Companions

I know it has been awhile since I've written last. Texas...things happened in Texas. I can't even put them into words yet that's how terrible they were. The images are there in my head, like they were etched there by a ragged fingernail, but my body and my hands resist pressing the keys that would turn those images into words.

Our first few stops in Texas were pleasant...but nothing had prepared us for what was going to happen. Nothing. The look in their eyes...

That was weeks ago. We--those few that remained--stopped in New Orleans afterwards and although that city opened its heart to us we really couldn't enjoy the hospitality. The news never reported what happened; the story was squelched. When we tried to explain no one could really understand what it was like. Not unless you were there. I called Phoebe, and told her as best I could what had happened. If I don't find the strength to write about it soon--or if something should happen to me--I've asked her to help me get the story out. But without Karen to help her, and with everything that is happening in Oakvale, and don't know that anyone would listen.

All I'll say now is that the little caravan that we had has now been reduced to one vehicle, our hand painted van. There's only a few of us still traveling; some went back to where they were from, others we had to leave in Texas. We had to leave them in Texas and they won't be returning.



"I'd almost forgotten what it was like to not exist," Darius, one of the guys who'd joined us in Denver said when we were miles away from the attack. It was the first thing that any of us had said in a few hours.

We're on our way to Memphis now, a stop I swore we'd make to help three of our brothers and sisters who need our help. We're doing almost all of our traveling now at night, and during the day we have to be careful where we park so that our living drivers can get some sleep in the van. The miles roll past and I'll think about people I thought I knew and then I'll wonder if they were ever really there at all.

I feel like my whole life right now is staring out a car window, looking for something that that I'll never find.