Oh, John... I feel like I have lived far too long... and I finally feel like these flowers... like I am blooming into something different. For too long... I haven't felt anything. Anger, joy, sorrow... all that was there was the instinctual need to fulfill my mission... but what was my mission all along? To fight for this country? We all fought each other in this country... and we fought each other for this country... but... for what? Nothing is going to save anyone... and nothing is going to stop them from running away with fear.

I will always remember the songs... "uncle Sam.. you know that no one gives a damn" Do you know why I never sang with them? I lost hope...

"But why are you here, Jessica?" You know... every one has to try to do something... every one has to try. I saw the poverty and the injustice... the fear... As we are all dying, maybe it would be nice to have someone try to defeat the world just for you... even as weakened as the world is... there is nothing anyone can do... I have been proven that time and time again... but I had to try, John.

You always wondered how I got this scar.. haven't you? I had a child... they informed me that... they had to take it.. it was the only way that I could live. My child died as they removed it... it was a beautiful baby boy, dead in his mother's arms. His father fell a month before that on the field... a bullet put him to rest peacefully right across from me as we took cover... I realized that it wasn't going to be much longer before I went... nothing seemed to be changing as me, Ralph, and my child tried for what may be good for this world... and so did you, I realize...

What does that make me, now? I tried to fight for what was right and died trying, all for the filth that couldn't ever possibly understand regardless of whether they knew or not. Maybe...though... we are like flowers trying to bloom, and under the right condition... everything makes sense and everything is going to be ok... I am having that moment... and now, as my shame and pain that I finally feel just flow out of me in red while leaving me in peace, I don't have to make decisions or defeat any enemy anymore, including my self. I don't have to feel obligated to fight for things that people can't or wont understand.

Every one is here... my father's combat knife, my lovers M16, and you, my old friend that I never stopped believing in, even if you had go against me from a point until today... every one here understands... and we are all tired... the blade on this old knife is worn out... my m16 can barely take abuse anymore... and neither of us want to keep on going on for nothing... and we can no longer keep going on like we did until now... mother nature is dying, and father time will soon follow. No one can keep on going like this... we are all starving and sick. We are all tired and ashamed.

I appreciate you hearing me. I am sorry it had to end for both of us this way for these reasons... I suppose there is nothing any one could have ever done... that is what Ralph always said, even as it was ending for him. "There is nothing that any one could have ever done..." There was something that I never understood that he did... and I think I understand it now.