1

Randy Ditty

  Twisting, writhing, Randy slept, clutching at his bedsheets. His senses haunted him. Like nightmares, powerful memories stalked his sanity. His ever-waking dreams were horrors, thrice-damned ghosts of past, present and future. Every moment, everywhere, they hounded him. They chased him like dogs unto madness, into his forty winks and beyond, until dreams delivered Randy unto the doggedness of his past, the very morning of the day gone by.

  Splashed upon a poison puddle of dreams, Randy blinked. Ash fogged the air, marking him beneath his sleeves. They itched—rank with sweat and dirt, blood and grime—they clung like a putrid skin. His boots peeled at the rashes swelling within them.

  Randy sucked at his teeth to concentrate. These feelings—bitter, hot, and wet—disturbed him from his mission. To capture a film reel, he was dispatched to lead two elite soldiers through Gwangju.

  To Sergeant Ditty, Amricean Military Intelligence divulged North Kreya's dastardly scheming. Though their plot was nearly foiled, Allied efforts would be for naught were the North to publicize this tape. They would spin a narrative to devastate the South’s reputation, and the world would turn to favor them.

  Randy choked purposefully on the ashen air, to wake himself. “The boy with the camera must be killed. His camera must be broken. His film must be destroyed.” With those thoughts, Sgt. Ditty unfurled a map and motioned his troops to encircle it.

  Sgt. Ditty pointed on the map to a building. “This is the printing press.”

  He pointed to a building three blocks Northwest of the printing press. “This is the targets home, a two-hundred-apartment complex.”

  He unfurled another smaller map overtop an unused section of the first. “This is that complex.” He pinned the maps with his left knee and pointed: “Two wings. Ten floors. Ten apartments per wing per floor. Odds face west. Target marks Unit One-Oh-Nine. This unit. Corner unit. West side tenth floor.” He paused to confirm their understanding. The noise was overwhelming; gunfire and screaming threatened every moment to drown his voice.

  “Tracking,” said the two subordinate soldiers.

  Conjuring the image of a friend’s ashes scattered on the wind, Sgt. Ditty mumbled a spell and threw the map: becoming dust, a breeze caught the map’s remains, and it was no more.

  For a moment, the soldiers’ eyes drifted, drawn to the beauty of Sgt. Ditty’s spell, but their discipline caught them and refocused them to their task.

  Randy cleared his throat, pointed at the printing press, and traced a path to their current location and back. “This is our route there. There we will encounter the boy. Kill him. Do not detain. Destroy any possessions. Should he evade our first approach, we approach again, here.” Randy pointed at the printing press when the shorter soldier flashed a confused look. “Here, Randy repeated, “we will encounter the boy. Kill him, his possessions. Should he evade our second approach, we have failed. Team two is contingency. Signal is ‘I’m a Drunken Sailor’ by muzzle fire into the air. Escape to extraction point beta.”

  “Hooah!” the shorter soldier exclaimed.

  Sgt. Ditty stared and the shorter soldier shrunk backward in fear.

  “Our signal to pursue is ‘The Yellow Bird’ by muzzle fire. Red flare for success. Blue flare for failure. Questions?” There were none.

  Again conjuring the image of a friend’s ashes scattered on the wind, Sgt. Ditty mumbled a spell and threw the map: becoming dust, a breeze caught the map’s remains, and it was no more.

  The nightmare waivered, and Randy exhaled a tired sigh. The wetness of his dreams had found him in reality: his mattress was steeped in sweat.

  Randy’s pet iguana seemed to stare from within his well-groomed and steamy cage. Hot droplets slipped slowly down the transparent walls, to rest inside alfalfan substrate. He was asleep on all fours.

  Suddenly, Randy fell from the bed and moaned: “Üoooo!”

  His iguana woke. The nightmare had him.

  Sweat and ash made mud inside his nose: he breathed mouthily.

  He chased the target, but the target had an accomplice. “The target” was now two: “Alpha” and “Bravo;” “Cameraman” and “Accomplice.”

  Hoping to aid Alpha’s escape, Bravo threw himself desperately at Sgt. Ditty.

  Sgt. Ditty called his next order but feared his words would come too late.

  The shorter soldier, “One,” did not wait for Sgt. Ditty’s orders. Taking immediate action, he lurched forth to intercept Bravo.

  In a second’s heavy breath, One crashed shoulder-first into Bravo and they tumbled atop each other, eventually crashing against the porch’s metal railing.

  Sgt. Ditty continued pursuit, but Alpha had a lead.

  He called out to the taller soldier: “Two, on me!”

  Two was on him.

  Conjuring the feeling of running downhill, Sgt. Ditty mumbled a spell and threw his body into the motions of running on a treadmill ten speeds too fast: his muscles tightened and twisted, transmuting themselves to become faster.

  He burst forth with an explosive speed, leaving Two to trail behind.

  Yet, despite his incredible speed, he was still too slow and arrived to an empty 10th floor hallway. His nostrils flared and his lips went white against his teeth. “Did he hurry to his own unit? Did a neighbor shelter him? Are there unknown exits?” Cold calculation tempered the heat of his face. He breathed deeply to calm himself but choked. Coughing miserably, ash rasped against his tortured throat.

  Boots rang loudly against the metal stairway to the west wing’s 10th floor.

  Sgt. Ditty crouched at the ready and leveled his weapon upon the entrance.

  The taller soldier rounded the corner.

  Sgt. Ditty lowered his weapon, locked eyes with Two, and motioned him to breach the door.

  On a silent count, Two’s heavy boot smashed the cheap wooden door. It splintered from its hinges as Two quickly stepped aside.

  Amidst a shroud of wood dust, Sgt. Randy entered, weapon at the ready, and cleared the front and left side.

  Two followed closely behind and cleared the right side where an elderly couple cowered against the floor, muttering fearfully.

  Sgt. Ditty boomed in their language using a North Kreyan accent, “Where is the boy!? Where is the camera!?” He kicked their table upside down. “Now! The boy and his camera! Where are you hiding them!?” He fired a shot into the floor. “Where are you hiding them!?” On the spur of the moment, he shot the man’s knee.

  The woman sprawled like a blanket atop the man. Crying, she begged the sergeant to stop, but he would not. He shot the man’s other knee and declared, “Next shot is death!”

  The woman prostrated herself and, in broken English, pleaded the other soldier to intervene: “I do not- my husband- please I- my husband don’t,” she sobbed.

  Sgt. Ditty took aim again, this time at the man’s head.

  The woman clapped her hands together and prayed the Buddha for mercy.

  Suddenly, a dirty boy, no older than 20, threw himself on Sgt. Ditty’s rifle.

  “BRRT! BRRT! BRRT!” intoned Randy’s alarm clock.

  Randy’s eyes threw open. His lungs cried out. He inhaled, and exhaled, and inhaled, and exhaled, and inhaled, and slapped his alarm clock sometime in that process.

  The hour was 04:00. Time to wake up.

  “Fuck,” he whispered. His blankets were cold and wet; and, for some reason, he was on the floor.

  He stood up and found his iguana staring.

  “What’re you lookin’ at?” He chuckled nervously.

  As Randy clothed himself, the iguana returned to sleep.

  Randy peed and looked in the mirror. “Eyck.”

  Approaching the sink, he lifted his chin, pulled his jaw taught, and dragged a rugged hand across the stubble. “Eyck,” he grumbled.

  "Look like shit."