[Del]'s Diary

ENTRY FORTY-ONE

The wiry body in suit and tie tells me I’m wearing the same body as the from the hotel room where I sat and leapt out the window. But all the suicidal thoughts are absent as I calmly open the front door to a charming bungalow and hang my fedora on the hat stand inside a room the color of a robin’s egg.

In the wood-paneled living room, I find a horsey-faced brunette in a white form-fitting blouse and flared skirt sitting in front of a tray of food in front of a black and white television console. A grainy tall Caucasian man is on the screen, standing amongst a sea of Asians in a courtroom. He is drawling in a Southern accent, “If my son asks me what I did in Korea, how can I tell him...”

The brunette looks up at me with sad eyes and says, “Oh, isn’t it awful, Frankie? He’s just denounced America in front of the world. The whole lot of them did.”

“Who did?” I ask while being pleased that I finally have a name for myself. Frankie. I – or rather he, is Frankie. The man on the TV wears the same strange blue uniform I had worn back as the dark cocoa colored man in the small cell. He continues to drawl, “How can I go back and tell my family...”

“The POWs captured in Korea,” the woman hisses, “They are telling just downright wicked lies, saying the U.S. Government was having them performing biological warfare on civilian villages there. Can you believe that?” Her voice is high-pitched and tight.

I cross over to a minibar set in a corner curio and pour myself a drink. “Commie bastards must have brainwashed the poor suckers,” I say as a cold-sweat pours through my host’s body. I throwback my head and chug the drink swiftly. It burns my throat all the way down.

(Trans. Note: Drawing can be found on the following page.) 

[Deleted]