The leather grabs at my clothing as I slowly sink into the overstuffed burnt sunset colored couch. It's an awkward color that was probably better off left as a crayon in Crayola's 96 pack with the sharpener in the back. It's sweltering here on the back porch, and the leather is only causing my body to sweat more; I am sweating almost as much as the cold green glass bottle of Yuengling positioned in my left hand. I watch my friends play silly drinking games on the folding plastic table next to the pool. There are two nubile young ladies in bikinis on one side who are trying to use their bodies to distract the shirtless young men throwing ping-pong balls on the other side.

The scene plays out, and my drunken state of mind can only focus on the way the girls bodies move as their bodies arch to toss the small white balls back, hoping to land them in deep towers of red filled with shallow pools of golden beer. And even then, my mind wanders away from them and my eyes close as my mind becomes fixated on the shrieks and yells of the good summer time fun going on around me. The haze around my mind dulls the noise to a point that allows me to enter something resembling a trance, or what some might mistake for a light sleep.

My body senses the shallow depression your body forms in the leather next to me, and the skin and hair on my arm registers you laying yourself onto me. My body is alive with trying to communicate your nearness to me, but all I can think about is, when did it get dark? You know how to pull me out of my sleepy haze as you manifest a soft kiss upon my eager lips, and then entwine your fingers with mine before pulling my arm around you as if it were a heavy down blanket and we were in the middle of winter. You've brought me another beer to replace the empty one I'd fallen asleep with, and after I graciously accept you administer another kiss, and somewhere deep inside I wonder what it would be like to spend the rest of my life with you.

The moon sat in the sky like a pumpkin that had been left forgotten and abandoned on the front stoop. Spending all day out of sight, because it was out of mind, but none the less absorbing the rays of the sun, so that in the dark of a cloud covered night (but also in the light of the single constantly burning bulb in front of the door) it stood alone and sagging. Its facial features were becoming compressed to a point of making one question their own vision, and it's rind had faded to something less like autumn leaves and more like, well something orange and faded. But this isn't about pumpkins, its about the moon that was still too low to be quarter sized and stark white, yet it was all the light we had there on that beach.

The hotel was dark because it was abandoned. We'd spent the better part of the night wandering it's halls, moving in and out of rooms, and up and down stairwells. Somewhere deep inside we wondered if maybe we shouldn't be there, but after a couple pulls on our flasks, a joint or two, and a pack of cigarettes between the two of us all we knew was it was right for us to be doing anything as long as we could be around one another just a little longer. There in those dark corridors I stole kisses in the darkest corners of stairway landings, abandoned bedrooms, and dusty hallways.

But now we were on the beach, and it was just as dark, but instead of a steady back beat of creaking walls and laughter, we were serenaded by the sound of waves regularly crashing into the beach crushing shells and rocks and dead things into more sand, and making sure the sand staid sand and didn't get any ambitions about being anything more then sand. But it was there in the dark of the moon that was still too low to be bright that the kisses were no longer stolen but given with an enthusiasm that almost pulled us down to the sand, for restraint had been abandoned somewhere in the darkness of the hotel.

The sun was warm on their faces, as they lazed about. The sound of waves cresting, falling, crashing into sandy sand free of shells and friendly to feet, was all that filled their minds. There was nothing left to hold them there except for the weight of one another as their fingers lay intertwined, precariously strewn across the sand. They speculated back and forth about the logistics and logic of staying like that forever, but it was an idea discarded in favor of simply staying on the beach forever. Days would be spent on sun drenched towels in sea drenched bodies while sipping on Mexican beers and mai-tais; nights would be spent on lavender soaked sheets in sweat soaked bodies while drinking in each other's passions and desires.

The wind whistled through the air, but it wasn't Dixie, and it stung Michael's young face. As the wind blew snow and cold air over him, he cursed the fact that he had not worn goggles or even a scarf this time. As a last ditch effort he had pulled his hood over head and pulled the drawstrings in as tight as possible, trying to reduce the amount of skin exposed to the berating winds.

The storm had struck without warning, leaving them pinned between their supplies and a small berm they had created. The storm had had reduced visibility to a useless range almost instantaneously, and radio contact with the scouts had been lost shortly thereafter. Now it was just Michael and Lyndsey left huddling against the small ridge of snow, hoping the storm might pass soon; suddenly it did.

The winds gave up their incessant blowing, and the air cleared as if a curtain parted, with only minuscule snowflakes left prancing about in the gray sky. Before he could shift to look over the embankment, he was frozen into place by the sound of snow crunching. It could've been the scouts, but Michael was frozen into place by sense of malice that he detected into those crunchy footfalls. He motioned to Lyndsey to stay put, while he moved to peek over the small wall. The bright yellow of his hood is what betrayed him, a betrayal which rewarded him with a giant ball of snow in the face. Their enemies came pouring across the field carried on battle cries and whoops of laughter. With only the two of them left to defend the small outpost, the Wesley kids were quickly overwhelmed by another storm, this time of brightly colored jackets, fluttering scarfs, and tightly packed snowballs.

At a distance the ranks of soldiers looked formidable, impressive, and possibly even imposing. Yet, as one neared them, one began to realize that there were flaws in this image. Where there should have been matching uniforms, or even just a unifying color, one found mismatched clothing: jeans, camouflaged pants, long sleeve and short sleeve shirts, vests and jackets, black, red, blue, green, yellow, and white. Some wore hats, some helmets, some nothing. Some sported goggles or sunglasses, others simply wore spectacles so that they would be able to target their enemies at range.

Some stood at rapt attention, but most slouched, leaned, shifted nervously, or simply stared off blankly into the blue skies. Some looked at the opposing army on the opposing hill and thought about how it wasn't supposed to be like this anymore; battles were supposed to be fought at a distance in small units - not charging willy nilly at each other across a field.

These men weren't Marines, or Legionaries, or Spartans staring across the verdant field at one another. These men weren't even soldiers. These were simply men with guns who knew that if they didn't kill the man standing across from them, he was going to kill them. This wasn't about land, or resources, or money, or women, or power. It was about preservation - preservation and annihilation.

The surgeon, with patient dedication, washed his hands. Already suited up in proper attire he stalked to the next room to find his assistant looking over his tools.

"How are we looking, Audrey?" he inquired.

"Everything seems to be in order sir," she replied, a note of nervousness in her eyes betrayed her to the doctor.

"Well, lets go over the list just to make sure."

"Yes, sir."

"Anesthetic? Scalpel? Sponge?" His list ran on and on, Audrey nodding enthusiastically at each inquiry confirming that the item was where it was supposed to be. When it was done she closed the top of the black leather case, and snapped it's latches into place. She then picked up her black, green, and brown mottled helmet and snapped it under her chin.

"We better get a move on if we want to stay with the battalion, Private," stated the doctor.

"Yes, sir."

"What good is a battlefield surgeon without a battlefield to do surgery on?" he asked the air as he walked out of the tent into the sunlight.

Pale light filters through dirt stained windows; stained like the windows in old churches, with the dirt that could've been kicked up when the bombs hit, or as recently as the last dust storm. Yet these were designs of sadness and neglect rather than saints and the Virgin Mary. Cracks in the designs allowed a little bit of the outside world to blow in, creating a swirling world of dust dancing about the dust; tiny solar systems of prancing about through invisible eddies.

It fell constantly, a constant meteor shower, with the dust always sticking to the first thing it touched. At first it had been posters, tacks, a swirled purple and pink comforter, a pair of ballet slippers left bent and broken in the corner, a bookshelf shared by books and trophies. Now, the dust just caught on more dust and more dust, dust piled on top of dust, whole ecosystems and mountain ranges of dust.

Nowhere was it worst then in the fishbowl, the one with the Hawaiian hut and skeleton of the goldfish that had died long before all the water in the bowl had finished evaporating. Now the inside of the bowl received a constant rain, but of nothing useful, that had turned the one building village into a one building Pompeii, covered in the ashes of a world gone wrong.