Chapter 40

Back to the Grindstone

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP. The sound was deafening and I thought to myself, I just fell asleep. What in hell? At least it felt like I had just fallen asleep. I didn’t have any recollection of any dreams. I guess it is possible that I could have had a dream or two and just did not remember it. Who really knows what happens when you enter dreamland. Either way, six o’clock in the morning came awfully early.

I rolled my tired, weary body out of bed and struggled to stand up. I must have slept wrong because my body felt as if it had been rolled over by one of those highway asphalt rollers—steam rollers, I guess is what they are called. Every bone in my body creaked and made noise. To me it sounded like an old wooden floor that creaked with every footstep.

I made my way to the bathroom where I brushed my teeth and shaved. I turned on the shower, as hot as I could possibly make it, with the assumption that the heat would help alleviate some of the pain and loosen my joints. I stripped my clothes off, revealing my bare skin, and stepped into the enveloping warmth of the cascading water. The warm shower definitely helped, if nothing else, it at least woke me up.

Getting dressed, I thought about my next daunting task. I had put off this one chore because frankly I hated it. Yes, it was time for me to do my laundry. I usually saved my laundry while I was at the academy and brought it home with me on the weekend. I usually did the laundry at home, but that did not mean that I liked it. I think that I would have rather had a root canal. Load after load, I struggled through putting the laundry into the wash and then the dryer. Then my least favorite part, folding the damn laundry. The socks were the worst, it always seemed like the dryer would eat at least one sock every load. Ever since I was a little kid, I thought of the dryer as one big mouth with big sharp fangs—a monster that devoured one sock from each pair, kind of funny when I look back upon my younger years.

I finished laundry and packing around noon, said my good-byes and headed to meet my ride. The journey back to the academy seemed even more dreadful this time than any of the times before. Though the day was sunny and bright, and the season was cheerful for most, for me it was gloomy and full of anxiety. Today there was a black cloud over me that I could not flee. It seemed as if this day was doomed to be a total failure. I know that I had just left my family, and I knew that I would see them again, so there was really no reason for me to feel this sense of despair. I guess it was more of a depression than a sense of despair.

Either way, we were pulling back into the academy around seven o’clock in the evening. By this time, darkness was beginning to set in. The sky was a bright orange, with a hint of red, and you could just see the edge of the sun beginning to lower over the top of the academy dorms.

I grabbed my bags out of the back of the pickup truck and wandered through the front doors of the academy dorm. Walking through the dorms, I could hear the voices of my classmates, but no one lingered in the halls. There was no sound from the shared latrine—or bathroom as civilians refer to it. If not for the sounds from each dorm room, one may have come to the conclusion that the academy was shut down.

I walked into my room to see my roommate lying on his bed, speaking to his wife and children. I gave him a short wave and tossed my bags into my wall locker. I would put them away later, maybe tomorrow. I plopped down on my bed; it was then that I realized that these beds were simply the most uncomfortable, rock hard beds that I had ever laid upon.

I rested with my eyes closed for what seemed like an eternity before hearing my roommate tell his family bye and hang up the phone.

“How was your trip?” he asked.

“Good. No, actually I had a wonderful holiday. I am sorry that you got stuck here for the holiday.”

“No big deal. I enjoyed myself. I went to a couple of movies, and I got to talk to my family over the holidays, so it wasn’t too bad.”

We talked for a while longer and then proceeded to mosey downstairs with our other classmates for our muster. It turns out that we lost a few more classmates. I guess they got tired of being away from family. After we got back to our rooms, I cozied up under the scratchy itchy blankets and tried to get to sleep. It proved a difficult task. All I wanted to do was lay there and think of all of the fun I had over the holiday break. That would have to hold me through until the end of the academy.

Good night, world.