Heroes

We were in rush-hour traffic limbo between suburbia and an anti-war protest. Our greasy spoon waiter looked like he'd been transplanted there from a hallucination as he nervously giggled through our order. He entered our ticket into the computer and pivoting back, asked us what we would do if it was the end of the world (whatever that meant to us). We all talked about it and he said, "You ask me why I ask," (we didn't)--dramatic pause--"No reason." There was a moment of innocence where we were all naked together. Bemused, we all set out for San Francisco. At the rally, a guy approached us, and we got into an intimate discussion on what is freedom and what is the root of war and how can we co-exist, considering our differences. None of us really had an agenda beyond listening to each other. We found out later that he was a communist. My little sister (being homeschooled with a Christian curriculum) turned to me and said, "Sis, he's a communist? My books describe them almost like demons. He was nice." There are those moments, when the world as we conceive it drops away, and we are as children, meeting each other.

These are my heroes.