Well I suppose this Hemingway quote at least explains why I don’t fear dying in Afghanistan. I’ve been broke too long to fear death, haha. Nah, I still fear death, in fact years ago, and this is chronicled in my book Hippopotamus Sea, I did something like 5 hits of acid, a couple of months after doing 50 and being put under house arrest and beaten up pretty severely by Atlanta finest, ironically, about a block away from 8111. I digress… as soon as I was off house arrest, released into the wild if you will, we went to Rishi Nagranis and we all ate some LSD, and I ate about 5 hits as I recall. It is one of the only times I can remember having almost shamanic like visions. I felt like I saw the universe expanding and condensing on itself, my life after death, being a part of the molecules in the earth, and then in a tree and then eventually released free into the air, and I even thought I saw my own death. As fate would have it, it was by AK-47 in Afghanistan, and this was long before 9/11 or we were even at war with the Taliban. I’m sure it was just a collection of memories from a book or something I’d read, surely I’m not prophetic or anything at all, but damn if I can’t shake the idea of still joining up, even though I’d thought I’d decided against it.
I should just go turn in the paper work go spend the day at the medical office and see if it’s even an option. More than likely they will just say you’re too damn old, we don’t take Hep C cured or not, thanks for playing, btw we found an old fine you still haven’t paid the city of Atlanta from way back when in your drinking and drugging days. But at least then I’ll know that it’s no longer an option, that I tried, and that the romantic notion of adventure, combat, and stories galore is just a figment of my imagination and I can refocus on the work at hand, building a successful recruiting career here in Atlanta. And of course growing the Indie Publishing house books4free.com from more than just one book. I’d originally started hoping to include a bunch of recovery related books, but now I think my next project will be sci fi. Anywayz, finding out will at least galvanize my next decision.
“The shortest answer is doing the thing.”
Another gem, so fuck it, lets go see if it’s even an option.
-Jared Bryan Smith