Stream-Of-Consciousness

It's going on 3 AM, January 1st, 2006. Since losing my job my sleep schedule has fallen back to that with which I am most comfortable, that of the night owl. The week following Christmas has seen a chilly stasis about the house. My mom is off work until Tuesday, and I am off work indefinitely. So we hung about the homestead -- she with her quilts, me with a few video games I got for Christmas.

I haven't played video games in years, not avidly anyway. Suddenly, it's all I can do to get through the day. Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog have become the keepers of my sanity (sadly, my dignity cannot be salvaged through video games -- Morgan Webb, be damned). If nothing else, these games are marvellous time killers.

Today saw an attack near Baqubah. My mother caught the tail end of a report over the radio and sent me out into cyberspace to get the full story. Everything's ok. But I've never typed CNN.com faster.

"Don't spin me," I told my brother before he left. "Tell mom whatever you need to, but you tell me the truth, however you see it."

What a stupid request. As if I am any better equipped to handle what he tells me than my mother. Everybody around me has something to fall back on. My mom believes he's protecting the country. Ok. I don't. My aunt has her faith. I so don't. I have Ratchet and Clank. And the cozy blanket that is a nihilistic worldview.

While my brother and I have become more similar with age, the one thing we still differ on is fear. My brother is fearless. I can paralyze myself with overthought and anxiety. My brother will become the type of man who can change the world. I'll most likely be the one who talks about how it should be changed. Big bark. I look at him and I see passion and drive. I can't find that in the mirror these days.

I talked to Andrew briefly this weekend, before dozens of family members clammored for their piece of the Trans-Atlantic telephone pie, and asked him how he was. No spin allowed.

"I'm all right," he croaked. I haven't been able to shake the sound of his voice. My brother has been changed forever. I think we tend to forget that. We all worry about the life-or-death of his situation. We forget that the brother or son we put on that plane is gone for good. He will not return the same.

Shit.

Nighty night.