A Desperate Mind
by
Michael Calvillo
She sat in front of me, her little eyes staring at the ceiling fan spinning above, her hands holding a piece of breakfast cereal and the toothbrush we bought for her first birthday. A gray plastic tray lay before her, littered with pieces of cereal and last night’s leftovers of black beans and brown rice. She stopped staring at the fan and looked at me. Her eyes squinted as wide as her mouth smiled and she flared what few teeth she had in a mushy grin. She squealed when I returned her mushy grin with a toothy one of my own.
This must be a dream.
I awoke to the din of the warehouse around me. Soldiers were moving heavy crates onto the backs of trailers tethered to trucks waiting to drive to the next depot. Opposite me were a couple of soldiers, one throwing a punch at the other, missing, and taking one in return. Others were just getting up themselves, pulling on their gear with rifles in hand. And far above me in the cavernous room hung an industrial ceiling fan, its blades slowly rotating.
I stood and collected my things. I slung my rucksack onto my back and slid my helmet strap through one of its metal buckles. The plastic threads on my gear stretched and screeched as I pulled them tight. Behind me, a soldier’s pack spilled open, and its contents poured out like a child dropping a little tray of food.
Our platoon sergeant, a man whose name I never remembered, shouted out the roll call, which prompted those of us still sleeping to wake. We were moving out now. Foxholes don’t dig themselves.
I recalled my dream as I stared back at the warehouse from the back of the truck carrying my platoon away. There was a baby, about one-year-old, smiling with a face full of oats and a wispy lick of hair sticking up like a daisy in the sun. She giggled. I remembered a woman, her hair black with scattered streaks of silver highlighting a calm and loving face and eyes as warm as her child was happy. They sat together, looking at me from across a wooden table full of pictures of moments from other memories not yet fully remembered but hiding in plain sight, as all memories do, waiting to be found by a desperate mind with either too much time or not enough.
The truck turned a corner, and the warehouse slid out of sight. The sun was low in the distance. My thoughts turned to the metal seat underneath me and the burnt air entering my lungs.
This was not a dream.
This must be a dream.
I awoke to the din of the warehouse around me. Soldiers were moving heavy crates onto the backs of trailers tethered to trucks waiting to drive to the next depot. Opposite me were a couple of soldiers, one throwing a punch at the other, missing, and taking one in return. Others were just getting up themselves, pulling on their gear with rifles in hand. And far above me in the cavernous room hung an industrial ceiling fan, its blades slowly rotating.
I stood and collected my things. I slung my rucksack onto my back and slid my helmet strap through one of its metal buckles. The plastic threads on my gear stretched and screeched as I pulled them tight. Behind me, a soldier’s pack spilled open, and its contents poured out like a child dropping a little tray of food.
Our platoon sergeant, a man whose name I never remembered, shouted out the roll call, which prompted those of us still sleeping to wake. We were moving out now. Foxholes don’t dig themselves.
I recalled my dream as I stared back at the warehouse from the back of the truck carrying my platoon away. There was a baby, about one-year-old, smiling with a face full of oats and a wispy lick of hair sticking up like a daisy in the sun. She giggled. I remembered a woman, her hair black with scattered streaks of silver highlighting a calm and loving face and eyes as warm as her child was happy. They sat together, looking at me from across a wooden table full of pictures of moments from other memories not yet fully remembered but hiding in plain sight, as all memories do, waiting to be found by a desperate mind with either too much time or not enough.
The truck turned a corner, and the warehouse slid out of sight. The sun was low in the distance. My thoughts turned to the metal seat underneath me and the burnt air entering my lungs.
This was not a dream.
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