If I Went Under

Chapter 1.

She's been back on home soil for three minutes now, and already she feels like a foreigner in her home country. Home is not what it feels like, and the feeling of dread, the dark knot in her gut, the numbness she feels, all grow and threaten to engulf her. This isn't home. There's nothing here, there's no one here. No familiar faces at the airport, not even family. This shouldn't surprise her though; even as a child they were never there. Her mother was always drunk or off sleeping with other men, her sister too young or uninterested, and her father altogether absent. His only love was the army.
She has nothing. No house, no car, no husband, no family, nobody. "Just the army," she whispers to herself as she waits at the baggage carousel for her bags, dressed to the nines in her Class A's, the woolen jacket scratching at her neck. The army and a feeling of emptiness. Maybe she'll simply become a husk, as empty as she is on the inside, and blow away.
Her bags come around and she stares at them dispassionately. All of a sudden can't decide whether to leave them there, claim them or jump on with them. Strange impulses jump out at her from nowhere, like her mind taunting her because she feels nothing but the weight of her own existence. She grabs her bags quickly and hurries out to the taxi rank, because if she makes a snap sensible decision then she won't have to consider the other options.
When she sees the taxis all lined up she's almost brought to her knees by a wave of despair. Her hands go slack and one of her bags falls to the ground. She doesn't even know where she's going, doesn't know the name of any of the hotels in this town.
She's brought back to reality by a driver calling out, "Taxi, mam?"
She must look like less of a wreck than she feels, or perhaps it's just the uniform.
"Uh, yes, thank you."
He takes her bags from her and loads them into the trunk as she slides herself into the back seat.
"Where are you headed?" The driver asks. He looks at her in the rearview mirror expectantly as she tries to formulate an answer.
She stops herself before she simply blurts out "I want a bath".
Suddenly the urge to hide herself in a room and immerse herself in warm water is overwhelming, an antidote, the anti Korea. Maybe then she'll start to feel normal.
"Take me to a 4 star hotel."
"Any one in particular?"
"No," she pauses before deciding to continue, "I don't know this city, and I've been in Korea for three years."
The driver just nods once and the car starts moving to wherever the hell they're going.
She doesn't like this. This lack of a destination only serves to increase her feelings of alienness, this lack of control. Sure, she could have made plans before she left Korea, but that made it all feel so final.
She couldn't handle final. Couldn't handle admitting to herself that she felt more at home in a warzone, that she'd lived there as long as she'd lived anywhere. That that camp and it's ridiculous inhabitants were more like family and acceptance than anything else she'd felt.
She takes a deep breath and holds it, trying not to cry. Her eyes blur anyway, and the city goes past in shades of brown with the occasional splash of colour. She misses her tent, the uncomfortable cot, the little home she'd made. Her familiar space.
She'd missed that already at the 8063rd, but she'd at least had a familiar setting and a job to do. Not anymore. Sure, she was still in the army, but for the first time in her life she felt completely without an anchor, floating without a tether. Totally lost.
"Here we are, then." He says the name of a hotel that she barely registers. It doesn't matter. She's not intending to leave her room until her furlough is up, Or until the army makes me.
She physically starts at that thought, that insidious little voice. What in earth is wrong with her? Get a grip, Houlihan.
The taxi driver is looking at her with concern. Great.
"Uh, thank you."
He helps her with her bags and she pays him. She tips him handsomely. After all, it's only money, and why the hell does she need money?
She stops herself from shaking her head at herself and forges on into the lobby. Waiting at the desk she's disoriented again. Lost watching people mill around, move with purpose. They have lives, wives, husbands, lovers. Her hands are shaking.
"May I help you, mam?"
She crashes back to the present, "Uh, yes, please, I'd like a room for six nights please, do you have any with a bathtub?"
The clerk's brow furrows slightly, "Six nights and a bathtub, yes m'am, we do."
He rummages around for a key, "Room 608," he says, handing it to her, "A bellhop will bring your bags up shortly."
She tells him not to worry and hoists her bags herself. She doesn't want help, and she's not waiting around any longer than she has to.
She presses the elevator call button and waits for it to arrive. She doesn't put her bags down, she just wants to be shut somewhere by herself so she can try and remember how to breathe. A couple in their late twenties come over and stand next to her as they too wait for the elevator. She almost groans out loud. Why can't the universe leave her alone? If she still believed in a god she would think he was sitting up there taunting her, laughing at her, but war has destroyed any residual belief that might have once been held in such things.
The elevator arrives and she and her luggage climb in. The couple, of course, follow. They're elegantly dressed and keep touching each other. His arm is around her and she keeps rubbing his hand and gazing into his eyes. Margaret can't stand it. Not even Donald looked at her like that. No, there was only one man who did that, and she never believed he was serious. Maybe he was, but it's too late for that now. The war is over, and she'll likely never see him again. She has no reason to ever see him again.
She tries focussing on a flower in the wallpaper, but there isn't a flower in the world interesting enough to stop her from noticing their quiet murmurs, their contented sighs, the gaping void opening up within her. She's wound tighter than a spring with the effort it takes to keep herself together. Her eyes are glued firmly on the floor indicator: 3,4,5,6.
The elevator dings as it finally reaches her floor and she charges out into the corridor without so much as a glance behind her.