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Rest & Recuperation


Ezekiel Koehler

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The army was going to have to stop making such lofty promises, Ezekiel decided, taking another sip of his coffee.

 

He'd seen the recruitment posters just like everybody else; "Learn a trade! Meet new people! Visit foreign countries!" To be fair, was learning a trade and he had been to some new places, but his balding drill sergeant had only managed to stay fresh and exciting for a couple of days before Ezekiel had been just about ready to meet some other new people. Still, it wasn't as much that the posters failed to fulfill their promises, but rather that they'd failed to mention some fairly prominent parts of soldiery. His idle musings turning down a more creative lane, Ezekiel could just about picture a more truthful version of those very same posters.

 

"Get yelled at by complete strangers! Meet people who desperately want to kill you! Sit around in barracks and drink bland-ass coffee while you contemplate desertion!"

 

A certain uncanny accuracy prevented it from being funny for any greater lengths of time, and the red-haired crewman settled back into his brooding mood, sprawled out on a couch in the common area of his assigned barracks. The couch itself was one of those hard-cushioned affairs, not so much designed for comfort as it was for economy - The military liked things that way. The way they figured it, a numb ass and a strangely wooden taste in your mouth was a small price to pay for being turned into what his drill sergeant had very enthusiastically referred to as "an 'ard man".

 

The rest of the barracks wasn't much cozier. Made of steel, concrete and bland, whitewashed linoleum, the whole thing was as aesthetically appealing as a pile of rocks, and just about as likely to enthuse. A couple of half-hearted attempts had been made by earlier inhabitants to make the room more lifelike by putting up some posters along the rows of bunks, but the rock stars and glamour models displayed were for the most part at least ten years outdated, making them more nostalgic than invigorating.

 

Putting down his coffee, Ezekiel let his eyes drift over the room before he picked up a newspaper, sighing in boredom.

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