Doug: To distill such a perfect form...

"Yeah, Mountain Warfare's a cool school. It's like taking everything thats is fun about camping and adding guns."

I nod eagerly. That does sound really cool. I want to skip CORTRAMID and go straight to Mountain Warfare. Come to think of it, I want to skip College and go straight to the Marine Corps. But I don't voice that opinion. Everyone here thinks that. School is for people with free time. ROTC affords none.

Staff Sergeant Pederson and I take our leave of each other at the intersection. I heading towards breakfast, him to somewhere else.

I glance upon the ground at the scattered blossoms that have scattered and fallen from the storm.

Perfection leaps up from the ground and demands my attention. I cannot move. I cannot think. I am blow away by what i have seen. I am frozen, staring at the thing that has enraptured me.

For the past month my grey and windy city has been blooming into a sanctuary of various types of beautiful plants. Cherry Blossoms in the quad have people from other countries coming to look at them. Flower gardens all over campus literally punch you in the face with incredible displays of color. Tulips, daisies, roses, all sway in the slight, ever present breeze.

Humanity has invaded the quad, soaking up the sun and natural beauty. It is impossible to move more than a foot and not trip over someone. The bright sunlight seems an impossible gift after the blustery misery of the winter. I can still almost feel the cold in my bones.

Not right now.

Captured, enthralled, enraptured, compelled, I reach down to the thing at my feet.

It has flaws, slightly uneven petals, a little dirty from being on the ground. It's a little wilted around the edges.

But the core. The core is PERFECT. I am almost abashed by my observing it.

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle states that observing anything changes it from it's previous state.

I am convinced by observing this perfect flower I have somehow made it less than it was before. The thought nearly breaks my heart. The slightly wilted edges indicate where interaction with this world has already accomplished what I feared. The world has damaged this perfect gift.

Wait. Something tells me I'm wrong.

Without my observation, I would have never known this thing's beauty. Without it dropping to the ground, making it slightly less clean, I would have never had the privilege to discover this. A thousand tiny things, seemingly making it less than what it could have been have all combined to place this seemingly impossible thing in my hands. A thousand, A million, A trillion choices, factors, accidents and decisions have led me to this exact place at this exact time. And suddenly I know.

They aren't flaws.

This Blossom is perfect, though it isn't clean, isn't all perfect at the edges. It still is perfect.

In my unworthy hand, I hold Divinity.

Then I look around. The ground is cluttered with them.

"Oh... Wow..."

-Doug

"I found God, on the corner of First and Amistad.
Where the West, Was all but won...
All alone, smokin his last cigarette,
I said 'Where you been?'
He said 'Ask anything.'"
The Fray, "You Found Me."