I ran my hands frantically through my practically non-existant hair and groaned, shutting my eyes and trying to block out the pain.
When the soldiers pulled me away from Estelle, every part of me hurt. I hurt to leave her, to know I might not be going back, to see her so broken looking, and knowing I wasn't going to be there for her. I had been led, well more like herded out of town with the hundreds of other men. We were lead not out to the farm lands, but out the other side of town, near the waste lands. Here there was space for barracks and military buildings, without destroying our food source, as would be done if camps were made on the farm land. Rows and rows of military buildings lined up in front of us.
As we arrived outside the camps we were split into smaller groups of twenty or thirty men and lined up outside one of the buildings. One by one we were forced to pledge ourselves to the government by signing our names in the big book before entering the first building. Once inside we were told to strip. Most of the men here were so dirty you couldn't tell what kind of diseases they might be carrying. These men were too poor to afford clothes, soap, or even running water.
The inside of the building was not very large and was very open with only one other door besides the one I just entered from. One side of the room was bare and the other side was lined with hoses. Once we were stripped we were lined up along the bare wall and thouroughly hosed down and cleaned, after which we were given a clean uniform and sent into the next building. In the next building our hair was buzzed off, after which we were given a rolled up mat and blanket and assigned a number and barrack. And here I am. Number 095718, of barrack 25.
My mat was in the back corner of the barracks on a top bunk, if there was ever an attack I would be the last shot, but the most likely to burn if there was a fire. I picked this spot because sitting on the top bunk in this corner I could see the whole room, and because one of the few windows in the barrack was at eye level with me if I was sitting up on the bunk.
I huddled in the corner starring out the window, feeling alone and scared. The sun had gone down and night was falling now. I wrapped the blanket around my shoulders helplessly and thought about Estelle. I thought about all she was going to have to deal with now. I thought about the choices she was going to have to make. I thought about the first time I met her. I thought about her smile, her eyes, her beautiful personality. I thought about the way her voice always sounded almost like it was singing when she said "I love you." And then I thought about what it would be like if I never saw her again and I thought about the last moments I'd had with her. I thought about the helpless look she had as I turned and left her, in the chaos, alone. Pain and tears swelled up in my chest. I layed down and burried my face in my arms, pulling my knees to my chin like a child and for the first time in a long time, I cried. I cried from the pain, the helplessness, and most of all from the hopelessness of it all. I cried, and then I slept.
