When we were once immortal

I’ve been immortal.

Many times over.

And from the corner of my eye seen the infinity of existence stretched out around me congeal into the thickness of now.

Where all of who you are is there only right then, submerged entirely in the present and gliding on the crest of time toward certain violence with no creditor of heaven or hell to guarantee the next thump of your racing heart.

And I’ve with fierce delight gambled it all for a sight picture and squeeze of the trigger to kill a man I didn’t know or hate.

And I did not then die.

And I cannot forget that taste. Ever.

I will always want more of it.

In the nights I dream of it.

The full immersion.

The baptism.

To point all of your power in one direction.

And die if it’s not enough.

Or even if it is -

The random bullets find you.

It’s the only game that takes everything you have to give, all at once, for the chance to win.

And it’s the only game that takes everything you have to give, all at once, when you lose.

The ante – your next breath.

The cost of it – murder.

The prize – you’re not dead yet.

Killing your way through to the rest of your life.

Afloat in placid frenzy.

Where everything there is collides with all of nothing at all.

Where no past or future have ever been.

No room even for the shadow of the present.

Where there is nothing at all except only all of everything at once until there isn’t.

And that is where we lived.

All of our lives right then forever.

When we were once immortal.

When we were once immortal – Jason Lee Morrison ©2024

Introduction to the book War Junkie - A Cautionary Tale by KG Spradley