Shards by Ismet Prcic

Author:Ismet Prcic
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic

2.

The morning was shitty and opaque, pregnant with grayness and cold moisture. A slothful, hungover rain tapped them on the shoulders as they waited for the trucks to take them to the front line. Those who were issued caps now put them on. The others just hunched, made their necks smaller, and continued to suffer the water torture.

To Mustafa it all felt, a little bit, like the first day of school or a funeral. Everybody was dressed the same, standing around, stupidly, looking at everyone else, not knowing what was appropriate. Faces were knotted with wretchedness, working too hard not to collapse, melting away from the skull bones.

Around them, the base was just waking up to the sounds of drill sergeants rampaging through the barracks. Steam was billowing out from the side of the kitchen. The guards at the gate were fucking around in their guardhouse, tossing a paper cup, laughing, as if nobody could see them through the glass. Some pigeons landed on the soccer field and strutted up and down and around, mocking military discipline.

Mustafa curled and uncurled his toes, already freezing in his oversize boots. Actually, his whole uniform was oversize and the camouflage patterns on the pants and the jacket didn’t match. He had asked for a medium and they had given him an extralarge. When he complained, they made him scour the kitchen storage room with his toothbrush. Now the side pockets of his pants, which were supposed to be at his thighs, were tickling the tops of the boots. Looking down he noticed the laces were untied again. The fucking things were rigid and slippery and no knot could survive for long. He bent down, his jacket ballooning in front of him as if he had a prop belly on, and laced up.

“Your ration,” somebody said behind him and Mustafa turned. This scarecrow of a soldier was handing him two packs of Ronhill, staring off somewhere with his eyes like wounds. There was something about him, a veneer of divorced guys in cheap motels on rainy afternoons, staring into swirls of wallpaper and throttled dreams.

“I don’t smoke.”

“Yes you do. You just don’t know it yet,” said the scarecrow, tossing the cigarettes on the pavement, sick of holding them in the air. He walked to an older soldier with a hood on. Mustafa finished tying another provisional knot and picked up what was given to him.

“I swear to God, the only reason I’m fighting in this war are these shit sticks,” said the man with the hood on, grinning. He dug through his pack fanatically, holding it in front of his face like a hamster. Behind him, the gate opened for four dirty trucks and a van, causing a stir.

“Well, fuck it! Now they come.” He spat, putting the pack away, his fingers shaking, his eyes dying. He stood in line next to Mustafa, sighing and pouting like a toddler.

A thick man in a pristine uniform and with a fancy sidearm, the captain, stepped down from the back of the van and everybody saluted.

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