“So you'll be on an airship then?” he asked. I had known that this would bother him, but it wasn't as if I could change the position I had been assigned. One of the things that my boss and the air force had in common was that they didn't take no for an answer.
“That's right,” I agreed. I had learned as a small child that it was better to just agree with him and not try to explain or justify.
“I don't trust the sky, it can change on you suddenly,” father glared up at the sky with such intensity that he was still glaring when he looked back down at the ocean. Having said his piece however, he now fell silent again and as bad as I felt about it, I was relieved. I had been afraid that I was going to get a lecture about how many times in his life the weather had suddenly changed on him. I was so grateful for the silence that I didn't try to strike up another conversation, even with me leaving it wasn't worth risking an argument. I had thought that maybe we would have more time when we got back to father's house but he said he was tired and said goodbye to me at the door. If mother was still alive there would have been a huge dinner and she would have cried over me, but father isn't very sentimental. It didn't matter that I was going to war and risking being shot at, even if the chance was rather smaller as a journalist than it would have been if I was a real soldier, father would never cry over me.
When I got back to my rooms the delivery man had come and gone, leaving behind him five crates, all with the logo of both the air force, and the newspaper I work for. As if I needed a reminder of the union that had removed my status as immune from the war. I opened the crates and did some packing since I will have to be at the air field early tomorrow and I don't want to forget anything in the last minute rush. After a while I couldn't stand it anymore, all of the army gear made me uncomfortable and depressed, so instead I pulled this journal from behind the radiator and I started to write.
My mind was just drifting, trying to remember how it was that I had started my next entry, when a guard came and ordered me out of my cell. I was surprised, I had expected to be there longer. If they had really wanted to make me sweat they should have left me there for at least a couple of days. As it was I was still at the point where I was grateful not to be crowded on all sides under a blazing sun.
I was taken up to the captain's quarters, for what I assumed would be an interrogation. I still wasn't afraid, I had grown far too used to the idea of death over the last couple of weeks to be frightened of the idea of being asked a few questions. Compared to the person I had once been I liked to think I was stronger, even though I knew that in truth it was more resignation than anything else. I now had more of a feeling that things would happen and no matter how much I worried about them, nothing was going to change that.
The captain's room was about the same size the captain's room on the dirigible, small until you considered the limited amount of space given to everyone else on the vessel. The captain himself was seated at a fold away desk reading a paper when I was shown in. I would have been more nervous as I stood and waited for him to look up but I had had a boss that liked to do this to throw employees off guard and I had become good at relaxing. I was just starting to zone out again, after all we still hadn't been given any water or food so I was not at my best, when the captain looked up.”
To be continued...
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