The camp is a camp.
All training camps are different iterations of the same camp. It could be a desert camp like this, or a forest camp, or a mountain camp. They’re all the same camp. This one, nicknamed the Sand Castle, is lost in the middle of the Judean Desert.
Men playing soccer on a makeshift field, the goals marked by two rocks on either side, the field pockmarked with holes and rocks.
Barracks for troops and recruits. Huts for the officers. Mess hall. Supply depot. Firing range. Camouflage nets over vehicles, weapons, the generator. Latrines.
Fuad can see squads drilling.
He sees them jump over the obstacle course.
The wind roars, howls, bangs against the barracks’ walls. A smell of shit, dust and diesel, cordite and gunpowder hits him in the face.
The sudden tat-tat-tat-tat of automatic rifles firing at targets painted to look like Israeli soldiers makes him jump. Neither Sunglasses nor Smileyface notice.
Fuad shivers. It’s real. Now it’s real.