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VIETNAM 1968
THEY were coming - and so were the memories. It seemed as if, in the few remaining minutesof his life, the spectral mist of the Vietnamese mountains was transforming into the drifting fogof California's Monterey Peninsula, and he was once again a small child peering at hisgrandmother sitting alone in the early morning darkness.A cup of clear, unsweetened tea held unsteadily in white, wrinkled hands with enormous blue veins at 5 a.m. A pair of ancient eyes partly clouded by cataracts silently penetrating arectangle of six small kitchen window panes and beyond to stare at the grey-black stillness of anearly California morning - his widowed grandmother's morning ritual which Paul Mason hadnever understood.It was only now when he fully realized they were coming and that there was no escapethat he knew. Even as a streak of light began to dispel the darkness and moving shapes grewlarger on the ridge, in his mind he could see his grandmother sitting alone watching the sunrise.It was only a great many years after her death that he understood how good it was to see a place before it began its activity. It was like saying, "Here, you see, I have seen you when you weredeserted and alone, without your makeup. I have seen you naked before you were clothed withhuman usefulness and significance."Paul always felt a tremendous confidence during those days which he had seen being born. Late-risers never knew the day intimately as he did and the day would always belong moreto him than to them. This hidden secret and its accompanying confidence was always with him.2
 
And now, as he realized they were coming, he also understood that his grandmother'searly morning cup of tea had meant much more. It was a ritual; a way of meeting death everyday so that there could be no surprise when, for her, the streets became dark and deserted forever.It was a way of momentarily suspending all human values and of being at peace with theuniverse. It was a way of preparing.Paul let his damaged rifle fall to the ground. A lone bird flew quietly against the waningmoon and sped on to its destination. Paul had never noticed how clear the Asian sky was. Howvast. How beautiful. But, above all, how clear.Several flashes suddenly appeared from the moving shapes. Paul wondered if they hadno flash suppressors on their rifles - why else could he see the flashes so clearly? And then, with just the briefest hint of pain, the flashes merged into one great overwhelming white light anddissolved into the black of an eternal morning.
NEW YORK - 1988
BRIAN Mason stood in the theater's crowded lobby listening to his business partner explain his point of view with the exasperated tones of a patient adult trying to make himself understood toan obtuse child. "I am simply trying to tell you that if we give the other board members a bit of what
they
want then they'll most likely be in a mood to give us more of what
we
want. That'sright, isn't it?" John Adelman began to light a Kent as he stared at Brian.3
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