Song for Night

Shelter Is Hands Protecting the Head

The lost manual would call for shelter, so I hunt across the hilltop until I come to a rock formation. There is a gap in the side. This is not a cave, but the space underneath two rocks, like the air pocket from a careless fold, is big enough for me to shelter in. It is not the leader’s bunker, but then what is?

The leader’s bunker is mythical. It is a talisman at its most ethereal, a mobile Camelot at its most concrete. Camelot: one of those things we learned in school that is useless to us now. Like the American Information Films that looked like they had been shot a hundred years ago, which were shown to us in boot camp. The films offered us ways to protect ourselves in the event of different kinds of enemy attacks, from catapults throwing Greek fire to napalm. There was one about protection in the event of a nuclear attack. It was simple and straightforward — hide under a desk. Some of those bush fucks in camp were impressed. Me, I could see through the fatal flaws of the logic even then:

1. Where would we find desks in this war?

2. Would the army provide them and would we have to carry them around ourselves?

3. Why would anyone hide from a fireball under a wooden desk?

But the frenzy of war dulls the senses. With death as our only option, I guess it is easy to believe anything. Besides, if the American government was telling their children to hide under desks, it must be true. They wouldn’t risk the lives of their own children, would they?

I wish I had found this cave earlier when I was making dinner. That way I could have made the fire here and I would still have it to keep warm. This high, the heat from the day is lost very quickly and the rock feels cold against my back. I can always get up and go collect kindling and wood and build another fire, but I am too comfortable and tired to move. The best I can do is smoke. I light a cigarette and blow smoke out of the cave mouth. Is this how our ancestors lived so long ago? Hunter-gatherers making do in shelters like this?

In the dim glow from the cigarette, I try to see if there are any markings on the rock walls. I can’t find any. Maybe I should make some. It occurs to me that this cave could be the result of a recent explosion, the force causing the crack.

I cannot remember how many days have passed since that initial explosion that separated me from my men. I should have made that mnemonic device, I think, absently stroking the Braille cemetery on my forearm. Stubbing out the cigarette, I shut my eyes.

Sleep comes easier and easier.

Sometimes rest too.