3rd February 2012

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A Soldier in Love

Sam Samuels sat in the core of a hundred miles of wires, of over two thousand meters of tubing, of 500 kilotons of weapon, and he watched reruns of I Love Lucy. The engineers had been kind enough to share with him their rigged wireline from the surface. Occasionally, now, he gave them rides back into town.
    He liked to watch Lucy. To kick back and laugh. When it was over, Sam kicked off the TV and did his hourly check. The next show didn’t interest him much. He liked the old stuff. Like The Three Stooges. They were on just before the end of his shift, but until then he usually let his mind wander to the tune of the light arrays blinking. Or he often fingered the photograph, which was tough and worn for that reason, of the girl back home; she was not far, it was not even more than an hour’s drive and he’d be home. And the fingering was irrespective of how it was going with her. It was just sort of habit. But, by the way— since you’re asking— Sam wasn’t doing so hot. He loved Karen. With all his heart. But sometimes…
    Maybe it was all that reefer. Or maybe it was how she got it. Something. She wasn’t the girl he’d hooked up with, and not in that casual kind of way how the relationship settles into the day to day and you’re not having sex as much anymore. Well, that’s your fault.
    It’s not your fault, he told himself.
    Then, on the other hand, there was definitely something wrong: another guy, or just another calling. He trusted her enough, he thought, as he rubbed the picture in his pocket again tonight. He was just bored, and the mind got to wondering when one was bored.
    He needed to take a walk. He swiped the keys off his desk and stood up, checking his pistol was secure, again, out of habit.
    Of course it was secure.
    The white linoleum under cold fluorescents ticked with every step of his boot upon them, the air, kept equally cool and sterile by the re-conditioning systems, seemed always a bit unsatisfying to the soul. But the exercise was real, at least.
    He walked and walked, and knew the way to take so that he could keep walking and never have to turn around. He followed the tubing on the walls, certain colors leading for miles it seemed until they led off occasionally into sudden orafices, forcing him to find another tube, another pair of wires, another clanging pipe to marry his path to. A low thrum beat throughout the whole complex. Sam was not sure sometimes if it was inside his chest, or his mind, or far far below, in the belly of this massive structure.
    
He didn’t know much about the capabilities of what sat like a tarnished obelisk all alone in its hibernation chamber, awaiting the day that was to come. He just fingered the photograph of Karen, and appreciated the fairly easy paycheck that came in every two weeks.
    But he was ready to die for his country. Knowing that his position was both more and less secure in certain respects didn’t matter. He’d given up thinking about the actual warhead so far below after the first few years. It seemed to him, these days, like a steadier, more disciplined turn as a security guard. And how quick that had happened. The whole place finished in ’58 and he’d been here since ’62; and that, already, going on four years ago. It was tough to imagine these things being here forever, but the birth of his buddy Carl’s baby girl had left him thinking. How something told him this place would outlast him by several generations. How it would be ingrained, and accustomed to, and no one would ever ask just why they had a cruise missile pointing at some strategic target halfway across the world. He’d never thought of these things, or this job, or anything else they were doing in the greater, eternal sense, but ever since she drew breath this would have been here. There was no before, for her— and therefore no after, either— there only was the is.
    All over the world babies were being born every day and every minute, and not a one of them would ever know a day when the pointed spears weren’t thrust towards the sky like deadly tridents. It didn’t matter whether or not they ever thought about it, it still was.

He knew how best it was to just try and forget. To wash your hands and hope for the glass half-full, and on the weekend to buy yourself that new washing machine when you need it, instead of six months down the road when you can finally afford it. Because thinking about the complexities and the consequences of such things would make you crazy.

Sam rounded the turn that would lead him back to the office, and checking the time found he had four minutes until his blessed Stooges. Almost like he planned it, he thought.
    The chair moaned as plopped down into it. He switched on the set, and it’s ghostly tubes warmed slowly to life. Larry slapped Moe. Curly mugged the camera and ran around the sofa to avoid the same. And Sam Samuels thought to himself that he wasn’t quite sure what was more difficult: understanding a woman or a nuclear warhead installation.

Tagged: prosefiction

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