She gets up having slept in her stale clothes. Too damn cold to change. Too damn tired to care. Her back aching of army cot. Her fingers from lack of gloves. Her eyes from eighteen hours of standing surgery, full of arms and legs amputated, of gaunt young faces bewildered, ash-gray in the way of morning campfire and about as resigned.She pours cold water into her steel helmet, fishes her toothbrush from a pocket and scrubs at coffee stains. Outside, trucks are arriving, first the brakes, then the shouting. She tunes it out the way one tunes out static between channels. Listening without hearing. Able to decipher the important shouts from the not so important. These damn mornings. Full of yelling. Shouting. Bitter cold. A brief respite between endless days, with necks stiff as death, arms amputee sore and more wounded than beds.
She drinks her bitter coffee then heads by habit, quickly, to the latrine. To the smell and odor of a communal hole in the ground. She could take a shit in the middle of the camp and no one would look twice. But damn if she walks in from town without her helmet. Even here, the germs of chickenshit pettiness survive. Like fucking lice on an indigent orphan.
Kate. Kicks cot. Kate. Time to get up.
Why are you yelling?
Didn't know I was. Now get your arse up.
7 comments:
She numbs her mind against the assaults of the day, but will be denied the peace of sleep when she gets back in that cot.
I feel static
in between here
and there.
Limes, you got it. Her sleep is disturbed by both the war and the loss of Virgil and the issues, which we haven't explored yet, of being pregnant or at least thinking she is pregnant. The girl got a lot goin' on. :-D
Erin, I'm going to need to sit on your comment until it confesses its secret. But I'd rather you come back and pull me a pint of words wearing your favorite shirt. I want to see the swale of your breath rising. :-D
With pressure coming from every angle. My own personal "two stoplights from crazy". And yet, we (the collective we) deal with multiple huge things all the time and continue to function on autopilot. I bet I'd still be operating even while dealing with . . . . never mind.
Limes, I could be wrong, but I have the feeling you are a trooper, that no matter the circumstance, stress or pressure, you show up for work and do your job and do it without complaint.
I might properly be characterized a soldier, but I'm not a saint, believe me. I'm glad I don't have her sanitary conditions and pregnancy concerns to deal with. ;}
Post a Comment