"There is hope for the future. And when the world is ready for a new and better life, all this will someday come to pass, in God's good time"- Captain Nemo, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

                      I: Officer James Cole, 11:23 PM
I step through the doorway, so dang hard to see in these rooms the way that they light them. I got the report same as the rest of them, can’t say I saw it though, only the smoke rising a mile high all evening, a low burning glow of embers that one could mistake for a low cloud from our north-facing window and turned the entire sky into a darker shade of night. We’ve heard of what are known as ¨crap storms¨ like this before: something that comes and there’s just about nothing that you can do besides roll up your pants and trudge through. Its funny you know, you think that the house that you’ve helped build up from nothing will never collapse, and after years go by the slightest hint of a breeze turns it into a house of cards. But maybe I shouldn’t be talking about falling houses, given the current situation, a tragedy I should call it, on our hands.
The room looks the same as it had always been: blank walls whitewashed and bare, a one-sided mirror that taking up the majority of one of the walls. The room is small, just about five feet separating the boy and I. I suppose he isn’t really a boy, in the eye of the law at least, I could smell him from here: ash and body odor, like coming out of a weeklong camping trip. I couldn’t think of the last time I smelled like this, perhaps the fishing trip I took a few years back: four days and we didn’t have a sight of a darn fish, but we had the smell for proof of where we were: that was the smell that now filled this room. The floor was yellow and concrete just like the walls, no air conditioning so it was a sauna inside, every breath was inhaling a steam cloud. The boy was dripping with sweat, beads covered his face and soaked his mistake of a beard. His eyes, a light brown that tried their hardest to look anywhere else but on me. Grime and soot stained his face, he looked like a coal miner from a movie that I had seen once before, although the name escapes me. We had to give the boy a shirt, his apparently went up with the smoke that night, and it hung loosely around his skinny frame, already soaked in his sweat and stained a darker shade of white.
All I know is only what I have heard from the on-site interviews and that isn’t much. One of them, don’t think it was this boy, spilled part of the story. Card burning party gone wrong: one of them dropped their draft slip on a drape and the whole place is cinders within an hour. In other words, a bunch of cowards that couldn’t even start a fire right. So here we are trying to figure out what the hell to do with a couple of draft dodgers that smell like the back end of a dog.
As of now, the only thing that we have decided was to get a solid footing on the story. There are only the two of them total, both college age and, from what we understand, both living in the house that is now a firepit. Now that just don’t seem right by me, couple of long hairs sharing a house together. This was the first one, young kid, youngest out of the rest of them by about a year. They say that this one was a little dazed when they found him, I guess he was just sitting in the street, watching the thing go to ashes. So I sit down and slapped the report where the grimy boy shaking in his seat could see it. Between us rests only the report and a lamp that gave us the only light in the room. Looking him in the eye now, I can fully see the fear, the shock over this boy’s justifiably rough night. His eyes, bloodshot, supposedly from the smoke but now I’m starting to wonder what kind. His hair is hidden in the dark, I can’t tell the color from the room but from the report I know it was brown, as for the style it sure as hell wasn’t a crew cut. I took one final glance at this sorry boy and then turned my gaze down to the report.

“Alright son,” I looked back up at him, and for the first time he looked directly into my eyes “we have basically the story down pat, but we just wanted to hear everything that you saw, so why don’t you tell me you’re side of what occurred this evening”

He turns his gaze away again, looking from side to side as if trying to find a way out of this. The sweat covering his body became more and more evident, large drops sliding down his face, like raindrops on a window I guess. I know right here and now he was hiding something, that he is scared. Good lord knows I can only guess as to what he is so fearful about, probably wondering which one of them would be the rat. I’m trying to remember this one’s name, it almost comes to me for a moment, but it ain’t worth my time anyway… Mark! That’s it, or was it Marcus? No, definitely Adam. God dang, it’s Abbie. Well what kind of man’s name is Abbie anyways? Sounds like a five year old girl, not some draft-ditching hippie.
The boy name Abbie stuttered, but began “W-w-where should I s-start?” the boy
sputtered out. His hands were shaking.
To this question I am sure that I know not an answer to, so frankly I figure that this night is gonna be long as Hell anyways, might as well make sure we know everything. By now I figured that they are recording us, not sure why but I suppose protocol is protocol after all. The boy tilted his eyes up, as if searching for the correct memory. This room is too dang hot, I swear they are doing this to mess with the both of us. Though I suppose that generally, the people in this room usually aren’t stupid kids, and instead are murderers and thieves so perhaps those kinds of people didn’t deserve the luxury of air conditioning. But perhaps these two boys don’t either, who are they to decide that they don’t need to serve their country? When the Japs came a-knocking on our door, you didn’t see me growing my hair to a lady length and setting fire to my draft card and shooting myself in the foot. No sir, I was there on the beaches of Okinawa. But, I’ll play ball, lord knows I’ve played ball with folks much worse than this.
“Well, it all started like this. We were all sitting around in the living room listening to this new record that we had just bought. E--e--Electric Ladyland I think it was. And Malcolm got up and said he was gonna make some popcorn, so he got up and walked into our kitchen. Next thing I remember, the house was filling up with smoke and we were sprinting outside with as much LPs that we could fit between our arms… yeah.”
The boy rests his shaking hands on the table after finishing. Throughout his story he moved his hands around like he was conducting a circus or something. I remember going to the circus with my kids last summer. Standing up there was the ringmaster in his grand attire and outfits straight from the something-Twenties, waving his hands almost exactly like this boy was now. But something about his story just doesn’t make sense, first off, their little get together was a card burnin’ party, and that is how the place went down in flames, at least that’s what Nixs’ report said. Burnt popcorn? That is how the place went up in smoke? Something else just struck me.

“Who the heck is Malcolm?”

                                Abbie, 11:23 PM
God damn, I’m feeling it… whatever they put in it this time is just too damn much. Thank god that by the time they got to the loaf the peak was already done, we woulda been really screwed then. I can’t see a damn thing in this room, all they got for light is just this lamp that I swear is gonna give me a migraine. The walls have finally stopped melting, and I finally realized that they were not in fact made of wax, but were in fact actual concrete walls. So they didn’t stick me in a giant candle, good... I guess… whoever they is. But damn it is hot in here, is this part of the torturing process? Heating me up so I’ll talk more. Maybe the room wasn’t even hot, I don’t know. I think the stuff is making me hot, I feel like I’m sitting on top of a candle, wouldn’t be the first time I sat on one believe me. The room could probably be 20 degrees and I would still look like I had just been pulled from the pacific ocean.
I’d be lying if I said that I knew where in the hell I was exactly, I swear to god ten seconds ago we were just at our place, the loaf, Jerry just put on the new Hendrix record and I picked a spot on the carpet, closed my eyes, and prepped myself for the trip. Now it's dark, I’ve got a shirt on, and I smell like compost. Now that I think about it, I’ve had a trip like this before, I was sitting on the floor of my room, next thing I know I was flying alongside sputnik with lizard hands and legs of fire. One minute later: I’m sitting in my bathtub rolling around in the shower curtain. Needless to say, that was the last time that I tried the brown stuff. But I didn’t even take the brown stuff tonight and here I am, standing in what appeared to be a depressed eskimo’s igloo, if it weren’t so damn hot that is.
I can’t really see much,  the walls were white I guess, I imagine that the pigment is something along the lines of someone that drank a gallon of milk and threw it all up in a paint can. Vomit milk white, what a great paint color name, Hell if I get out of this alive I should call up Crayola. I might become a millionaire out of this after all. If I look, really hard, there looks to be someone staring back at me, he is sitting down. Damn, he looks like he had a rough night… oh Hell that’s me… Wait a minute, I remember… the loaf! The friggin’ house man! What the hell happened to the house! Alright Alright, think…. what do I remember? I remember taking the hit… lying down… Jerry had just lit up a J. And then… what happened then? I was sitting on the lawn… and there was just this gigantic Phoenix, it was bright and orange like a firework that just kept on going… wait a minute, oh Hell!
Somebody’s House is burning down down down down.

The stuff is finally starting to wear off, I can see straight as an arrow now, I must say it really was a time. There’s a table sitting in front of me, cold as ice despite of how friggin hot it is in here. So, the loaf caught fire, that must be what happened… can’t say I’m very surprised, that place was a death trap built on stilts soaked in oil. And here I am, soaked in sweat, powdered with ash and first-world starving...so where’s Jerry? Where the hell is Malcolm?
In walks a man shrouded in dark, he’s a heavy man, little too much beer in his belly if you ask me. I knew the build of this kind of guy anywhere, and my second question had been answered. Somehow I ended up in the Bay of Pigs, no not that one, the infinitely worse one: the local police department interview room. To be honest, I kinda wish that I was still in the loaf, probably nothing but ashes. This particular pig had a big moustache, like the one on every boss that I have ever hated. He almost looked like my father, except instead of disappointment there is just a look of simple plain disgust. But perhaps I am being a bit unfair towards the pig: I’m pretty sure I smelled like a sewage leak, I’d probably give myself the same exact look. In his arm was some sort of portfolio folder with… wait what’s in that thing… are those tentacles? Aw hell what are they gonna do to me? Is this the acid? What in the name of the lord is going on? My head is spinning, my head is spinning.
He slaps the portfolio on the table between us, tentacles slithering in and out from inside its contents. I don’t know what I should do, I’m glued to my seat I can feel the glue sticking me into it. The room is getting hotter, I know it they are trying to torture me. The pig-man tries to look me in the eyes, those beady yellow eyes candlelit by the fire that I am sitting on. I look in every other way possible… I am close to crying.

 “Alright son,” His voice was a thunderstorm of nails, the sound of a million tribal drums bellow from his pig-mouth “we have basically the story down pat, but we just wanted to hear everything that you saw, so why don’t you tell me you’re side of what occurred this evening”
What is he talking about, who the hell is Pat? Oh God please just get me out of here.

  I did what I had to, to get out of that hell hole, and if somehow Malcolm and if one or both of the others are alive and they find out that my story was a load, well then I guess… aw Hell I just wanna sleep. I couldn’t even speak clearly, I’m a terrible liar, but in all honesty what I was said was all that I knew. Malcolm walked into the kitchen, a common place for fires as any, and that’s all.
  There was one thing that was strange though. He asked who Malcolm was, like  what I wanted to say was Malcolm? The really tan one? You know, the one that really doesn’t look like me or Jerry at all? But I now know what his confusion meant, thinking back of Malcolm, cigarette in his hand walked into the kitchen before my blackout of phoenix dances and masked monsters pulling me away.
There’s a squid in your folder, sir.

                          Officer James Cole, 11:28 PM
We had to bring in two others to pull the boy out when he started crying. My questioning about this Malcolm seemed to set him off, his face turned to me with a sort of confusion I suppose. The last time I saw that look was on the look on my boy’s face when he was still little: it's the face of someone that knows the answer but asks the question anyway. So there were three of them then, two made it out, one didn’t is my guess. And now we got a corpse on our hands that’s most likely still laying in the pit of what used to be a house. I suppose that this escalates things, to put it lightly.
So I guess it's up to this other boy, Gerald, to fill in the big holes left by the previous. He sits in that dark hot-box room right now, the lone lamp sitting next to him, but swear on the bible I would that he doesn’t have a drop of sweat falling from him. He just stared deadfaced at the mirror. Though he is most certainly staring at his own reflection in the mirror, I could swear that he was staring me down as I  try to go over what I would ask this one. This one, with his blonde hair that rested on his shoulders, his beard hanging just beside them. He wears a soot-stained wife-beater and blue jeans that had seen better days believe me.  His eyes are green, or maybe they were brown, they seemed to change color every couple of minutes. They remind me of my boy’s, a kind of hazel just like his mother’s. I hope that she has gotten to bed by now: I told her that I didn’t know when I would get back and now I am regretting not simply telling her to go to bed. What a crazy world we’re raising him in, seems like ten years ago, when I still could run down the fastest of them, that things couldn’t have been better. Now the music sounds like it's from another planet, the motion pictures are a plotline away from being pornographic, and every street you walk down, a longhair walks by the other way lookin at me like I’m gonna shoot them. I guess its the just the way time goes by: and I suppose I can’t blame them for those looks from the stories I hear of our relations here at the station.
This boy’s got a mean look for a longhair, maybe he’s the one who’s got all the answers, although I must say that given everything I’ve heard tonight I’m not very hopeful. I suppose that if you could say that every case is just a big puzzle, well with this one half of the pieces are missing. Some of the officers come in who were at the scene when it happened and I asked around, Nix still ain’t here yet and I bet he’s got some info on it. From what I heard though, it truly was a sight to behold. By the time the boys and the firefighters get there, the one Abbie is sitting in the road in his briefs, clutching his LP’s like they were his child and just watching the place go down like it was a motion picture. Meanwhile, this one was just running out, crying bloody murder and drenched in sweat. So the way I see it, either no one realized that the boy never got out of the fire, or something foul is going on here and we’re all being blind to it, and I think I may have figured out just why.
So I walk into that godforsaken room again and take a seat opposite this boy, Jerry’s his name I believe. Not much to say about the fella, record says he was busted for possession once, no jail time; nothing else besides a dead-faced look in him, like he’d just recently decided to give up on something, maybe everything.
“Son, I we’re going to talk about what happened tonight, but right now I’d like to know about your friend Malcolm” The boy says nothing, just keeps staring towards the mirror, eyes half closed like he was about to fall asleep.
“Alright then, I need to know his appearance, what did he look like?” With this, the boy seems to have come alive, looking right at me.
“He was tall… long and lanky” The boy’s voice was gruff, but there was still youth in it. “Had curly, longer hair, dark brown almost black eyes” Now, curly hair and black eyes aren’t really seen in your average caucasian, and it seemed like this boy was trying to beat around a very thorny bush.
“Is he…” What’s the word the politicians use…”Is he colored?”
“No, he’s dead” This response, no one could have told him the third boy was dead, he must’ve seen it happen. But, first things first.
“Well, was he a negro then?”
“Yes” The tone in his response… almost like he knew that giving up that meant the case was over, and perhaps with most detectives it was, but personally, a boy is a boy no matter what color he is, and if he’s missing we need to find him… dead or alive. And now I know why perhaps this boy wasn’t listed in the report. If there’s one thing that Nix hates dealing with more than longhairs, its negros. He doesn’t even like acknowledging their existence. But lord knows I can’t say anything or it's the unemployment line for me.
Simple truth is, though, I don’t know if I’ll be able to figure anything out without the help of a boy who’s most likely just a pile of ash blowing in the wind now.
“Now, how’d you know that Malcolm is dead” With this he hesitated, mouth agape probably knowing he should choose his next words right.
“He was dead by the time I found him...The fire had already started but I have no clue how… I walked into the kitchen and he was laying face down on the floor… there was blood around him and… oh god” With this the boy turns and vomits, sobbing the whole time through.

                                           Jerry
He was shorter, shorter than me or Abbie. Wore these big, chicken-wire framed glasses, made his eyes bug out. His hair was curly, like a small afro on top of his head. And he was funny, funnier than any man I had ever talked to. But he was serious about what we were doing, I suppose that’s something that Abbie and me could say. The marches, the sit-ins, the protests, all of it; you could see the passion in his eyes that could light up any night. Perhaps I tried too hard to understand, felt like I was fighting a battle that wasn’t even my own. Feigning sympathy is one thing, but to truly sympathise, to understand: never, I’ll never understand what it was like to be him. His name was Malcolm, and I held his cold body in my arms as flames consumed the house we made our home.

                              Earl Nix, 11:50 AM
Jesus H Christ people, all this fuss over a couple of longhairs that are probably so high that they can’t tell their elbow from their foot! We got there and the place was already high in flames and one of ‘em looked like he was about to assume the fetal position and piss his pants, hell he probably did. The other one, sprinting around screaming for help, crying like some housewife. So did I believe any of the words that were coming out of their drugged up mouths? By sam hill I didn’t, I’d rather believe the one person that I can trust: myself. And what did myself inform myself? That this was a typical card-burnin party gone haywire, bunch of long-hairs that don’t have the balls to just shoot themselves in the foot. Boy, those are the fun ones, watching them limp into the hospital like they got a stick up their ass. I remember seeing one time a boy sneezed and took out two of his toes on accident. Now THAT is something to tell at the Christmas dinner I tell you. Serves them right, you didn’t see my generation growing lady hair and shooting themselves when their country called on them. No sir, we took to service with every bit of pleasure that we could have. Spent two years over there, bringing fascism to its knees, liberating a god damn continent only to have a bunch of dirty, socialist hippies twenty years later to thank me for it with crap like this. And it ain’t just here, it's in every city and state across this once great country. Some great society we have isn’t it. So when the question arises of if I stopped those brave men from entering that hell hole, to save a negro draft-dodger that might not even be alive anymore, I will simply smile.
It was a pretty sight, though, seeing a fire go that high into the night, looked like it was touching the moon. I must say I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like that in my lifetime, and believe me when I say I’ve seen quite a bit. I only hope that this will all be over soon, not just this case, but this supposed revolution on our hands. Revolution, what a joke. Lenin and his betrayal of his own country, that was a revolution. And its people like these two boys that give me fear that it could very well soon happen here if people like me don’t rise up and shout The Buck Stops Here. Aw hell why’d they put Cole in there to question them? That man’s softer than those longhairs. Look at him talkin to that boy, not so loud now is he. We had to slap some sense into him to try and get him to talk straight and then he just shuts his trap and won’t even say a word. Now he’s chatty Kathy soon as Uncle Jimmy comes a-walkin through the door. I tell you, I fear for my grandchildren if they face a world with role models like this: too high and too lazy to ever get up and become an actual member of society. And if there’s one less of them to have to deal with it, then perhaps this fire was in fact the will of God. Not a very crazy thought to believe these days: evil and communism infecting the world with the mask of peace and love, perhaps the world is due for a little fire and brimstone. I for one would be glad to see the lord almighty come on down, look Brezhnev and Ho Chi Min and these dirty hippies in the eye, and show them the error of their ways. Hell, maybe tonight was just his way of doing it. If we have learned anything from the good book, it’s that He works in mysterious ways.

                               Malcolm, 9:12 PM
At first, there’s nothing but fuzz, that first three seconds built in to let you sit down and build up your excitement. Silence fills the room in anticipation for what is to come next. The guitar blares out like a hurricane siren going off and hits you down in your very soul. And here come that soulful voice bring chills down your spine.
    Somebody’s house is burning, down down, down down
It’s nice out tonight so we opened up most of the windows, the day had been a scorcher out and we were all beat. Today was one of our biggest protests that we held yet, this time we walked through the suburbs. Folks walked outside, with their manicured lawns and their brand new cars, heckled us until their voices grew hoarse. Some even threw stuff at us, told us to get out of their neighborhood, that our kind wasn’t allowed here. I remember one couple in particular, the husband, a middle-aged balding fellow, just stared me down and drew his finger along his neck. And sure it hurt, but I think that it’s the most satisfying part of all: to get these people thinking. They can cry and cheer for their support of war until the day is done, but then they see the kids that will have to do the job and suddenly they become so uncomfortable they can’t even stand to mind their own business. So here I am, drenched in sweat and smelling like a dog, but I know I’ve done just a little bit to help change this world for the better. So we all sit around the speaker, listening to what wisdom Jimi Hendrix has for us now, we had seen him live once before, all three of us. It was like watching your world come to an end, raw passion and love come to light. It was this concert that I decided that I wanted to help change the world: I marched, I protested, I met types of people that I didn’t think ever even existed. And now, sitting here round the living room of the loaf, it almost feels like we’ve made it.
Abbie just dropped and Jerry looked ready to pass out, so I tell them while they’re both still conscious that I’m gonna go to the kitchen. Those two I tell you, if it's not drugs then it's fighting or lovemaking. I go into the kitchen, looking for something to occupy my thoughts on. The loaf’s kitchen is pretty much just a pantry, a fridge, a little window over the sink that overlooks the side of the house, and a windowed back door that leads to the yard. The drum beat was still resonating after I closed the door to the living room, Mitch Mitchell’s heartbeat bass drum blaring through the night. But there’s some other sound that I can hear, its coming from outside, probably the neighbors. There’s nothing really in the pantry, the problem that comes hand in hand with protesting all day is a lack of time for any real occupation. We generally scrape by with just enough money to pay the rent on the loaf. There’s the sound again, definately coming from outside now. I peer through the open window over the sink, to check to see if it’s coming from the side of the house. I don’t see much… wait… I think I see some sort of light. I decide to peer through the curtain over the back door.
It’s not a light.
“Open the door, boy” Says the balding man staring back at me. Although this time he’s not wearing a button-up shirt and slacks, no, his outfit is a lot more fitting now, holding a torch like the Statue of Liberty. But it's not the man that’s giving the orders, not even the three men behind him, it's the revolver in his hand that’s doing most of the convincing. I unlock and open the door, putting my hands up as I do.
“You shouldn’t have been walking through our neighborhood boy, you and your long haired friends are causing nothing but trouble for our community and our country.”
“Please… please don’t”
“If someone doesn’t put a stop to this heinousness…”
“God… be reasonable” I can hear that drum beat pulsing. Louder and louder.
     I would never forget that day...
Last thing I remember is the ice cold touch of the tile floor and the torch being thrown past me, rising and falling like the sun once did.

                       James Cole, 11:55 PM
Nix called it, the case is closed, card burning party gone wrong, I guess they found evidence at the house. I guess.

                                   Jerry, 12:00 AM
My eyes have been opened tonight. My eyes have been opened. My eyes are blue.

They’re gonna send us off to war now, Abbie and me. Nothing else to do for a couple of good-for-nothing long haired hippies. That bastard Nix is here now, talking to everyone like he runs the goddamn world. And maybe he does, maybe that’s why Malcolm will never see a splinter of justice. Hell they’ll probably peg it on us: say that we were too high and couldn’t save him. I remember standing out in the street, hysterical, when the cops finally pulled up. There were four of them, all dressed the same way just standing there, watching the loaf go down. They called me hysterical for trying to tell them what happened, Nix backhanded me and called me a dirtbag so then and there I decided to keep my mouth shut. When officer Cole walked into the room though, I felt I could trust him, he had the look of a decent man, for a pig that is. But I could see it in his eyes when I told him about Malcolm: this case was closed just as soon as it had opened. I told him everything that I knew, the gunshot, watching the light go from Malcolm’s eyes, the fire spreading through the kitchen. All of it is going to be called a lie, two hippies too high to know or understand the way of the world. Maybe this was just a sign, world’s not ready for people like us just yet. I don’t know, don’t know how we just stood by and let our friend die, don’t know why in a year from now I’ll be a killer in some deep and dark jungle. It’s hot in here, I don’t know why and I used to know why and now I don’t. I’d like to know why and I never will and that’s what bothers me, because I still feel cold no matter how much the room says otherwise. Maybe I actually did die in that fire, the ceiling collapsed on me while I wept over Malcolm’s body. But I guess that there’s more than just one way to be dead. Maybe I was already dead long before and now I’m just realizing that I’ve been desperately searching for a reason to be alive, and I’ve failed.
I watch them turn the lamp off, its orange flicker fade into a dark black, and the entire interview room follows. I know now what Jim Morrison means.
Of our elaborate plans, the end. Of everything that stands, the end.
The world’s a lot smaller than it used to be, and they say we’re going to the moon soon, the survivors will, at least. I’ll probably be hearing about it on some old radio in Saigon a month after it happened.
Maybe they feel like I do, they’re confused and scared just like me, even Nix. The world’s changing a hell of alot faster than the people that live in it nowadays, and it's terrifying. I don’t know, maybe they don’t, maybe they are incredibly sure of what their world is and would rather die than see it changed. I don’t know. I know that my friend is gone now, taken by men that are much more terrified of the world than me or Malcolm or even Nix. I still can see his light brown eyes, eyes that once gleamed with fire at the sight of Jimi Hendrix setting his guitar ablaze. I saw those eyes again, staring down the fire that consumed our loaf and change my life forever. Makes me think of some words that I read in school, once upon a time.

how do you like your browneyed boy mister death
He likes him well.