Another Interlude: Bob’s Dream copyright Eric Chambers no redistribution, reposting, or altering w/o permission   Enter a scene of 1950’s Korea, a scrambling M.A.S.H. unit. Outside the camp, the mountains seem distant, but still hulking around the horizon. Inside the camp, doctors and personnel are scrambling around the wounded that are being brought in by truck and helicopter.   (Zoom in from bird’s eye view of camp down to Bob, who is standing in the middle of the chaos.)   Bob (wearing army fatigues, is turning side to side trying to stop somebody): Hey...wait...stop...hey, what’s going on?...Wait....   Bob reaches out at the first arm that gets close enough to him, looks up and realizes it’s Alex. Alex, who is dressed in torn jeans and a flannel shirt; covering him over that is a white doctor’s apron, and on his head is a white cowboy hat: all of it covered in blood.   Bob (loosening his grip on Alex’s arm, but still has a scared, confused expression on his face):...Alex...what’s...what’s going on?   Alex (looks at Bob with a matter-of-fact expression): Hey man, (getting free of Bob’s grip and walking away, then turning around to face him): it’s your life (and walks off).   Something white catches Bob’s eye from the direction Alex came out of. Bob, confused, turns around and walks towards it. In the middle of the screaming doctors, untouched and alone, a gurney with a white sheet draped over it, stands there. As Bob gets closer, he can make out the outline of a body, a female body, under the sheet. He passes though the chaotic mass of doctors and medics untouched, and reaches the gurney. He stands over  the form on the gurney, the sheet covering the entire body head to toe, showing this was a dead body. He pulls back the sheet from the head, but before he can get a good look a mortar explodes fifteen feet behind him. Smoke settles over the body and the face is distorted. As the smoke clears, Bob hears screaming off in the distance, it comes closer by the second until Bob thinks the screamer is right behind him; as the screaming becomes louder, Bob realizes the screamer is him. The face is Polly’s.   Bob (shocked, eyes wide, screams): NO! (tears fill his eyes, he takes hold of Polly’s body and buries his face in her neck, crying, sobbing): no...no...no....no...no...no...   A hand falls on Bob’s shoulder, picking his head up from Polly’s neck, he turns around; he is now staring into the eyes of a highly decorated general with his mother’s face.   The General-Mom (stern-faced, still): Son.   Bob (still crying, tears running down his cheeks): What...what killed her?   The General-Mom (still stern-faced, unmoving): You, son.   What’s left of Bob’s strength gives out, he lays his head against the gurney and sobs harder, his tears falling into the dirt.   The General-Mom (puts a hand on Bob’s shoulder and lifts him to his feet): Son, we don’t trust you. (He/she points toward a cave just outside the camp’s boundaries) That’s where the enemy is.   The General-Mom moves behind Bob and pushes him toward the cave. He stumbles past the now calm doctors and falls in. Looking up, he sees Alex, still in jeans, flannel, and white hat (but minus the apron), peering over the edge, smiling at him.   Alex (with a cheesy grin): We all cry the first time, bucko.   As Bob fell away into the darkness, he could hear from the loud speaker, “Don’t you ever wonder why we never stayed at home, stayed up late and cried? Don’t you ever wish we could; if I was different, and you existed, and we lived in a place that’s fair: a peaceful world.”   Bob could hear it in his head even when he woke up on one of The Colombian’s tables.