Regression

It's tempting to let myself fall back into an earlier state. Losing Pat has been a blow so hard I'm still reeling from it days later. I want to curl up into a ball and ignore everything else. The monster inside me has my brain in its claws again, but I'm not going to give in. There's too much at stake, too many lives in the balance, for any of us to check out like that.

Not a lot of news from the front lines. After Patrick's scout team was discovered and I broke the news, our people on the front lines surged in a new wave of furious assaults. Most of them were naturally long-range since that's how the war is playing out so far, but more than a handful were powerful strikes across the killing fields, aimed at the heart of several key enemy positions. Those attacks weren't part of the plan, but there's always room for flexibility.

Pat was a popular guy, but it turns out he was a popular character as well. Being the one who writes this blog, it's very easy to forget that many of you out there read it or know someone who does and who shares it with you. I always think about that in terms of the information I supply, but this week reminds that for many of you out there, my life is sort of a soap opera. Maybe not the most interesting one in the world, but over time you've grown accustomed to the quirks of me and my friends. Pat was someone you knew, even if only by proxy.

A lot of you had met him before. Pat has been all over the place, and tried to spend time catching news from the convoys we trade with. You know what kind of guy he was first hand. That's why it doesn't really surprise me that so many folks are shocked and angry at his passing. He was loved. Is loved.

Overall the war is static. We've damaged the UAS in the last few days, but nothing game-changing. The apparently endless string of storms coming up from the gulf and tromping all over the Union is slowing down a lot of combat operations. That's good.

It's also making for a lot of saturated, spongy ground around these parts, which is also good. It means that Jess has spent a lot of time at home since the planting can't continue with the grass floating. She's still trying to come to terms with Pat as well, and for all the strength she's found over the last few years, at heart she is still a very emotionally sensitive and turbulent person. She hurts so hard, and I'm glad circumstances have kept her here longer than intended. Call me sexist, but part of the office of husband is the whole 'holding you while you cry' thing. Helping her through this is honestly helping me through it as well.

The mud is also slowing down the zombies. Turns out all those choke points are pretty devoid of vegetation from the concentrated pressure of so many zombie feet being funneled into them. They're basically huge mud pits now, but the undead seem to pay no attention to that fact. They keep on wallowing in, getting mired and making a really disgusting wall of flesh that can easily be dealt with and that also provides a break from the constant pressure of fighting.

It's a rough week. For right now we're in a relative lull, and I'll take it. I'm drained, stretched thin, and whatever other expressions you can think of for at the end of my patience and strength. I think I'll spend the day sleeping if I can manage it, and get to sleep by focusing on all the things I want to accomplish tomorrow and in the days that follow. It's the only thing that keeps me sane.

But that's all of us, I guess.