Vagrants

Chapter 6

All campers awakened as early as 5 a.m. and we did our morning meditation. I must say that I felt really sleepy and I almost slept off on spot if not for the strict Camp Public relation officer (PRO) who was walking around and caught me dozing.

"Rise!" He yelled.

"Sir!" I jumped up.

"Why are you dozing?"

"I wasn't sir."

"Are you lying to me?" He gave me a stern look that I had to come clean.

"Yes sir."

"Good," He sighed. "Jog from here to the gate twenty times."

I wanted to die. Early in the morning, I have to go all the way to the gate not just once but twenty! My body was aching me. I didn't sleep early nor did I sleep well and he wants me to jog.

The PRO was about to leave when I screamed.

"No sir!"

He turned around and everyone turned to watch me.

"Did you just say No to me?"

"N-No sir. I...I mean 20 is too much."

"Why is it too much?"

"My body aches me sir and I..."

"You're here to serve your country. Nothing should be an excuse."

"This isn't service. It is a punishment sir."

"What makes you think that?"

"Because I was dozing."

He chuckled. "Only a tired person dozes because they want to sleep. Am I right?"

"Yes sir."

"And you have to be strong to carry out the activities."

"Yes sir."

"So to make you strong and ready for the real activities, you have to jog 20 times."

"Okay sir. But can you reduce it by at least one?"

"Not a chance." He walked away.

I looked around and saw corpers busy with their meditation while some were staring at me.

I then started jogging. It was hard but I did it. When I was jogging for the 15th round, the man-o-war drills had begun.

I had to quit the jogging and join them. My first drill was to crawl through a tunnel. I bent down and crawled through but when I got to the other end, I met the Camp PRO standing there.

I pretended not to see him so I turned to go to my next drill when he grabbed my arm and startled me with his harsh voice.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"I...I want to climb ropes."

"Are you done jogging?"

"Y-Yes sir."

"How many times?"

"The number of times you asked me to."

"How many times did I ask you to?"

"Twenty."

"And how many did you do?"

"The number of..."

"Answer me!"

"F-Fifteen sir."

"You must be very stupid." The PRO hissed. "No more man-o-war drills for you today. You're going to restart the jogging."