Two of Swords [Reversed]

Back In School—DUSK

The campus museum has opened so I scoot across the rainy grounds and go inside. I linger at the threshold a minute, dropping a wet, ruined cigarette into a puddle, and crushing it underfoot as I go. The museum has a display about a factory that used to be in this town. It’s a bit sad. Sad to think that things that were once something important, are now just a pet project of some local historian.

“I hate these fake histories.” I mutter and think about my own home town. Like everybody’s home town, it used to have a greeting card company or an orange juice cannery or something at the turn of the last century. This is what had put it on the map. And now it’s gone. Me or someone like me will write a book about someday.

I leave. Lighting a new cigarette in the recessed doorway. And continuing my exploration as the sun sets.

The Dean spots me taking a tour of the old campus. He asks what I have been up to since school. He smiles when I tell him.

“Well, look at this guy!” he grins, looking at me, “How many years of school did it take to get that job?” I think: 4 undergrad, 4 grad, and then multiply them.

“16.” I say, bemused that he has attempted to distill a life of trials into a small figure.

He chuckles, knowing or at least suspecting my error. I consider saying that I was including elementary and high school, but that would be much more than 16. I shrug and head off.

As I enter the auditorium, the Dean stops me and says “Check out the new tiling. I did it myself.”

I enter and go up the aisle. It is tiled, as is the area before the stage. There the porcelain tile has been cut and caulked to fit the half-circle shape and some are thus, sinking or loose. Outside there is a battle blazing on campus again. And, as this roars to life, the building shakes and the poor tiling drips off and crashes on my head. I rush back out into the quad.

As if on cue, the Sailor runs past with a pack of infantry.

He is always around when I need him.

He spots me as I, drenched, survey the melee. He stops long enough to ask if I am all right. “Yeah,” I shrug, taking out my own tiny little machine gun, “We did this last week, didn’t we?”

The Sailor nods. “They’re closer now than ever. Surrounded me at my post last night. Be warned. They’re here now. Surrounding us. You can barely make out their dark forms. Wait till your eyes adjust to the dark. Anyways, they’ve been at it since the middle of last night.”

“They were telling me of my impending doom,” he continues, backing me up into the doorway for safety, “I was soon blown up, and the medics had to pack my organs back in like a bagger at a grocery store check out.” As he talks, he grabs my satchel and dumps it out on the flag stones, partly to demonstrate the repacking of his guts by the docs and partly to see what useful supplies I may be carrying.

“Well, you’re looking well,” I say. He’s probably drunk.

“Thankfully, they are putting me on an evacuation helicopter. I got them to do it. It’s supposed to give me ride back into the City.”

“That’s crazy and expensive.”

He explains that it is not rented but leased it outright. Actually he used this battle as an excuse. He and Maggie had learned when how to fly a chopper when they were young and wanted to try it again. And helicopter licenses never expire in the City so even though they are old, they are both ready to go.

I hear the chopper coming in from out over the sea and look for a place land. I go out in the quad to look, crescent moon now visible in the gloom. The chopper is huge and cherry red. Out of place in a war zone. I tell the Sailor how nice it is. He says he just came from getting insurance for it when the battle kicked up again. They whole affair cost him about a million.

I say “That’s great. You can’t take the money with you. Blow it on whatever makes you happy.”

The helicopter makes a brave landing in the quad. And I follow the Sailor and the other soldiers aboard it. The chopper remains under heavy fire and can’t take off.