Apart

I

  “Monty, get up. Let’s go, this century.”
  “It’s Montgomery.” I manage, the sleep still deep in my eyes and my mind. Her hand is already on my arm, pulling me out of my bed, throwing a shirt and a pair of jeans at my head.
  “Yeah, whatever. I’m giving you two minutes, so hurry up or I’m leaving without you.”
  “Someone’s a little cranky to-“
  “Just get ready.” She smirks before shutting the wooden beach-worn door. “One minute.”
  The door closes and light begins to peak in through the window; it’s blinding. I look into the light and I close my eyes. When I open them, I’m back in Afghanistan: the cracks of the dry earth beneath my hard-soled boots, my gun beating against my chest with each step, the sun baking us all. The sun. We all joked about the sun turning us in to human-sticks, like fish sticks: you could just rub some of the desert dirt on our bodies as breading, lay there for about 10 minutes, and then be golden-brown and tasty for some cannibal living in the distant mountains. The sun could actually kill you- sometimes directly, sometimes not. Directly: through heat stroke. Never seen it happen, but I can imagine it would be like turning into a burnt fish stick. Indirectly, many ways. I’ve seen that happen.
  Kids day-dreaming, staring up at the sun, thinkin’ they’re back in Florida or wherever the Hell they’re from, lounging with their friends in the summer, and- boom. Then they are home, but in a casket with the American flag laid over it. Maybe it wasn’t the sun, that did it but, you know, you get the gist.
  I close my eyes again and I’m back. I rummage through my jacket pocket as I pull it on and swallow two more pills. I feel them go down my throat, antibiotics to fight myself, my mind; little traitors in my body.
  “Have you had enough time to make sure you look okay? Your makeup set?” Foster poked her head in, scaring me and causing me to drop the bottle of pills on the floor.
  “Headaches.”
  “Ah, I see.” She raised her eyebrows, saying it in such a way that was not quite convincing so that she wouldn’t question it. “Let’s get on it then, the train is about to leave.”

II

  The train rattles and shifts and bumps every other second, making it impossible to sleep, or think. The clouds passing quickly overhead, the wind whistles loudly outside the storage car. She stands straight up, as if someone had strung a string down her spine and pulled it tight, her legs together and knees locked, arms folded in front of her, head facing the quickly passing land. Her body sways back and forth. I can only see a sliver of her face: eyes closed, slight smile, her hair blowing all around, but she didn’t seem to mind. She sways forward and I reach to grab her, but she sways back, laughing.
  “Monty,” she shakes my hand off her calf, turning back to the big train car door.
  “I told you it’s Montgomery.” I say moving back, resting my head on my jacket, still keeping an eye on her swaying body.
  “Get some sleep, I’m fine, you’re not.”
  “Nothing happened in Iraq, they’re just pills for headaches.” I sit up, avoiding her piercing glare, my hand moving to the pill bottle in my pocket.
  “Huh? I was just talking about how I woke you up so early. I saw that your lights were on all night, so I assumed you didn’t get much sleep.” she turned to face me, her back to the ground flying past us.
  “Yeah, I didn’t.”
  “Want to talk a-“
  “No.” I bark. “I don’t want to talk about anything in the past.”
  “Okay, okay.” she turns back to the door, her hands held defensively in front of her. She ran her fingers through her hair. “You know you don’t need to be so rude-”
  “You know what? Fine, come sit over here. I’m not gonna talk, but if it makes you think you’re helping me, come be my pillow.”
  She crawls over on her hands and knees, her head low and not meeting my gaze. I was probably too harsh. She sits next to me, her eyes stuck to the passing mountains and trees outside the car, hands folded across her knees.
  “So, headaches?” she turns to me, smiling, her nose inches from mine.
  “Yep.” I mutter, laying my head on her shoulder, squeezing my eyes shut, praying they wouldn’t visit me in my sleep, they’ve already started visiting me during the day. “Sorry about-“
  “Don’t.” she half-smiles, lowering her shoulder and adjusting to my head.
  The train keeps rattling and shaking and blaring it’s loud horn. The light began to fade as clouds shaded the sun and rain sprinkled the green land. The rain slowly turns into a heavy pour, the lightning flashing and the thunder so loud it shakes my mind.

III

 She ran her fingertips along his strong bicep, which was drooped over her knee as she sat in the opening of her metal bin high above the ground. He stared at the doorway and she stared at him. Something fell in the distance, echoing through the hallways.
  “Okay, I gotta go,” he stood to alert and pushed her legs back inside the box, trying to close the cage door.
  “Wait, wait…” she drew it out, catching his eyes. “Please. Don’t…”
  “You know what I can and can’t do so I’m not going to say anything.”
  “Just, please, wait.”
  “I can’t treat you differently, I have to-“
  “I know what you have to do, but what about what you want to do.” She grabbed his chin through the bars. “Listen to me, you have a say.”
  “I don’t think you understand, I’m not free to do what I want.”
  “Look at me.” she dropped his chin and placed her face against the bars. “I’m locked up in this cage like a dog at the pound, I’m not getting out anytime soon, and I know we’re all free, including me.”
   He didn’t say anything, he just pressed his lips together and tucked a piece of her long brown hair behind her ear. He didn’t quite understand her, but that’s how she was; you couldn’t understand her. She didn’t quite understand herself.
  “What’s going on in here?” the lights flickered on, reflecting hard against the metal-filled room. His hand dropped from her box, and she jumped back, hitting the back of the cage with a loud bang.
  “She-she was just begging for some food, sir,” his eyes flickered from the captain’s to her’s quickly. “You know how she is… weak.” She didn’t understand then, but he was helping her right then. He had decided her life over his.  
  “Yeah, maybe too weak for this project.”
  “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking-“
  “You don’t think, we do the thinking. You just do.” the captain barked back at him. She touched his back at the base of his neck and he was already calmer.  
  “I’ll deal with her,” he placed his hand on his holster. “I’ll take care of it.”

IIII

  The train bumped onto a new track, jolting me awake and out of the dream.
  “Theo, Theo. Don’t.” I pawed at his chest and hung onto his shoulder.
  “Who’s Theo?” Montgomery eyed me when I opened my eyes, to find myself face-to-face with him, not Theo.
  “Um,” I pulled myself off Montgomery and stood up, grabbing the door of the empty railcar. “Just an old friend.”
  “Didn’t sound like it.” I turned around to find Montgomery across the car, diagonal of me. “You talk in your sleep.”
  “Didn’t we agree not to talk about stuff that happened, like, more than a year ago?”
  “Fair enough.” He looked out the gaping door of the side of the car, down the track then back up at the sky. “Looks like we’ll be in a town in about 20 miles, and there’s another storm coming.”
  “20 miles? That’s pretty precise.”
  “Just a guess.” he muttered and we returned to looking out at our selected doors. “Foster?”
  I turned around to face him, the green landscape whizzing by fast.
  “What’s your first name?” he asked quizzically, smiling.
  “Why do you want to know?”
  “I feel like we got off on the wrong foot, and-“
  “I mean this is just a job we’re doing, it’s not like we’re going to stay in contact after.” I stepped forward towards him, dropping my head to meet his and narrowing my eyes. “Right?” He pursed his lips and nodded his head, turning back to the open door.
  “Right.” he said quietly, and a long period of time passed as we approached another sea town where we would change trains.
  “It’s Abigail.”
  “Mine’s Chase.”

Author's Note

7 MONTHS LATER..... Wrote this on my way up to see family over winter break, and just dug it back out of all of the [failed] files on my computer, and am deciding to give it a shot. You're gonna have to hang with me a bit, it's tricky. But would looove your feedback. Need something okay writing-wise now, it's not going too well.

P.S. I reaaaaally wish double spacing worked for me, so I'm sorry for that too. Thanks so, so, so much y'all! Happy almost Spring :)