ten-second clips our phones can swallow before choking. The boys are making a movie about killing each other, and I’ve got a camera.
Directing is a funny thing. The designated literati have gifted me and my cut crew with a face full of script while we manually record gunfire exchange from Saving Private Ryan. Someone presents the idea of ripping the sound off of Counter-Strike games, someone sees through it and reminds everyone how tight of a deadline we have.
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We caravan to the woods up a mountain, as well as down south to film in a beach. Ralph has a lame battle cry. Andy throws a molotov cocktail. Raymond stabs Julius in his styrofoam chest. Alfred serves us water when we create the UN. I kill George. Forty people. Forty credits.
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Filming ends with urban battles shot at the campus on a lonely Saturday afternoon. The light is yellow. It is quiet today, and my skeleton crew is smiling for the approaching end to the project and a good day’s work, equally. We made something today. For all our bickering and bullshit, we finished something with all our names on the best-before seal. School is out in a couple of months and we’re all off to college. Different colleges.
Someone nameless kicks the knob off our classroom door.
I keep it.
The Honest Man
Found, scribbled in old notebook; Source uncited:
Three men of virtue were asked why they never lied.
The god-fearing man answered, “because lying is evil and does harm to my fellow man.”
The worldly man said, “because I do not wish for others to lie to me.”
The honest man said, “because I’m not a liar.”
