After the O-Course

The line for the shower trickled down. The steam mixed with shouts of urgency to finish. The shouts were met with exclamations about requiring more time. A handful of others waited until the lines disappeared. Scattered throughout the barracks, almost hidden behind the bunks, were the other recruits, sat in chairs by their beds and busying themselves with one thing or another. Recruit Becker was polishing her boots. Recruit Mason placed her chair between two wall lockers and rested her head against the wall, a small washcloth cushioned between her hair and the flat surface to keep the sweaty, muddy filth off the pristine white. Adjacent to Mason, Recruit Lansing had her wall locker open, using the waist high flat surface inside to write a letter.

Her combat uniform hung to the right, pushed to the inside wall of the locker; her dress uniform was carefully hung on the door of the locker, away from her hands caked in mud. The paper towels she used to ease the precious items away from her touch lay crumpled at the head of the finished page. She turned the second page and cared little for the brown smears painted along the margins. Lansing relayed each of her favorite obstacles during the course to her daughters, expressing how much fun mommy was having before reminding them of her undying love. The next letter would be to her husband, vaguely repeating the same favored obstacles but going into more vulgar detail about the obstacles that gave her trouble.

She mastered each one in time, of course. Lansing fell once, same as many, but prided herself in being the first back on her feet. Some required a partner or team, as was their design, and others required dedication and careful timing. One was the Great Wall; a structure of great height that could not be climbed by a regular person. Recruit Mason was the backbone in their squad. She knelt in front of the wall and encouraged the others to use her as a stepping stone towards the top. Recruit Mildred was jettisoned upward to the top and turned to reach for the remaining squad members. Lansing, as squad leader, went last and helped hoist Mason to the top to continue to the rope bridge across the filthy, watery depths below to the next station.

A separate member of their squad, Recruit Becker, lost her grip along the bridge and fell. There was a moment where time stopped as Lansing gripped Becker's trouser leg and realized she could not hold her comrade; they fell into the water together and rest of the squad climbed down to redo the Great Wall once more. Each move was blanketed in the screams of the instructors, all of them ready to point to the smallest mistake as a crime against humanity.

How could you drop your squad member, Lansing? How could you fall and not have the common courtesy to die alone, Becker? You're leading your squad to their deaths, Lansing, get those next-of-kin letters ready.

Each scream of abuse was forgotten several stations later; the squishing and waterlogged boots remained the two recruits' only reminder of their foil. By the time they were hoisting their rucks to march back to the barracks, the majority of the liquid had been pushed out of Lansing's boots but was still mostly damp and cold.

I can't wait for a shower, she wrote, but only so I can see what bruises I've got today. She wrote, focusing on the fonder parts of the course, I hope they don't fade too soon, I want to show them to you when you and the girls come. Two and a half weeks, seventeen days and she will kiss her girls and hug her husband; once she's out of her uniform of course. The bastard expressed he doesn't care about the public display of affection while she was in uniform, but she was determined to keep him at bay, no matter how much it hurt to see him. The girls, however, would be the sole exceptions.

The letters were folded in perfect halves and slid into the envelope. Lansing licked it shut and placed it in her security tray at her feet. The lock clicked shut and the key went back around her neck. Next week and the key will jingle next to her dog tags and a new wave of excitement rose, yet fell as sudden as it began. She was exhausted.