In the Line of Duty

Red exit-sign ribbons shimmering the lengths of freshly-polished linoleum floors in darkened hallways with locked passages waiting for the jingling of rings of keys to give them a purpose and the promise of a daily life. Soldier-like Coke machines alongside transparent condiment vendors, all with “OUT OF ORDER” proclamations scotch-taped between their eyes, advertising their most-recent injury in an ongoing battle – a battle that has rendered them again, space-occupying, lethargic and useless ornaments of the catacomb landscapes that will soon bustle with the sounds and various fragrances of a needy and youthful humanity – and propped in varying degrees of lifelessness against barren, inert and sterile walls in a hostile foreign land.

A once-stalwart infantry, has now been interrupted in the line of duty while serving only to protect the “other side” from the omnipresent evil powers of dehydration and stomach-grumbling, gnawing, eleven-o’clock-in-the-morning hunger. Yes indeed, they have been used and abused and tortured by the guerrilla units of this unfamiliar land – guerillas who sport and flash their camouflage shirts and baggy pants and sideways hats. They have been violated and penetrated, battered, banged, tipped and rocked in continuous and persistent efforts to draw from them, valuable commodities and money or food or drink or other unspeakable favors. These once-proud and luminous monoliths are no longer able to negotiate with the crafty tactics of an educated tribe, and have matter-of-factly succumbed to their strong-arm tactics and careless greedy methods. Again today, the Coke machine triage unit will descend upon the battlefield as it has done many times before and point fingers toward the inevitable fallibility of these stout and sturdy foot soldiers who will, by the way, not be going home again except in boxes that will ultimately carry them to their final resting places.

And at last, they do arrive – trained medical personnel of a mechanical bent in white panel vans and trucks. Black and red-tunicked, they swarm from their vehicles and burst into the lobbies and hallways with two-wheeled carts and tool kits and clip-boards and lap-top computers. As they surround the wounded individuals, they turn and tip them into varying positions of vulnerability. The brave that are pronounced dead are given no last rights or sentiments and are simply strapped to carts and whisked away through doors and into waiting transport units. Those that can be saved are anesthetized and laid open for all to see, while vital organs are removed, replaced, transplanted or manufactured on the spot. The savable are connected via life-supporting wires to analyzing hardware that will ultimately inform these high-tech surgeons of the injuries with which they deal. Passers-by pay little or no attention to the inorganic carnage nor to the repair of it. They anticipate optimistically only the end-results of the procedures being performed while mindlessly checking time-pieces for signs of things to come. As quickly as it arrives, this highly efficient team of miracle workers pack their emergency room into boxes and kits that are then returned to the paramechanic units outside. Life has been restored and the glow and radiance of the hobbled vendors of pacification burn brightly once more.

So, I ask you – when will it end – this unnecessary sacrifice of glass and plastic and metal. Can we not see and understand that these brave and unselfish charges have no place in this territory. Let the guerillas fend for themselves and let them determine their own methods of survival – let them experience truly, the world of thirst and hunger so that they might know what is in store for them when they encounter other schools of thought – and when they reach away-from-home life and when the words Kraft and Dinner become as common place in their vocabularies and as necessary in their diets as breathing and oxygen have become in other areas of their existence. Stop waste, stop the killing, and stop the unnecessary spilling of Coke Machine blood in the hallways of this land. Give them back their life, their dignity, their freedom. If only Gordon Downie were here now in our midst – he would demand that we, – “give them back their Coke Machine Glow.”