An unfinished thought.... Enjoy.
The bright blue tarp did its best to block the sun. It succeeded. It offered shade, but despite its best efforts to keep us cool, it failed as it also blocked the gentle breeze that threatened to redeem the day from the nearly bearable, seemingly post-apocalyptic heat.
Sweat was beading up on the faces of the squad beneath the tarp. Today, rather than curling up for a nap under their poncho liners, they balled them up and used them as pillows as they tried to rest or gossiped quietly.
I learned long ago to be silent and only observe how others interact before I interact with others. These others had proven to be mostly decent people, but whenever I had enough courage to attempt to add the conversation, they would simply stare at me or tell me about how awkward I made the conversation. Today, rather than risking scrutiny and judgement, I simply listened. As I was one of the two lieutenants sitting quietly, I was one of two people in the squad who heard the dispatcher on the radio talk about the man roaming the area suspiciously and pretending to be a military police officer.
We heeded the advice of the dispatcher by taking note of and informing the rest of the squad of the challenge and password so anyone of us might be able to identify the suspicious character should be find himself in our lean-to.
I folded up my own poncho and lay down. I stared at the tarpish-coloured sky and prayed for a strong wind.
I clapped my hands loudly in front of my face-my eyes crossed, concentration showing in my snarl. I looked down at my palm at the black speck. I could not quite focus on it. I had not yet had enough whiskey to save the lives of the mosquitoes. As I scratched the bites on my already swollen arm, I wondered why my work mates would frequent a pub so often-a pub that seemed to cater more insects than humans. It must have been the bar tenders who were good with names and the halfway amusing karaoke on Friday nights that kept us coming back.
The cadets had all gone home. Their assessments were completed. Our job was done in Lacey, Washington. In the morning, we would be moving to the World War II barracks on North Fort Lewis. As a newly commissioned second lieutenant, most of us were still in living-day-to-day training mode. To lose track of the days was standard operating procedure when one works at least sixteen hours every day for longer than nine days. One lives one day at a time; and when the job turns out to be done, she drinks until the memory is shrouded in an alcohol-induced fog. Selectiveness in pubs took a backseat to simply answering the question, “Can we drink there?”
My next double shot of Jameson appeared on the table as I smacked my own shoulder and flicked off the sad, mangled mosquito carcass.
A good whiskey is enjoyed with all five senses. First, I looked at the beautiful golden liquid, sloshed it around in its tiny glass. Defying gravity, the alcohol slowly settled back down to the bottom of the glass. I then inhaled the essence of the elixir. I enjoyed its sweet sting. I sipped the first shot to enjoy the flavour. I downed the second half and revelled in the burn. Smith exhaled a high pitched “whew” that I could chuckle at for only a short moment. My new mobile phone had a tendency to interrupt such subtle and aesthetically pleasing moments. I had not even given my new number to most of my friends and family yet. I prayed that it was not a new email notification. Those were the most annoying.
A small victory, it was my ride home from the pub.
“here. wsting oustid.”
I downed the dregs of Smith’s unfinished shot. The text had come just in time. People around me had begun to dance. They were getting louder and singing more ridiculous country songs for karaoke. As a responsible drinker-limiting myself to only three drinks, I was about to be bored.
I signalled to Smith that my car had arrived and that I would be leaving. He nodded to me and went to the bar, probably to ask the bar tender if they had gotten and Guinness in since the last time he had asked-approximately eight and a quarter minutes ago.
It was dark. The sky was clear. Stars seemed to light up the ground and the Perseid space trash fell through the atmosphere elegantly and smoothly. I did not know that I should have looked a little to the right behind me and behind the pub. My tipsy, un-focusing, overexposed eyes saw nothing out of the ordinary as I got into the car with my designated driver.
Evans came to the second floor of the hotel with me. He was much more comfortably dressed than I was, and I was envious. I changed into my eccentrically plaid trousers and tan ACU tee shirt. He sat on the bed for a moment and watched me pack up the last of my things, leaving only one uniform unpacked. I crossed over to the nightstand between the two queen sized beds. I tore up the corner of the blankets on one of the beds. Evans looked at me frankly.
“Thank you for the ride, Love,” I said as I rolled over into my bed and assumed the horizontal position. I heard the door shut behind Evans as he left, and I turned off the lights and slept until the morning.
We all awoke before the sun had decided to make an appearance. The air outside was cool, and the sky was cloudy. The day promised to be a typical, gloomy Pacific Northwest day. We stood around outside Tetris-ing our belongings into the fifteen passenger vans and privately owned vehicles. Most of us had acquired a few more bags since we arrived at the hotel, and we were finding it difficult to fit the entirety of our luggage into the vans.
Finally, we had all checked out of our rooms and were all crammed into a vehicle of some kind. We were on our way to the barracks still before the sun had risen.
We arrived at the barracks and the site shocked me. I remembered them from when I was a cadet last year, but I really had hoped that I would never have to see them again. The outsides were painted white, but the dust in the air gave them a faint yellow, dirtiness. Doors and window frames were painted an odd shade of olive green. The brown roofs were growing various types of mosses. North Fort Lewis was disgustingly dull and institutionally depressing.
My bags were off loaded from the van and tossed into the upstairs of the barracks. The stairs creaked, and the holes in the walls were crudely taped over with hundred-mile-an-hour tape. Some of the tape patches were painted over in an effort to make them match the wall. I wondered why they would put that kind of effort into a cheap fix. They could have just done it properly. I guess this is a prime example of “good enough for government work.”
We sat around in the barracks for nearly an hour before we got word that we were needed at the command centre. We were instructed to bring our mobile phones. Rumours of turning them in had been floating around the bay for several minutes-as rumours do in barrack settings. Before leaving for the meeting at the command centre, I grabbed my old prepaid phone. I refused to give them my new Android phone, which had become my best friend. It would be cruel to strand me in the holding company without my FreeCell and mobile dictionary. I hid that one for the time being in my wall locker.
The rumours turned out to be true this time. There was a chorus of moaning, griping, and offensive language as we all meandered our way back to our barracks. I complained along side them to a few people who cared to listen. I had to keep up appearances. I did not want anyone to know that I had hidden my phone in my locker.
“The Major has been acting strangely, today,” Evans stated the obvious.
“Are you sure that he’s not just … you know… like that? Maybe he just had his braces tightened.” I retorted.
The Major was a loud, funny-looking, late-thirties fellow with braces and a science fiction fascination.
We shrugged at each other and went our separate ways-him to the male barracks, me to the female ones.
As I thought about it, I realised that Major Braces was acting strangely. He was not his usual, offensive self. He was quiet. That was a refreshing shock. He was secretive. Something must be happening outside of work that he was hesitant to tell us about. This was strange, as he normally enjoyed telling us all about his relationship with his family and embellishing mundane stories. He was not the only person at the command centre who had been acting strangely, either. Lieutenant McSeigner was a self-loving man-child lieutenant who thought all of us were his own personal privates first class. He was acting oddly, as well. He did not once tell us that something was “too easy” or refer to us as “Nancies”. Everyone in the room then was quieter. They seemed worried about something.
I quickly unlocked my wall locker. I had not brought a decent lock, so I had put two TSA locks on it in an attempt to compensate. I pulled stood on the bottom of the wall locker to give me that extra boost so I could reach the back of the top shelf where I had hidden my phone. I sat down on my bed forgetting the glares of the people around me. I pulled up the menu and scrolled through the options. There really was an “app” for everything, and despite my Android phone being new, I had most of them. I finally found the “news and weather” application. I tapped it excitedly, curious to know what was going on around me. The headlines wiped the smile from my face almost instantly. They read “Pacific Northwest Devastated by Mind-Altering Plague” and “UFOs Spotted in Night Sky over Washington”. UFOs and mind-altering plagues were certainly two things that might change my mood a little bit. I read on, first about the UFOs, because those are generally more interesting than the latest flu that threatens to destroy the world. After SARS, Swine Flu, and Bird Flu I had heard all I needed to hear about pandemics. Apparently, there were strange lights spotted over Tacoma the night before. Eyewitnesses described it as a spherical shape in the sky surrounded by foggy green lights. Once I had the general idea of the UFO story, I decided that it was time to learn about the newest epidemic. Even if it was nothing really to worry about, knowledge was still the best defence against mindlessness.
The state of Washington had been quarantined. The National Guard had been activated to keep the peace among those not infected and to exterminate those who had been. Infected people quickly lost their minds. It began with symptoms similar to the early stages of Alzheimer’s. It quickly progressed into full-fledged insanity with similar symptoms to paranoid schizophrenia. The victims usually became rabidly homicidal, and in the best cases, bloodthirstily suicidal. The article stated that the only way to stop them was to kill them, and the only way to not contract the illness ones self was to avoid contact with any infected person. Close quarter combatives with infected people were not advised as it is much more possible to ingest blood spatter at close range.
I was jolted awake from my daydream when Evans stopped by our barracks on his way to the command centre to tell us that we should follow him. I stood up and followed so quickly that my head did not even have time to spin. They all walked toward the central building as slow as they could, anxious to hear what Major Braces was so anxious to say. I did not try to follow; I ran to the front of the pack and was the first person through the door.
“Sir, what is going on?” I completely forgot that I was supposed to have turned in my phone that morning. Major Braces did not seem to care, however. He simply looked at me and told me to wait until the rest arrived.
North Fort Lewis was to be barricaded. Instances of the illness were found on the main post. Gates were closed around the barracks, and each lieutenant in the holding company was assigned to a team to work details and to keep accountability. I was put into a six-person detail with three Lieutenants that I had never met before-Lassiter, O’Dell, and Carter-and a newly-demoted-from-staff-duty Lieutenant McSeigner. Thankfully, Evans was also on my team. His presence promised to make our guard duties and our off time much more interesting. We were to be manning the north guard towers. Guard duty was to begin in the morning.
After my assignment, I walked down the road toward the barracks slowly in an effort to collect my thoughts. I did not feel prepared for such a disaster. We were not to go anywhere alone. The “battle buddy system” was to be enforced.
“Hey Lassiter. I’m going to go do some PT,” I called ahead to my team leader.
“Right then. Take somebody with you,” He called back. “I’ll be at the barracks making lists and doing other seemingly important things that team leaders have to do.”
O’Dell, Carter, and Evans called out that they would meet at the “adult playground” in 10 minutes for some physical training and team building. McSeigner just walked into his barracks staring at his feet and saying nothing that can be repeated in the company of the very old or the very young.
Patrols had been sent out during the day, but that did not stop O’Dell and I from being very jumpy during our first shift together at the guard tower. During training, we had been given weapons and been taught how to use them. We had been taught in school how to scan our sectors of fire and how to recognise and compensate for dead space. Never in all our training were we so afraid of every light gust of wind and every dark shadow. Every bat and crow that flew by threatened our peace of mind and tested the sensitivity of our selector-rotating fingers.
Sweat was beading up on the faces of the squad beneath the tarp. Today, rather than curling up for a nap under their poncho liners, they balled them up and used them as pillows as they tried to rest or gossiped quietly.
I learned long ago to be silent and only observe how others interact before I interact with others. These others had proven to be mostly decent people, but whenever I had enough courage to attempt to add the conversation, they would simply stare at me or tell me about how awkward I made the conversation. Today, rather than risking scrutiny and judgement, I simply listened. As I was one of the two lieutenants sitting quietly, I was one of two people in the squad who heard the dispatcher on the radio talk about the man roaming the area suspiciously and pretending to be a military police officer.
We heeded the advice of the dispatcher by taking note of and informing the rest of the squad of the challenge and password so anyone of us might be able to identify the suspicious character should be find himself in our lean-to.
I folded up my own poncho and lay down. I stared at the tarpish-coloured sky and prayed for a strong wind.
I clapped my hands loudly in front of my face-my eyes crossed, concentration showing in my snarl. I looked down at my palm at the black speck. I could not quite focus on it. I had not yet had enough whiskey to save the lives of the mosquitoes. As I scratched the bites on my already swollen arm, I wondered why my work mates would frequent a pub so often-a pub that seemed to cater more insects than humans. It must have been the bar tenders who were good with names and the halfway amusing karaoke on Friday nights that kept us coming back.
The cadets had all gone home. Their assessments were completed. Our job was done in Lacey, Washington. In the morning, we would be moving to the World War II barracks on North Fort Lewis. As a newly commissioned second lieutenant, most of us were still in living-day-to-day training mode. To lose track of the days was standard operating procedure when one works at least sixteen hours every day for longer than nine days. One lives one day at a time; and when the job turns out to be done, she drinks until the memory is shrouded in an alcohol-induced fog. Selectiveness in pubs took a backseat to simply answering the question, “Can we drink there?”
My next double shot of Jameson appeared on the table as I smacked my own shoulder and flicked off the sad, mangled mosquito carcass.
A good whiskey is enjoyed with all five senses. First, I looked at the beautiful golden liquid, sloshed it around in its tiny glass. Defying gravity, the alcohol slowly settled back down to the bottom of the glass. I then inhaled the essence of the elixir. I enjoyed its sweet sting. I sipped the first shot to enjoy the flavour. I downed the second half and revelled in the burn. Smith exhaled a high pitched “whew” that I could chuckle at for only a short moment. My new mobile phone had a tendency to interrupt such subtle and aesthetically pleasing moments. I had not even given my new number to most of my friends and family yet. I prayed that it was not a new email notification. Those were the most annoying.
A small victory, it was my ride home from the pub.
“here. wsting oustid.”
I downed the dregs of Smith’s unfinished shot. The text had come just in time. People around me had begun to dance. They were getting louder and singing more ridiculous country songs for karaoke. As a responsible drinker-limiting myself to only three drinks, I was about to be bored.
I signalled to Smith that my car had arrived and that I would be leaving. He nodded to me and went to the bar, probably to ask the bar tender if they had gotten and Guinness in since the last time he had asked-approximately eight and a quarter minutes ago.
It was dark. The sky was clear. Stars seemed to light up the ground and the Perseid space trash fell through the atmosphere elegantly and smoothly. I did not know that I should have looked a little to the right behind me and behind the pub. My tipsy, un-focusing, overexposed eyes saw nothing out of the ordinary as I got into the car with my designated driver.
Evans came to the second floor of the hotel with me. He was much more comfortably dressed than I was, and I was envious. I changed into my eccentrically plaid trousers and tan ACU tee shirt. He sat on the bed for a moment and watched me pack up the last of my things, leaving only one uniform unpacked. I crossed over to the nightstand between the two queen sized beds. I tore up the corner of the blankets on one of the beds. Evans looked at me frankly.
“Thank you for the ride, Love,” I said as I rolled over into my bed and assumed the horizontal position. I heard the door shut behind Evans as he left, and I turned off the lights and slept until the morning.
We all awoke before the sun had decided to make an appearance. The air outside was cool, and the sky was cloudy. The day promised to be a typical, gloomy Pacific Northwest day. We stood around outside Tetris-ing our belongings into the fifteen passenger vans and privately owned vehicles. Most of us had acquired a few more bags since we arrived at the hotel, and we were finding it difficult to fit the entirety of our luggage into the vans.
Finally, we had all checked out of our rooms and were all crammed into a vehicle of some kind. We were on our way to the barracks still before the sun had risen.
We arrived at the barracks and the site shocked me. I remembered them from when I was a cadet last year, but I really had hoped that I would never have to see them again. The outsides were painted white, but the dust in the air gave them a faint yellow, dirtiness. Doors and window frames were painted an odd shade of olive green. The brown roofs were growing various types of mosses. North Fort Lewis was disgustingly dull and institutionally depressing.
My bags were off loaded from the van and tossed into the upstairs of the barracks. The stairs creaked, and the holes in the walls were crudely taped over with hundred-mile-an-hour tape. Some of the tape patches were painted over in an effort to make them match the wall. I wondered why they would put that kind of effort into a cheap fix. They could have just done it properly. I guess this is a prime example of “good enough for government work.”
We sat around in the barracks for nearly an hour before we got word that we were needed at the command centre. We were instructed to bring our mobile phones. Rumours of turning them in had been floating around the bay for several minutes-as rumours do in barrack settings. Before leaving for the meeting at the command centre, I grabbed my old prepaid phone. I refused to give them my new Android phone, which had become my best friend. It would be cruel to strand me in the holding company without my FreeCell and mobile dictionary. I hid that one for the time being in my wall locker.
The rumours turned out to be true this time. There was a chorus of moaning, griping, and offensive language as we all meandered our way back to our barracks. I complained along side them to a few people who cared to listen. I had to keep up appearances. I did not want anyone to know that I had hidden my phone in my locker.
“The Major has been acting strangely, today,” Evans stated the obvious.
“Are you sure that he’s not just … you know… like that? Maybe he just had his braces tightened.” I retorted.
The Major was a loud, funny-looking, late-thirties fellow with braces and a science fiction fascination.
We shrugged at each other and went our separate ways-him to the male barracks, me to the female ones.
As I thought about it, I realised that Major Braces was acting strangely. He was not his usual, offensive self. He was quiet. That was a refreshing shock. He was secretive. Something must be happening outside of work that he was hesitant to tell us about. This was strange, as he normally enjoyed telling us all about his relationship with his family and embellishing mundane stories. He was not the only person at the command centre who had been acting strangely, either. Lieutenant McSeigner was a self-loving man-child lieutenant who thought all of us were his own personal privates first class. He was acting oddly, as well. He did not once tell us that something was “too easy” or refer to us as “Nancies”. Everyone in the room then was quieter. They seemed worried about something.
I quickly unlocked my wall locker. I had not brought a decent lock, so I had put two TSA locks on it in an attempt to compensate. I pulled stood on the bottom of the wall locker to give me that extra boost so I could reach the back of the top shelf where I had hidden my phone. I sat down on my bed forgetting the glares of the people around me. I pulled up the menu and scrolled through the options. There really was an “app” for everything, and despite my Android phone being new, I had most of them. I finally found the “news and weather” application. I tapped it excitedly, curious to know what was going on around me. The headlines wiped the smile from my face almost instantly. They read “Pacific Northwest Devastated by Mind-Altering Plague” and “UFOs Spotted in Night Sky over Washington”. UFOs and mind-altering plagues were certainly two things that might change my mood a little bit. I read on, first about the UFOs, because those are generally more interesting than the latest flu that threatens to destroy the world. After SARS, Swine Flu, and Bird Flu I had heard all I needed to hear about pandemics. Apparently, there were strange lights spotted over Tacoma the night before. Eyewitnesses described it as a spherical shape in the sky surrounded by foggy green lights. Once I had the general idea of the UFO story, I decided that it was time to learn about the newest epidemic. Even if it was nothing really to worry about, knowledge was still the best defence against mindlessness.
The state of Washington had been quarantined. The National Guard had been activated to keep the peace among those not infected and to exterminate those who had been. Infected people quickly lost their minds. It began with symptoms similar to the early stages of Alzheimer’s. It quickly progressed into full-fledged insanity with similar symptoms to paranoid schizophrenia. The victims usually became rabidly homicidal, and in the best cases, bloodthirstily suicidal. The article stated that the only way to stop them was to kill them, and the only way to not contract the illness ones self was to avoid contact with any infected person. Close quarter combatives with infected people were not advised as it is much more possible to ingest blood spatter at close range.
I was jolted awake from my daydream when Evans stopped by our barracks on his way to the command centre to tell us that we should follow him. I stood up and followed so quickly that my head did not even have time to spin. They all walked toward the central building as slow as they could, anxious to hear what Major Braces was so anxious to say. I did not try to follow; I ran to the front of the pack and was the first person through the door.
“Sir, what is going on?” I completely forgot that I was supposed to have turned in my phone that morning. Major Braces did not seem to care, however. He simply looked at me and told me to wait until the rest arrived.
North Fort Lewis was to be barricaded. Instances of the illness were found on the main post. Gates were closed around the barracks, and each lieutenant in the holding company was assigned to a team to work details and to keep accountability. I was put into a six-person detail with three Lieutenants that I had never met before-Lassiter, O’Dell, and Carter-and a newly-demoted-from-staff-duty Lieutenant McSeigner. Thankfully, Evans was also on my team. His presence promised to make our guard duties and our off time much more interesting. We were to be manning the north guard towers. Guard duty was to begin in the morning.
After my assignment, I walked down the road toward the barracks slowly in an effort to collect my thoughts. I did not feel prepared for such a disaster. We were not to go anywhere alone. The “battle buddy system” was to be enforced.
“Hey Lassiter. I’m going to go do some PT,” I called ahead to my team leader.
“Right then. Take somebody with you,” He called back. “I’ll be at the barracks making lists and doing other seemingly important things that team leaders have to do.”
O’Dell, Carter, and Evans called out that they would meet at the “adult playground” in 10 minutes for some physical training and team building. McSeigner just walked into his barracks staring at his feet and saying nothing that can be repeated in the company of the very old or the very young.
Patrols had been sent out during the day, but that did not stop O’Dell and I from being very jumpy during our first shift together at the guard tower. During training, we had been given weapons and been taught how to use them. We had been taught in school how to scan our sectors of fire and how to recognise and compensate for dead space. Never in all our training were we so afraid of every light gust of wind and every dark shadow. Every bat and crow that flew by threatened our peace of mind and tested the sensitivity of our selector-rotating fingers.