...the Sticks...

20 MAR 2010

I didn’t sleep last night. I wasn’t troubled or disturbed or anything silly like that. I had an Army Physical Fitness Test at 0300 and I chose to make it a red-eye. At 0230, I put down one of those five-hour, heart attack inducing, probably extract of crack, foul tasting to-boot, energy drinks. Remember the scene in A Clockwork Orange, where the old lady thinks the refrigerator is after her?

And then, with the taste of cheap stimulants still lingering between the creases of my crooked teeth, the APFT was cancelled. I spent the next hour on a treadmill, running away from hostile kitchen appliances that only exist in some cult classic. And when my impersonation of a hamster on a wheel ended, I had a shower, and then sat on the steps to my billets for a smoke.

It was there on the steps with more cheap stimulants, that I heard a familiar and heartwarming, ka-clank. I thought of the Sticks; the docks when all the boats are in, with sails stowed and masts all waving on the shoreline like a patch of tall sea grass. The wind blows through and rolls the grass so and ka-clank. Then the wake pushes past and rolls the grass back and ka-clank. Sleeping on the deck of a boat. If the beer, wine and rum don’t put you to bed, the metronome of a rocking sea will.

Unfortunately though, I was not in the Sticks. I was sitting on the steps to my billets, in the middle of a desert, with a dust storm lingering about. I was watching a flagpole’s pulley dancing about and every-so-often slapping into the metal and ka-clank. Too bad, I guess.

I have spent the remainder of my sleepless day preparing for the next mission—checks and inspections, weapons cleaning and vehicle maintenance, typical Army stuff—earning my paycheck and so on. When time finally permitted sleep, Stephen King’s, Pennywise wouldn’t let me rest in peace. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a bad dream. Oh well, no time for bastard clowns, I’m going back to Baghdad tomorrow. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to Baghdad too.

- The Exodus