Chapter 10: WHEN YOU HAVE NO CHOICE, WELL YOU HAVE NO CHOICE (1)
Moa and Harry parted their way. They were not going in the same direction. Officers didn't eat at the mess as the simple soldiers and Harry was one of those. Maybe he was now a real hero but that was not enough for him to be promoted. In the army, an act of bravery was important, nobody could say otherwise but it didn't give special privileges.
Harry was waving his hand as he walked away, a big smile on his lips.
It absolutely did not look like the past social interactions the two men usually had, in the event, Harry would even have hug Moa.
This normally introverted and timid soldier, stingy of his words, unassuming guy had become verbose and tactile.
A simple joust he had been one of the main leading, one of the spot-lights as each joust was almost sure to reveal, and he was fundamentally transformed. War had a strange effect on certain people. Soldier was a very peculiar professional career; this was probably the reason why only parents who didn't like their children usually forced them to enroll, expecting a quick death, what usually happened, or a metamorphosis like the one Harry had today.
Was it for the best? Was it for the worse? Only the future and the luckiest fortune tellers had the answer, which would first depend on Harry's ability to stay alive long enough to see.
In any case, Moa also went away while hoping this transformation would not lead to the appearance of an invasive neighbor.
He did not like to have an invasive neighborhood. At home, it was his domain, his secret garden, his place and his alone. Sharing his private life with a colleague was out of the equation governing his life. Except for the technicians responsible for checking the operation of the mechanical ventilation system, no one had yet passed the threshold of his door. It was a way of ensuring that no variable came to put chaos in his interior.
In addition, when he crossed the road of a neighbor, he was always cordial with him, provided the said-neighbor was himself cordial with him but he did not like spending too much time in the common parts to discuss the bit of fat with other residents.
This would oblige him to take an interest in them, their stories, the anecdotes, their aspirations, their little things that interested only them, and he felt that he had other occupations to punctuate his life. To exchange was to share and he did not see himself confiding and opening up to others in this way. Cordiality was not synonymous with intimacy, they rhymed with the other, a poor rhyme moreover, but these two words had nothing else to do together.
…
When the jousts of the morning were finished, Moa only had one formality to complete before he could go to eat. He had to report on the death toll.
This meeting was quite informal. The secretaries whose tasks were to take note and write the records did not even participate. They were already eating at that time. There wouldn't be any trace of what would be said. Stenography was an art and an art demanded talent, diligence, efforts, work etc., Moa was well aware of it and nobody among the officers knew how to write fast enough to approach the job of a secretary, even with a typewriter.
This meeting wasn't for history and for official archives purpose. In the past it was, yes, but not anymore. There had been some real important matters treated during those meetings, but as secretary was a cushy job, it was very rare to have dead in their ranks, so with the war extended for close to ten years, most of the secretaries had aged by a decennia and were less appealing, some even approaching the age of menopause. So, it was decided that they could do without them.
Now, it was more a real waste of time. The meeting was maintained for two major reasons: i) it was the best way to avoid journalists who wanted an interview with a higher-up, so that to question him of embarrassing matters related to the jousts, the high human cost due to the lack of quality in the regiment officers, their inability to lead their troops to victory, the afternoon strategy, the composition of their breakfast, the quality of their sexual life, etc.; the journalists were annoying, they always tended to pick holes in their subjects, ii) it also intended to justify the exorbitant salary of the very higher-up officers of the third regiment. As those very higher-ups didn't want to be the only ones working, they took advantage of their position to include their subordinates in the fun. Moa was one of those subordinates.
For a little while, Moa would have written on a piece of paper his report before delivering it to any of the higher-ups but an order was an order, an order had to be respected, it was at least what he had been taught at the training camp, with the peeling of a massive amount of potatoes, an order was not discussed, it was also something that he had been taught at the training camp, with numerous scouring of puppies, and this order was to come and report. He couldn't escape it. Being a little late, yes, but skipping exposed him to sanctions, and that of the training camp would seem lenient in comparison.
When you had no choice, you had no choice, you could still philosophize but in the end, the best was to resign yourself to your fate.
The meeting was held in a small committee, under invitation received in his personal locker the day before. Moa was almost always invited, except when the internal mailman lost his invitation card. Yesterday, before departing back home, he had found his actual invitation card.
For quite a long time, they met in the briefing room because it was practical, everyone had their marks there. Following the protests of the cleaning-men who did their job in the morning for this room, they were asked to find another place because otherwise, those cleaning-men had to start all over again in the afternoon and the planning was already quite busy like that.
In the end the officers agreed to change location when they realized that in fact, the headquarters was not at all on the road leading to the officers' mess from the battlefield and changing location could avoid them a useless detour. They had chosen a building that was fairly close to the route, one of the tallest buildings found on the regiment, offering a magnificent panoramic view of the region.
Moa did not really appreciate this building he considered a little dated in its materials but far too avant-garde in its design, this was how the architects qualified their biggest failures.
In addition, it was located too close to the jousts' ground to receive other safe activities, so the area was not very busy.
The building was located in what, when the city was still inhabited, was a cultural center, placed at the end of a poorly lit small street, in the middle of old residential buildings deserted when the municipality had decided to build this center.
A cultural center was a noisy place where teenagers came to spend the time they did not spend masturbating.
The residents of this neighborhood quickly criticized the opening of the cultural center. It brought young people, and young people, it was suspicious, noisy, and dirty because the basic rules of hygiene were not yet assimilated at this age. Finally, those who could leave because they had the means and were only tenants, left, those who were old enough awaited death, and those who were not old enough, committed suicide.
As a cultural center, the majority of the accommodation had remained untouched and the building had rapidly become basically a whorehouse, the teenagers did not really know how to spend their time other than masturbating.
The advantage being that after so many years after its inauguration and generations of teenagers having frequented the premises, apart from the first floors and the direct exterior of the building, the army had found an infrastructure in almost perfect condition.
The imperfect resided notably in the elevators, which didn't run anymore. If when a cultural center, it was not a problem, what was above the second floor was not of use, the eight floors had to be climbed on foot today and it was tiring for everybody. Not that the physical condition of a soldier didn't allow them to accomplish this bit of activity but was the view from the eighth floor even worth this physical effort? The army never found the credit to repair the elevators. Even if they were working, Moa had one day the curiosity to look for it, a sign indicated that it was not possible to accommodate more than five people at once, and it would have been necessary to wait for many round trips to finally arrive at destination.
In addition, the internal plan of the building was complicated. The structure was divided into sections which did not communicate with each other on all floors. Also, to climb to the eighth floor, section C where the meeting took place, the shortest route was to first climb to the fourth section A, then cross the floor where the ventilation duct had been opened and allowed to reach section B. Then you had to descend on the second floor where a service corridor had its door pushed in and made it possible to reach section D where the door connecting the section to the service corridor was unhooked. From there, the staircase led to the sixth floor section D where the staircase descending to the first floor section E communicated directly. In the first floor, section E communicated with section C by crossing the room where the electrical cabinet was located. People could then go up to the eighth floor.
This plan had been considered by the architect who built the building. In his project it was the argument, with the bribes he had paid to local politicians, which had allowed him to win the market.
He had explained that a young person needed to stimulate his body and his mind, by that a city teenager tended to get bogged down. Looking at their own offspring, the politicians were forced to opine.
For the officers, it was just a routine stroll. When used to it, people didn't get lost anymore and then, for the less enduring, breaking the rhythm of a monotonous ascent had the advantage of allowing them to catch their breath and not to risk a syncope when arriving on the eighth floor.
And then, when you had no choice, you had no choice, you could still philosophize but in the end, the best was to resign yourself to your fate, make the best of a bad deal.
Moa left the stream of soldiers who were going to their refectory to turn to the right, where the late cultural center was.
The street was dismal. Abandoned, certain buildings bore the stigma of these ten years of conflict. By day it was still tolerable, but Moa didn't even dare imagine what a throat cutter this place could be at night, with poor public lighting.
He was often uncomfortable entering within this secondary artery. In general, as he followed the flow of the other officers, he always managed to be entertained, concentrating on a mark of oil on the buttock of the uniform of the one who walked in front of him, trying to discuss the rain, the beautiful time, variable time, of all the weather conditions the barometers could distinguish, speaking of the last documentary or talk show the television had proposed the day before, the use of different kind of flour in cooking, their characteristics, the savor, their gluten content…
There he was alone. He had all the opportunity to ask himself a thousand questions, questioning the very foundations of his life, going so far as to curse the decision he had taken ten years earlier to enlist. He couldn't see where it would take him.
His existentialism crisis couldn't last long because the street was not very long and as soon as he would cross door of the cultural center, his professionalism would take over.
It would last even less. After having taken ten steps and when he already distinctly saw the silhouette of the building, being able to read clearly the name of the cultural center where some letters were missing, intestinal cramps reminded him why he was there, why this war, why human madness was unleashed day after day.
The "because" was summed up in one word, "FREEDOM". Freedom, that fundamental right that every human being had, at least in the choice of the toilet paper he could use. The freedom to buy and smear triple-ply toilet paper in pure fir-wood!
That's why he had decided to count those who gave their lives daily in this war.
Reinvigorated, he raised his head and began the fifty meters that still separated him from the entrance to the building, not without his stomach recalled his fond memories.
He took a deep breath to get back on track for the meeting, just before arriving at the door of the building.
A guard was there, and this was unusual.
This building had been classified among the type IV buildings, this was to say buildings with military vocation not to be aimed during the lunch hour, it was at any rate what article twenty-three relating to exceptions during bombing in chapter twelve regulating acts of war during meals.
So there was no reason to put someone at the entrance, since if you were to come to this area, it meant you really had to have business to do there.
From a tourist point of view, the area was not attractive, from an architectural point of view, the building was of no particular interest and from a social life point of view this area was lifeless.
There was a guard posted somewhere to check the invitations, but it was only between section D and section E on the sixth floor. This place was strategic because the communication between the two staircases was not so easy to find and it required a loan. Moreover certain people could occasionally occupy a room on the sixth floor and it was legitimate for them to be there.
The guard blocked the very entrance to Section A, and this was not normal.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
ludo2776
ludo2776 ... to be continued in the next chapter
Reading and editing the chapter again, I just realize that the action can be summarized by “Moa parted way with Harry and made the 200 meters separating him from the meeting room”. How the hell did it become more than 2,000 words…!?
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