Lazarine
an excerpt

Hey Dee-dee,

Long time, sis. You back in the world yet or are you still out in Mosul taking those snaps of yours?

Anyway, I been thinking, Dee, seems like it's all I do now, think. They said I only had a month left but that's all changed...another six they're saying, maybe more before we're back in the world. We're not in Baghdad anymore, they shifted us Guardsmen north, can't say where, but it's a lot safer, believe me. Doesn't matter though, sis, all these thoughts swirling around my head. See, I think I've changed, Dee, something, something inside has...I'm different now since I've been over here. Everybody is, does something to you, you know, like that picture you snapped, the one they put in all the magazines. Got it tacked up here on the wall of the barracks.

Guys round here don't believe that you and me are related, honest, cross-my-heart. They keep saying how can I be so dumb and have such a bright sister. I tell em all that you were given the brains and I got the looks. Remember how dad used to say that al the time when he was teasing us?

I'm remembering everything now, sis. All feels so far away, like another planet.
Remember that summer when all the soldiers came down to surf in the Bay? Remember how that one soldier, crazy looking one, he just stood there watching the horizon, he was blank, you know, nothing in his eyes. You called him a statue, remember, you said he was like some plastic toy? We laughed about how he had a hole in his back somewhere and there was a giant key somewhere.

You could just turn and turn and...

Maybe I'm like that soldier now, been too long out of the world, seen too much over here in the last year. I wonder if I ever get back to the Bay will I stand there like that soldier? Will someone have to stick a key in me and wind me up?
Well I gotta go, they want us to do another 'Search-and-Avoid' mission, seems like all we do now. Pointless, all of it, you were right.

I don't know if this'll get to you without everything cut out. Don't know if I'll send it out, seems wrong somehow. But if you do get all this, Dee, just know I love you and whatever happens, there was nothing you could do to stop it.

Love
Your big brother, Bee-bee.