shot glass
title
"... brevity is the soul of wit ..."
- William Shakespeare

Chris Bays


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The LSD War

Lying next to him, he swears, when he woke in a cauldron of mosquitoes, was a Two-Stepper. I ask him what a Two-Stepper is. He ignores me and says that tigers feed on the dead. His pupils darken as he emphasizes the word, dead. The nurse's-aide next to me whispers, "Now, now, let's not get all worked up." He grumbles, "Viper." Then tells me how a man could take two steps before he died, a woman or child was granted only one. He reminds me of papa and his stories of Vietnam. Papa would be around his age if he were still alive today. He grabs my arm, urges me, "Join the navy. They got the best food." I nod my head and, as I edge past him and the memory clinic toward mama's room, I hear papa's slurred voice rise from the gray-blue past, "It was like a nightmare injected, an acid trip without end."