Sunday, October 03, 2010

Field exercises

Hiding behind the wall I could not see who was firing at me from the other side. I introduced some of my own fire from my M4A Carbine to get them into hiding, then tried to steal a look, and I did - there were two of them at the other side of the complex, themselves following a similar strategy as mine, and firing in short bursts, expecting to get lucky. I thought I could trump them with my knowledge of bullets having the power to get through certain walls at a certain angle…”wallbanging”. I fired again, several times, and my bullets tore through a chunk of wall.
I did eventually hit my present aggressor. He fell with his Kalashnikov. The one with him now took charge, pretty much the same thing; stupid AI. “Easy,” I said to myself, and continued my steady stream of fire. But with time, I could sense my bullets were going ineffective. I brought myself out of my hiding, to stage an assault. I was being careful, for he could just be sitting out there waiting for this idiotic move of mine, and so I fired a few times again, but those bullets only punched holes in the blue plastic barrels at the far end of the complex – I could confirm that the other guy wasn’t there anymore. Might he be circling around the building, looking to surprise me? Convinced of that logic, I changed my course, tracing my steps back ever so carefully. First thing I did was to exchange guns – my carbine for another dead terrorist’s Kalashnikov. I struggled, for I couldn’t remember the key to swap objects, but eventually I did. Soon I had circled about the building, without either of us surprising the other. I stood staring at the dead terrorist whom I had taken down a while back, confused as to where the other was hiding. I was out in the open, and a nervousness came over me. Could he have run away, or entered the building? Not too sure.

Suddenly I felt a shock run through me, I was numbed, I was down. I woke up.

Saturday, October 02, 2010

Gardening

Foreign Flower
Something clambered up to the surface in me yesterday - the primordial desire to cultivate. As I ambled along the open spaces outside my office complex, there was a strange sensation in observing the grass artificially growing in modest patches. More than those verdant patches did I find interest in the dug out portions of the earth – the brown earth, often clumped together in fist-sized chunks, the roots haphazardly sticking out, in a violent fashion, like a scene of genocide. The gaping hole in the earth was strangely inviting; maybe it was an invitation to creation, somebody had to fill it in, I wanted to be that somebody.

My envy for the day went towards the gardener, whom I had caught at work earlier in the day. He was working on a tiny patch of grass, right there as you step out the conditioned environs of the office. It was nothing very challenging – he had carved out an area which he was methodically carpeting with new grass. I was drawn-in to the extent of forgetting the embarrassment of conveying my idleness (when you are a worker, you do have to look busy – a cellular conversation, smalltalk with fellow colleagues, a notebook to scratch on, those darned shoe laces that never stay put… anything but an extravagant display of nothingness).

We humans are a grassland-loving species, we like to put our lands to use, to cultivate, and I won’t doubt a wider reach of this instinct. I have grown up seeing lots of Uncles sharing a passion/indulgence for gardening – scoops, rakes, watering cans – that you wonder why they only blame the opposite sex of being sedate in their own artificial worlds. I have heard of army men growing gardens to escape their dull routine abroad – creating a new landscape within the new landscape that they have been posted to. Alas, I presently have nothing but a couple of dying/dead plants in tiny pots on my balcony; they get little sunlight and no human attention. There is no grass I could grow, no garden I could rake of dead leaves in the autumn, or rose bushes that I could prune. Another cry inside to get back home asap.

Remember Shirke ?!