Short Stories

Military Brat

The house, covered in drab from an earlier downpour, looked ever so cold from the gray brick exterior to the fogged up windows. It was almost soulless, definitely not a home.

Emilia frowned as she watched Derrick unload their bags from the car. He brushed against her. He plopped the bags next to the garage door and walked back to Emilia to see the house.

"It doesn't look so bad," Derrick said.

"It's gray, Derrick. Gray! What type of military housing is this?"

"A Scottish one. I'm going to go get the rest of the bags. Go inside and check it out, maybe it's nicer inside."

Emilia nodded and walked to the front porch. A letter stuck out from the door, welcoming them to the neighborhood and the base. She took the letter and opened the door, hoping that the interior looked even a little better than the exterior.

Better to a degree. The front of the house led to a light purple colored living room furnished with 1930-style furniture. Emilia walked closer and saw that the floral pattern was faded, blending into the white fabric. She tossed the letter onto the sofa before walking to the kitchen. She had read what felt like dozens of identical letters every time she moved into a new housing complex, this one was no different, full of empty gestures that would not matter a year and a half from now.

The kitchen looked smaller than the typical American counterpart. Bright white, barely any kitchen space, two narrow ovens, no microwave, and cabinets hanging in the most obscure places. A washing machine even stood next to the sink cabinets. Emilia sighed. Cooking was the one pastime that she had managed to maintain every time she moved and she had been excited to cook again.

She then checked out upstairs and the dining room. Three tiny bedrooms upstairs and one bathroom. One bathroom. How could she share one bathroom? The dining room was clearly the highlight of the house or was the least disappointing. It was small, but had a nice, cozy feeling to it. The table was wooden and dark red mahogany. Empty picture frames hung on the light yellowed wall, each of them probably filled countless times by forgotten families who lived there. At the back of the room stood a tall china cabinet already filled with gorgeous, white and gold china.

"Well," Derrick said. "What do you think?"

"It's sad. I don't know what's better, that wreck of a house we had in Vegas, or this. Even Dad couldn't be bothered to help us move in. He just went straight to work," Emilia said, sinking into a dining chair.

"I know," Derrick said, sitting next to her. "But, it's only for a year and a half. Just like last time. Come on, the boxes are inside. We can unpack. That might brighten things up a little."

Emilia stood up and followed Derrick to the uneasy towers of boxes next to the front door. He grabbed a box and started to unpack the living room without saying a word, an unspoken ritual they had developed when they began to move from house to house. Whenever her family moved into a new house, they would not say a word to each other until the house was fully unpacked and decorated. Once the house was decorated, then comments were made, she hated that limbo period. She grabbed a box and walked to the kitchen, the noise of pans clattering into each other in the box echoing across the room. Emilia had done this little routine so many times she could do it in her sleep so she unpacked everything in just a few minutes before picking up another box and heading upstairs. She gravitated into a random room and plopped the box onto the bed. The room was hers.

When the entire house was unpacked, the pair and a short, stuffy military official held a meeting to discuss the logistics of base living. Emilia zoned out for most of it because it was the same rehearsed security lingo she had heard living in bases in the United States. Living in a military base entailed showing the guards outside the proper identification to go in and out of the base, buying items from a six-store BX and getting food from the commissary.