Privateering

Episode I: Wake Up, Catch Up, Level Up

          I stared into blackness, into the space that my mind could only perceive as what could only be called disconnection. Suddenly my focus began to return in very small bits. First the edges of my vision, the corners were now a faded off-white mixture that included blue light. I could now see my own left hand with a series of papers. These papers were nearly as black as they were white. There were so many spaces beginning to fill with black that I considered them more so than the black carpet my feet rest on on. My blood pressure began to spike, becoming much different than it was a second ago. I was angry; no I was irate, I was a bit distraught and I was being discharged from the United States Marine Corps. 

03/16/2023 - Levallier, Corporal (USMC -Retired)

           It was about 6: 30 am on a Wednesday morning when I awoke. It was still very dark but I seldom sought the sunrise upon immediately waking. I peered around my bedroom seeing practically everything, my laptop; closed on my desk that lie directly in front of me, with an already booted desktop with the screen on standby. The screensaver had many pictures constantly changing from various words of the day on a large square card that would flip showing the definition then speeding off as either a new picture or another card came in its place. I moved the sheets out of my way as I looked over at the window to my left. The entire window spanned the entirety of the wall, It encompassed safe for the farthest end on the right side where the desk met the wall. My feet touched the floor or should I say rug. The end table to my immediate left held my aviators, I fell asleep in my blue tank top, blue and white flannel and even darker blue jeans. 

            I grabbed the aviators and put them in my left breast pocket, just in time to see the sun begin cresting. I looked over to the desktop, eyeing which word was due to come up next. Did you know that negligee means a woman's dressing gown? I smirked then walked over to the laptop as I looked through the dark for the bottle of water I'd left sitting there when I became tired the previous night. With the bottle in my left hand, laptop keys occupying my right I typed in the words 'Private Sector' and as I took a swig of the open bottle of water a ray of sunshine shone through the window, refracting as it passed through the water into my eyes, I turned slightly, arcing really left to see the sunrise. It was 6:43 a.m.. The picture behind my laptop on the desktop depicted a map of Indonesia. I looked once again at the laptop at the compiled results. I'd memorized them and decided they were worth revisiting. I closed it and walked to the bathroom which was the next room on my left outside my bathroom.

           I brushed my teeth , washed my face, took a fair look into my own eyes... for a moment I saw nothing but a rested, well adjusted 19 year old. But just like every morning I could see fire, blame, pain and self destruction in all the gray that were my eyes. I carried it away, compartmentalized it like any other day and went back to my room after taking my backpack off the self installed rack on the door. It held all essentials for a three day ride except my laptop. I grabbed it looking at the next picture of the day; a picture of my Colt M1911 in hand.