The Wake

“It’s the cruelest trick to play,” reaching across the table to pour another glass of the room-temperature water, “swapping like that.”

“I know.”

“And you are fine with this?”

He looks around the room again, seeing the sun-stained portrait he found in a local market years ago. The edges frayed from years of misuse. It reminds him of sitting in the military doctors’ office back home when he was a child. When his mother used to take him to the clinic for a check up, he would find himself among the local children huddled by the few sparse toys donated by the military men who were stationed near the village. He remembers how the picture faced south, much like this one, following the path of the sun as it arced across the sky with the mortar rounds from the Soviet Army streaming towards the battlefields that used to be a farming village that cultivated opium—a village that for a long time sustained his now long deceased friend and relatives—how the picture’s life discolored as though the paint that once sustained it ran dry with each passing afternoon. “I won’t have it any other way.”

“The next time we meet, we will be dead.”

“Or, as good as.”

“It won’t be long.”

…

The transport aircraft lands at Leeward Airfield, stationed west of Camp Delta. Here, the UEC’s are taken from the aircraft and put in transport vehicles destined for the ferry ride to the detention facilities. Nestled between mountains to the north and the vast expanse of ocean to the south, Camp Delta houses thousands of UEC’s, or Unlawful Enemy Combatants.

Upon landing, four HMMWVs, or High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles surround the aircraft—each mounted with a .50 Cal machine gun, along with a single two and a half ton truck as well as a HMMWV able to transport 38 total passengers. Accompanying these vehicles are an equally, if not more destructive force consisting of 9 soldiers on board the cargo vehicle as well as a Dismounted Security Force consisting of 17 soldiers onboard the truck.

The UEC’s, all clothed in orange fatigues, do not know they are surrounded. Their heads look like the night terrors of a child paralyzed between dreaming and waking. The monstrosity consisting of blacked-out goggles over the eyes, giant mufflers for the ears. Mouths are muffled and covered with what look like surgical masks, followed by a hood. Their hands are gloved and shackled, following a chain that extends down from the torso to the feet, which are also shackled. They cannot speak. They do not know what is going on around them. They do not know where they are. Once off of the aircraft, the UECs are processed and put into the caravan.

“This allotment comes from the mountainous regions of Afghanistan.”

“What’s their story?”

“There is no story.”

“Right.” The corporal receives the necessary documents and begins boarding the passengers on buses for the route to the ferry, where they will be shipped to Camp Delta.

…

The poppies are in full bloom, their buds shooting out row after row of lush reds that seem to grow on straight to the silhouetted mountains off to the distance. The boy sits just outside, viewing the splendor of his family’s harvest. In this climate, it is difficult to cultivate anything else. Hunger is not an option for his father, and moving is out of the equation. He can remember his father arguing with his neighbors, Where will we work? The country is torn to shreds from year after year of war! We cannot leave!
The Mujahideen runs this part of the country, using it as an access point north, where the majority of the battlefields are located. The Soviet Army has been making progress as of recent date in the Badakhshan region, and it is up to the growers to keep a cash flow coming in to support the war-torn region—one of the few areas in the north where it is possible to grow—while at the same time keeping food in the bellies of their families.

From time to time, large planes can be seen flying overhead dropping leaflets of cartoon images depicting the Soviet hammer and sickle tearing apart the country along with food packets and water. It comes from the Americans, who are here trying to stop the advancement of the Soviets, and their support of the Marxist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan.

“You should not be out here. You know it is too dangerous if you are not working. Go back inside to your brothers and keep them together.”

“Yes father.”

The boy’s father proceeds out to the fields to check on the crop yield. This year’s crop does not grow nearly as well as in years past. From time to time, shells can be seen flying into neighboring fields in an attempt to sabotage the resistance movement and any amount of funding that may come from the fields. This plan, however, has its downfalls. While it keeps localized farmers and their families in a state of poverty—the heroin trade is still in full force across the globe—the price of the crops will only go up as the fields continue to be destroyed.

As he gazes over to the northern horizon, the father can see the tear of the sparse clouds in the distance. They coagulate and disperse in threads revealing the thrush of propellers from a Tupolev Tu-95 bomber making its way directly towards him. He does not know that it is a Tupolev Tu-95, a Soviet aircraft, as it passes over the mountains, so he continues on with his work.

The sun today beats with an intensity that seems out of this world, he thinks as he reaches between plants checking for insects and weeds that might damage his crop. The intensity of the heat is coupled now with slight drone of sounds off to the distance, like the snap of drumbeats from the army. It’s not until he looks up that he sees in a strange cadence the clap and thunder of his field exploding with a storm of bombs falling from above. The bomber heads directly overhead, reflecting the sun into the Father’s eyes just before impact. He can see the rays of light reflect off the frame before the final cloud of shrapnel and earth pours over him, destroying the fields and his home.

To Be Continued