Calliope -- The Great Novel Race of 2008 -- Untitled by Joshua Bumgardner -- Chapter Four

The Great Novel Race 2008:

Untitled

by Joshua Bumgardner

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Chapter 4: Landslide

Part I: Hatched

After the toilets vacuum flush sends his waste into the neither regions of the plane’s bowels and he pictures Josephine’s disgusted face holding his insulted nose away from the offending stench Hatchet can’t help it, it’s too easy to avoid.

So simply and satisfyingly evil that he finds himself on his hands knees clutching the device of destruction with a hard fist and iron resolve. He doesn’t even bother to look around. The rustle of movement and loud talk of what to expect after the screech of the landed plane is all encompassing. Except to him.

He reaches up and with a quick jerk removes the article that had been so lovingly prepared. And after licking his index finger touches it to the smooth metal front of his weapon, still warm from its recent use. Twisting the selector to full kill, he presses down with all of his one hundred and sixty two pound frame waiting for the moment he knows he will have to stop.

The moment when the gigantic figure of Josephine flushes his own waste into the plane.

The moment takes forever in his mind to come. He presses harder and the scorched fabric sends its matter off into the air in a tiny haze of smoke. Fearful that he has done the job better then he needs to he removes the iron and judges his handy work satisfactory before replacing the BDU jacket in a rumpled ball on the seat next to General Franks who sits benignly as if in a meditative trance.

The generals shit brown t-shirt does little to hide his old man body of sagging flesh and little muscle. His head covered by the tan camo covered Kevlar helmet, and his waist circled by the O.D. green ALICE belt holding his canteen, ammo pouches and nine millimeter hand gun tight to his waist, announces the dementia the general feels floating around in his head. The dementia that has allowed the old man to forgot his BDU jacket under his equipment.

Hatchet notices and a small glimmer of hope for a soul emerges in his conscious. But so beaten through out the years of political maneuvering and game playing it says nothing as the colonel takes his seat next to his commanding officer with a smirk suggesting he cant wait to see what happens when everyone see their leader out of uniform.

Part II: untitled

It’s in the last small moments of the setting sun where the glint of thousands of pieces of metal subtract from the great orb’s glory. Tens of thousands of pieces of metal attached in one way or another to a few thousand GI’s. GI’s dressed in tan camo and brown boots, not the shining brown boots of the fifties but a rough leather variety.

The spit and polish Army on vacation.

Tens of thousands boots stand on the over heated asphalt of the Airport named for a living monarch. The same monarch that had given permission for the infidels of America to invade his lands to attack a neighbor who may or may not be trying to tackle the whole of the middle east. That Monarch is not present. Other such dignified men are though.

These men of power don’t drape themselves in silk and luxury but instead stars. Little black one dotted across the foreheads, laid in straight lines along their collars. These stars are worse then any crown. They spell power and intelligence, and experience, and in some cases they may even spell the ending of life for the wearer. The star bearers are old. They are the Amry’s Grandfathers and great uncles.

The smell of the day is leaving the tarmac in waves of heat and a touch of a burnt tar. The feel of the long flight remains on the men adjusting their legs from the cramped confines of the trip to the rigors of formation. Rifles held tight across their chests faces turned strictly ahead but eyes roving all over the foreign scenery, and mouths moving in exclamation, of the exotic locale they find themselves, in hushed whispers to the men next to them.

News camera’s record footage of the congregation. Its news because today marks the moment the Arabian theatre holds more the five hundred thousand troops.

Troops from all over. From the 140 degree desert of Pahrump Nevada and the sticky humidity of Port Richey Florida or even the black coal mine dotted hills of Hollar West Virginia and even the subway buried boroughs of elite Manhattan. To each and every one of them this was a different planet.

A planet were the bottoms of ones feet could turn deadly. Where a simple cat call after a beautiful woman may turn into a vacation for ones head from their body. Where a drink was tea and not beer where the very face of equality had been washed away by centuries of blood.

The sand here has turned into a common commodity world wide having been tracked back home by almost every army ever amassed through the history of man kind. Collected in the crevices of skin and equipment and knocked clean finally after being kicked into a closet after the final battle was done. Won or lost, this place was a favorite for countries to play War.

Flat.

That’s what the main man standing in the bed of an open HMMVEE knows. And flat is good. Flat enables enemies to kill each other with no trickery. Trickery like the fore fathers of this amassed army had once done to win their independence. An independence that has lead to here and to his moment in history. He is the granddaddy of them all. The patriarch that before today was nothing more then a picture on the wall, four down from the president equal with four other men. But history would record his name win or lose.

And this was part of it. These men standing in organized boxes. These men who’s experience he could choose to spend anyway he wishes.

This airport runway holds the experience of; 1 light general, 5 major generals, 25 briggy Generals, 125, light colonels, 625, captains, 3125, lieutenants, and the rest are enlisted and only count as fodder to be thrown in front of enemy munitions and sometimes friendly fire, they are to be used sparingly for their number is just over 500 thou, and the president seeks reelection in the next two years, so the wish is that number doesn’t change much.

These are the members of this corp numbered 7. A corp with a bloody history. With Patton smiling out from history, and Custard on his last stand, a history of giving its all, even if it takes more then it has.

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