“I’m sorry, Winston.”
“It’s alright, May. I’d a done the same.”
“I’m sorry about your friend…”
“Woo-jin.”
“It’s just that, well, he’s our enemy. Doesn’t matter the way he feels about it. He’s still out there and we’re in here.”
“I know. I understand. I’ll be careful.”
“That’s all I’m asking.”
After the meager meal, he cleaned up, rinsing out a dozen or more emptied cans and using up a gallon of their drinking water in the process. He carefully and quietly set the cans in a bin, and joined May back in bed. He placed the uneaten Twinkie on a 2x4 above his head and settled down to sleep.
“Goodnight, May. I love you.”
“Love you, too.”
May rolled over and felt guilty for consuming such a large amount of their food supply. She just wanted all of this to end, for she felt herself slipping away ever so slightly, her mind and body unable to cope with the stress of being an unintentional prisoner on her own property. She couldn’t understand why she didn’t feel as strong as Winston. She was smart, educated — a resilient woman by any standards. Still, she felt like Winston’s Achilles heel. She prayed herself to sleep, begging for the strength to see this ordeal through. And despite his fatigue, it took Winston hours to fall asleep, his mind racing with thoughts of finding food, how long this war was going to go on, and wondering just what that new crate in the barn contained. Though it was dark inside the barn when he returned, the barn door was uncharacteristically closed, and he thought that he remembered seeing the international sign for radiation on the crate. But he supposed that it was just his mind playing tricks on him. He finally fell asleep sometime after midnight.
Many of the soldiers in the Sparrow encampment worked rotating shifts of four hours on and four hours off for twenty-four hours a day, which made for extremely fatigued soldiers. At the 3:30 a.m. shift change, two Middle-Eastern soldiers chatted in English at the apartment end of the barn,
one relieving the other (they were both born and resided in the United States — Scranton, Pennsylvania and Dayton, Ohio to be exact). If the barn’s exterior wall was removed, Winston’s ass would have been no more than six inches from the soldiers’ faces. The off-duty soldier put earbuds in an old MP3 player he had stolen from a middle-aged man he had killed in Tampa. The other soldier turned to walk away just as a loud fart startled him. He turned back to the soldier with the earbuds and said, “you’re gross,” and walked away.
“What? What did I do?” the other soldier asked.
“You farted!”
“I did not!”
Inside the apartment, Winston’s eyes popped open. Though he was sound asleep, he knew that he had farted loudly — loud enough to be heard on the outside. He listened to the Middle-Eastern soldiers argue about it, trying to keep his laughter contained. The Middle-Eastern soldiers parted, both insulted by the lack of etiquette for an act neither was responsible for, while Winston softly chuckled.
May stirred and said, “that woke me up.”
“Sorry,” Winston said, grinning from ear to ear, “go back to sleep.”
Dong-joo
Woo-jin and his partner made the usual post-breakfast rounds, clearing away the trash and debris from the Sparrow property. They walked to the trash pile in tense silence. Just before they reached the pile, Woo-jin’s partner said, “I do not like you. You never speak, but when you do it’s always about your girlfriend. And you are favored by our Major only because you are a good football player. But we all know you are no better than this trash pile.” He shoved Woo-jin onto said trash pile and stormed back to the encampment.
Woo-jin got up and brushed the garbage and maggots from his uniform. He certainly didn’t feel like he was a favorite to the North Korean major and wasn’t sure what caused his partner to be so abusive, but he was well aware that his comrades didn’t like him. He emptied the trash. It wasn’t an easy task to complete alone. Jimmy’s body was rotted and bloated, but there were no new bodies added to the pile. He checked on the grave — it was still there, unmolested. He needed a friend and made his way toward the overpass. Winston wasn’t there, but he discovered the apple left for him. Woo-jin had never eaten an apple before. He’d seen them for sale in the upscale markets in Pyongsong, but the black market cost for one fruit was more than ten percent of the average North Korean’s weekly wages. This apple was perfect, and he knew that it was a gift from Winston in exchange for the Twinkies. He picked it up and rotated it in his hands — a shiny orb of green and red deliciousness, he wouldn’t risk bringing it back to camp where it might get stolen or raise unwanted curiosity of how he acquired it — so he chomped down on it. He didn’t expect the fruit’s juicy pulp to explode with such sweet nectar as it ran down his chin and soaked into his collar. He was enchanted with the apple because it was everything he had hoped it would be, and he sat down next to the beechnuts to fully enjoy the experience. It ended all too soon, and he tossed the pit into the woods and turned his attention to the beechnuts — obviously also left by Winston. He sniffed them, tossed a few into his mouth, and spit them out as soon as he bit down. He did not appreciate their unique bitter flavor. He sauntered back to camp and wondered what tedium was in store for the day. Suddenly, a brash cacophony of mechanical reverberations shook the ground. Woo-jin was familiar with these sounds and he picked up the pace toward the encampment. The Russian T-14 Armata main battle tank was waiting at the gate when he arrived, and another T-14, gimping its way down the road backwards, came to a slow stop behind the first.
May and Winston were awakened by the thundering rumble of the two Russian battle tanks. The enormous beasts shook the barn as they crept slowly down the road towards the Sparrow residence. Winston stood and peered out the forward facing slit while May sat up, trembling with fear from having been awakened so jarringly. It was a sensation neither of them had ever experienced before — the bellowing machines vibrating the barn with such violence that Winston was concerned that it would collapse around them. Mayor Wellbeloved’s favorite picture crashed to the floor, the glass shattering in a thousand shards, and bins stacked with emptied cans rattled and fell over as the tanks rumbled closer and closer.
“Them are the biggest things I ever seen on wheels,” Winston said in awe.
“What are they?”
“Russian tanks. Two of ‘em.”
Winston, despite the exhaustion from being outside the previous day, stood at the forward slit inside the apartment watching as Woo-jin ducked inside the gate and was immediately reprimanded by his superior officer. The exchange was brief and Woo-jin marched down the driveway, somewhat dispirited and visually angered. He paused momentarily to watch the lumbering tank roll toward the barn, and Winston noticed his disheveled appearance from being pushed into the garbage heap and the apple juice stain around his collar.
“Rookie,” Winston said in his normal voice.
“Who?” May asked, and placed On the Beach on her lap and clutched it tightly. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to begin reading the big, bleak book.
“Woo-jin. He dribbled apple juice on his collar. His superior off—”
“You gave him an apple?” She cut him off.
“Yes, I did.”
“That man’s nothin’ but trouble if you ask me.”
Winston shook his head at May’s intolerance.
“He ain’t shown me any ill will.”