In No WoMan's Land

I've come to a fascinating, tragic place.

'Fascinating' because I'm seeing things so crisply clearly as to be a wonderment.
'Tragic' because I never wanted to be here and wish I wasn't.

And where I am is in that 'neutral' area between opposing trenches. No WoMan's Land. Having been on the Left Trench since forever, I find it sad to report on my new digs, but there you are. Couldn't say whether I was evicted from the Left Trench or whether I vacated it of my own volition—I just know I left it kicking, screaming, and desperately clinging to any fair outcropping I could find...till there were simply none left.

I want to stress that I am not intending to, and avowedly never will, move to the Right Trench. The terrain from No WoMan's Land up to the Right Trench is forbidding indeed, being devoid of outstretched arms to help one up if one slips and falls. In addition, the embankment is dangerously covered with gun emplacements for each new war, as well as hidden mines from all the wars that are not yet finished. Also, choice here seems to lie principally with the men, being doled out only incrementally to the women.

So, while I know real estate is going cheap on the Right Trench and it's a buyer's market, I'm certain it's like those inexpensive printers that voraciously eat ink that corporate America got us all to buy—you don't pay much up front but you'll pay through the nose for years and years to come.

Thus, I'm in a dilemma. I am smarter than to fall for the 'printer ruse' and buy on the Right Trench, but I refuse to go back to the Left Trench, where every day, from sunrise to weary sunset, one must march in lock-step with everyone else there. If one does not, one endures ostracism, hostility, and eventually, eviction. This is particularly true for the strong, free-thinking women on the Left Trench.

So here I sit in No WoMan's Land, watching the tracers from the Right and Left Trenches fly over my head. This is where the fascinating clarity of vision comes in...I'm certain those tracers were always tracking across this sad, isolated land, but darned if I ever saw them leave the Left Trench. All we would yell from there was, 'Incoming!' Now, I'm not saying there was no outgoing, but I'd always proudly lived there because our outgoing was in the form of intelligent answers, reasoned responses, and a world order that believed in helping the world keep order. For every last one of us.

Alas and alack. I regret to say, with crystal clear acuity of vision, that the slugs and pellets zipping overhead are indistinguishable from each other. Those from the Left Trench match—and lately surpass—the Right Trench in nastiness and hate. In fact, of late, the ammo sent right-ward are sexist-tipped bullets, incredibly narrow and heedless of collateral damage.

I don't like it here. But hell if I'm going to climb back into the Right Trench, whatever pretty intentions they offer up. And as each day passes, with the volleys of anti-distaff shot in anger and desperation from the Left Trench, hell if I'm going back there.

Not without a mass exodus of present leaders and lots of the lock-steppers.

I guess we here in No WoMan's Land can just keep relating our individual books about the good old days on the Left Trench. Until we're all allowed to remember them again.