Marla Day

I had a "Marla Day" today. Really, I shouldn't say that, or I shouldn't name it that because we all know that Marla was...well, maybe it was a Marla day.

I was having a wonderful "back to school" lunch with my mom at a ritzy restaurant, on their beautiful terrace, this fine afternoon. We've always had these lunches since I was little, and even though I don't go back to school anymore, I did just start a new job, so it counts.

As we were finishing our bisque and waiting for the bill to come, we heard a noise. OK, that is understating it to say the least. The whole sky shook, your eardrums vibrated to the point that auditorily you could barely understand what was happening. I have lived in Nevada and am somewhat accustomed to planes breaking the sound barrier, but this noise, this shaking of the earth/sky/spirit was so disconcerting that I hardly knew what to do with myself.

The blocks of blue sky and dappled sunlight peeking between the patio's shading umbrellas made it almost impossible to see anything above that might be causing this, but everyone looked up to see what the fuck was going on. I looked around at the other diners who had horrified looks on their faces, same as I must have had myself. Then I swung around to the table across from me where there sat three blonde ladies of varying ages, with the most excited ear to ear grins I have ever seen. One stood up to reach across the table to another and gave her most enthusiastic high five. I scrunched my eyebrows in confusion. They continued with their "yeah!" responses with each other, and I continued to sit and try to enjoy the afternoon. Not one minute later it happened again, and people began going out to the street and looking up to see what they could. The blondes' enthusiasm grew.

The sound was the sound of confusion, of uncertainty, of power. It was the sound of war. It took most all of my body and soul not to leap across the patio at them and shout: I hope that someone drops a bomb on your family!

I understood that these women probably had a pilot in their family, and they were used to the sound and to them it meant excitement and pride. But the only reason that an invisible overhead explosion like that could be anything but utterly terrifying is because of where we live. Of COURSE no one is about to drop a bomb on us, or our family, or who knows where. Of COURSE it was just some sort of air show or routine mission. Of COURSE we weren't all about to die, or to watch others die. Of COURSE we weren't about to go home to find our houses and markets and schools and bridges and families blasted to smithereens. It was just FUN and exciting, tee hee.

FUCK THAT!!!! As I sit here and type this, there are innocent human beings going about their business, eating lunch on a patio, doing their daily errands, who are looking up at a drone heard high above them, not knowing what it holds, not knowing.... innocent human beings just like us. There is nothing exciting or fun about war. We can and should have pride in the men and women who have chosen to defend us, but that unfortunately is not what is happening. We are not safer. We are just at war and it seems like this country and our allied countries go about their daily business, anesthetized to that fact. Unaware, truly, of the unimaginable horror we aid in unleashing every moment of the day. Just as a suicide bomber is terrorism, so are we. We just choose not to acknowledge it, hoping that in our ignorance we will be shielded. I pray that we can all (yes, all all all all all all) live in such ignorant bliss.

Back to the title of this post. As I felt all of this emotion of nastiness towards these blissfully ignorant women, I knew that I shouldn't say anything to them. It would not be right. So I apologized to my wonderful mother and walked back to the car, sobbing from deep within my soul, the shared soul of humanity, of all of us. I sobbed from the soul of those women though they didn't know it. And I thought of Marla. And my God I miss her.