Kingdom of Make-Believe - Chapter 1

VIETNAM 1968

THEY were coming - and so were the memories. It seemed as if, in the few remaining minutes of his life, the spectral mist of the Vietnamese mountains was transforming into the drifting fog of California's Monterey Peninsula, and he was once again a small child peering at his grandmother sitting alone in the early morning darkness.

A cup of clear, unsweetened tea held unsteadily in white, wrinkled hands with enormous blue veins at 5 a.m. A pair of ancient eyes partly clouded by cataracts silently penetrating a rectangle of six small kitchen window panes and beyond to stare at the grey-black stillness of an early California morning - his widowed grandmother's morning ritual which Paul Mason had never understood.

It was only now when he fully realized they were coming and that there was no escape that he knew. Even as a streak of light began to dispel the darkness and moving shapes grew larger on the ridge, in his mind he could see his grandmother sitting alone watching the sunrise. It was only a great many years after her death that he understood how good it was to see a place before it began its activity. It was like saying, "Here, you see, I have seen you when you were deserted and alone, without your makeup. I have seen you naked before you were clothed with human usefulness and significance."

Paul always felt a tremendous confidence during those days which he had seen being born. Late-risers never knew the day intimately as he did and the day would always belong more to him than to them. This hidden secret and its accompanying confidence was always with him.

And now, as he realized they were coming, he also understood that his grandmother's early morning cup of tea had meant much more. It was a ritual; a way of meeting death every day so that there could be no surprise when, for her, the streets became dark and deserted forever. It was a way of momentarily suspending all human values and of being at peace with the universe. It was a way of preparing.

Paul let his damaged rifle fall to the ground. A lone bird flew quietly against the waning moon and sped on to its destination. Paul had never noticed how clear the Asian sky was. How vast. How beautiful. But, above all, how clear.

Several flashes suddenly appeared from the moving shapes. Paul wondered if they had no flash suppressors on their rifles - why else could he see the flashes so clearly? And then, with just the briefest hint of pain, the flashes merged into one great overwhelming white light and dissolved into the black of an eternal morning.

© Dean Barrett. All rights reserved.

----------------------------------------------------------

If you enjoyed this first chapter of Dean's 'Kingdom of Make-Believe' you can easily purchase it here at  Amazon.com: http://astore.amazon.com/thailandstori-20/detail/0966189906/102-0243126-7496141 

And also here at  DCO Books online: http://www.dcothai.com/product_info.php?products_id=563

And here at Village East Books: http://www.archer-books.com/kmb.html

To learn more about the author and his other fine books go here to his website: http://www.deanbarrettthailand.com/welcome_to.htm

Dean's many books can also be purchased at the many Bookazine Book stores around Thailand.