The Greyhound coach had taken what seemed an eternity to transport me and my small backpack to central Kentucky. But for the driver I was unaccompanied; throughout the day the rolling carcass had rumbled to stops at it’s pre-positioned hubs and disgorged the other travelers.
I had departed from the Indianapolis Military Entrance Processing Station in a limousine with a few other recruits. Upon arrival at the bus station we shook hands and went our separate ways. A few were heading to the Great Lakes Naval Center, some were on their way to the east coast to become Marines. I was traveling to Ft. Knox to be reborn as a soldier.
As the miles accumulated on the odometer, my old life was slipping into the dark. The physical span of this particular journey was minimal, but it might as well have been light years, unfathomable miles, from the sun.
I was a flesh and bone satellite tumbling away from earth. As the hours passed and the familiar sights shrank in the distance a great silence enveloped me. I was solitary in the hinterland of a great emptiness.
Ice began to form on my hull, obscuring my markings of origin. The processes inside began to slow with the cold and soon their noises would cease. The remnants of life were flickering, desperately drawing what energy was left, intermittently blinking in the dark until finally extinguishing in the subzero environment of space.
I was alone.
The cavernous aluminum leviathan lumbered to a halt on a small hill next to a battered concrete block shanty and opened its maw to spit me from it’s gullet.
I stepped out, into the gloom, and into a growing storm. The bus pulled away as a damp wind picked up the red dust of the ground and threw it against the diminutive weathered building. Lightning was flashing in the distance, silhouetting the unfamiliar horizon in crimson and gold. Thunder rumbled and mingled with the unmistakable "thud" and "krump" of artillery that was rising and falling in far away fields.
I stood on this forsaken purchase of ground with the vacant shack, inhaling the ozone, rain, and iron. The feeling was desolate and charged, causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand like prophets speaking of unavoidable action.
I had receive no instructions on what to do upon reporting to this post; do I wait here for some sort of shuttle? I had imagined that I would now be face to face with someone who would usher me into this alien world, but here I stood in the hollow of night with a frigid blast buffeting this remote, empty outpost.
The thought of walking away flashed in my mind; I could step away from all of this, evade into the tempest, and no one would observe my parting. But, I had no place to go; I had committed to this path and left my home as well as all that it had to offer. I was unprepared for any other option.
I looked to my broken associate who was anchored to the rise; in the shadow of it’s entrance, illuminated by a dim lamp, was a hinged metal box marked in with faded yellow paint ‘New Arrivals’.
I raised the cover, revealing a worn old telephone from a previous war. The receiver had been painted numerous times with varied shades of olive, and below it’s base was a single red button.
This moment was final; these terminal seconds that it would take my finger to touch the blood colored stud would be my last, as the person that I was.
I had departed from the Indianapolis Military Entrance Processing Station in a limousine with a few other recruits. Upon arrival at the bus station we shook hands and went our separate ways. A few were heading to the Great Lakes Naval Center, some were on their way to the east coast to become Marines. I was traveling to Ft. Knox to be reborn as a soldier.
As the miles accumulated on the odometer, my old life was slipping into the dark. The physical span of this particular journey was minimal, but it might as well have been light years, unfathomable miles, from the sun.
I was a flesh and bone satellite tumbling away from earth. As the hours passed and the familiar sights shrank in the distance a great silence enveloped me. I was solitary in the hinterland of a great emptiness.
Ice began to form on my hull, obscuring my markings of origin. The processes inside began to slow with the cold and soon their noises would cease. The remnants of life were flickering, desperately drawing what energy was left, intermittently blinking in the dark until finally extinguishing in the subzero environment of space.
I was alone.
The cavernous aluminum leviathan lumbered to a halt on a small hill next to a battered concrete block shanty and opened its maw to spit me from it’s gullet.
I stepped out, into the gloom, and into a growing storm. The bus pulled away as a damp wind picked up the red dust of the ground and threw it against the diminutive weathered building. Lightning was flashing in the distance, silhouetting the unfamiliar horizon in crimson and gold. Thunder rumbled and mingled with the unmistakable "thud" and "krump" of artillery that was rising and falling in far away fields.
I stood on this forsaken purchase of ground with the vacant shack, inhaling the ozone, rain, and iron. The feeling was desolate and charged, causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand like prophets speaking of unavoidable action.
I had receive no instructions on what to do upon reporting to this post; do I wait here for some sort of shuttle? I had imagined that I would now be face to face with someone who would usher me into this alien world, but here I stood in the hollow of night with a frigid blast buffeting this remote, empty outpost.
The thought of walking away flashed in my mind; I could step away from all of this, evade into the tempest, and no one would observe my parting. But, I had no place to go; I had committed to this path and left my home as well as all that it had to offer. I was unprepared for any other option.
I looked to my broken associate who was anchored to the rise; in the shadow of it’s entrance, illuminated by a dim lamp, was a hinged metal box marked in with faded yellow paint ‘New Arrivals’.
I raised the cover, revealing a worn old telephone from a previous war. The receiver had been painted numerous times with varied shades of olive, and below it’s base was a single red button.
This moment was final; these terminal seconds that it would take my finger to touch the blood colored stud would be my last, as the person that I was.
The device was bitter against my ear. My chest expanded as I formulated words for the being on the other end of the line.
I exhaled old fears, my heart rushed and resonated in my ears. I looked into the imminent roar, drew one last breath, and depressed the flaming contact that would announce my entrance to this world.
Another flash in the blackness, another rumble, more thunder.
With great labor, I would soon receive my resurrection.
I exhaled old fears, my heart rushed and resonated in my ears. I looked into the imminent roar, drew one last breath, and depressed the flaming contact that would announce my entrance to this world.
Another flash in the blackness, another rumble, more thunder.
With great labor, I would soon receive my resurrection.
