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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “Embracing Shadows” Down in the Dirt, v146 (the June 2017 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the issue book Random Thoughts the Down in the Dirt July-Dec. 2016 collection book		get the 418 page May-August 2017 Down in the Dirt issue anthology 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

We Stood Like Soldiers Waiting For Our Orders

Manuel Alex Moya

    We stood like soldiers waiting for orders. Our aching joints needed to be oiled and flexed about. They crowded too many of us in here. Children cried to their mommies in the dark. People were coughing and growing restless. Some shat themselves. I could smell it. We all could. Others tried shuffling around in the hopes of finding comfort in this rickety train ride to the unknown. Comfort would not come.
    I couldn’t tell for certain how long, but according to those nearest to those nearest the walls of the wagon, they who could breathe in the feint glimmers of sun leaking through the cracks, they said it was four. Four what? I do not know. Four lifetimes.
    And then one day, the train slowed down to a stop. We stood there for a long while, as that was all we could do. Stand and wonder. Wonder quietly and aloud. People started to make a fuss. The commotion grew intense. It started to make me nervous even. It crescendoed so loud that my own thoughts were cluttered in a fearful mess. As I saw some of the women break down in tears, and others hacking up disease, one man stood tall. Head held high and eyes pointed straight ahead, as if he knew better than the rest. Maybe he did. But I doubt knowledge was what gave him his confidence. I watched him throughout the ride, or at least I tried. We all were shorn of our belongings and hair and other valuables. Yet still he looked dignified. He stood like a stoic. Doing nothing. Saying nothing. But the veins around his head and cheekbones seemed to speak a little louder.
    The door swung open, blasting us with an unexpected flood of cold air and light. We were quickly herded out of the cars alongside all the others and made to stand in the snow. Now I could see there were so many of us. There must have been hundreds pouring forth from each of the carriages, totaling perhaps a thousand, maybe three thousand? A small cluster of cement, windowless buildings, possibly ten or fifteen of them, all of modest size lay before us with a smoke-stack in the center piping away puffs of black into the sky.
    We were greeted by ushers dressed like surgeons or sterilized scientists. Over black, long-sleeved shirts, they wore white aprons covering their chest and legs. They walked with black boots and pointed us around with their black, rubber gloves. One of them, who was wearing circular-framed, sunglasses that shielded even the sides of eyes, got up on a stool to make an announcement: “Welcome!” he shouted warmly through an unfamiliar accent, “You are all our honored guests today. We wish to help you wash up. Who here is hungry, eh?” He looked around, seemingly expecting us to jump up and down shouting “Me! Me!” as children sometimes do when they’re excited to eat some junk food. “We have some good food cooked up for you all! But first a little entertainment. We give you dinner and a show, ya?” He looked around at his audience showing us his remarkably, clean teeth, while we, in our exhausted state, responded only with silence and a few nasty coughs. He nodded, and his fellow ushers began applauding. And there was the stoic, looking on with unpreferred indifference, from the back corner of our flock.
    As we were being led to our first destination, I glanced around the walls and fencing trying to establish some sense as to where we were and why. One thing, in particular, caught my eye. I noticed a large clock. I had seen it even when we arrived and something about it had struck me. Now that we were passing by it, I could more closely inspect its black, elegant hands, the long one pointing to a thirty-eight, the short to an eleven, printed in giant Roman numerals. I stood while everyone else trotted along. The hands were painted onto the wall.
    They politely shoved us into a room with the instructions to denude ourselves in preparation for the shower. This we did without much fuss, although tensions were high. I won’t go into all the uncomfortable details that enshrouded that experience. Eyes quickly shifted between the people. Except for the stoic, of course. He sat there comfortably. One leg over the other. Calm. Collected. His eyes were made only for watching, not for being watched. That was the last time I saw him.
    The shower room was damp, and dark. It contained the usual components one would expect in a shower: tiled flooring and walls, drains and faucets with skinny necks that protruded from on top. One could not assume it was used for anything else. “Now before we turn on the water,” said one of the aproned guides in a similar accent, “remember to take a deep breath” she patted her stomach, “from below.” She demonstrated how it was to be done. “So that you can get air into your blood cells, and maintain good body temperature.” She exited and we all stood there in the dark waiting, many of us taking deep breaths, myself included, though I don’t know why.
    A woman shrieked, and then others did. Louder screams came when the liquid started shooting us. It wasn’t fatal, it was water. But it was cold.
     Then we were rushed into a theater. Once we all took our seats, an apron stood in front of us to make another announcement, “We hope you enjoy entertainment.” Yes. She said it exactly in that awkward syntax. “We call you one by one to get food as movie progresses.” The lights were dimmed even before she left the stage, and the movie abruptly started.
    It was one of those comedies that always come out of Hollywood. It had Seth Rogen and some of these other celebrities, whose names I don’t know. It was just a bunch of buffoonery, but the people seemed to enjoy it. There was laughter. While they were having a good time, I was about to have a nervous breakdown. Nothing about this environment was compatible within my previously stable structures of reality
    And as they watched the movie, I watched them. But we were all were being overseen by the black and white aprons standing on an elevated platform that ran against the upper part of the walls. Again, there was no past experiential familiarity with anything remotely like this situation. Yet somehow I sat calmly. The shine of the movie would occasionally darken the audience, and then you could see them through the lighter parts. But each time the movie would shine some light on the audience, it seemed there were fewer and fewer of them. Until three hours into it, one movie after another, my head turned at the uncomfortable feeling that I was the only one watching.
    “Okay Sir,” announced an apron that somehow pops in front of me, “It is your turn...”
    I let them lead me out, without question. Their black robed arm extends to show me the way. My head turns to see the brightest thing there: a distant and faded light. I follow it. I follow it. And I climb out, only to find that the train is awaiting me. It’s time to ride again. But this time, I ride alone.

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