Timothy Fenner							about 15,000 words
3137 Durham Drive
Sun Prairie, WI 53590
(608) 212-5969
fennertim@gmail.com








THE GRIND
By Timothy A. Fenner
					


Part One: The Contract

      For a brief, wondrous moment, something told me this next tour would be different, somehow better than the nightmares before it. I should’ve known better. After just five minutes in pre-flight, my wishful thinking had been thoroughly doused by the stammering words of an idiot.  Words that set into motion a series of all too familiar events I could not escape.

      “Hey- hey man, why- why’d you sign up?” The kid’s fresh, yet scared-shitless face pegged him as a first timer. His foolish question locked in the fact. 

      I tried to act like I didn’t hear him, like I was deep in thought or couldn’t hear over the noise of a thousand plus Grunts stomping their way into the drop ship’s loading bay.  But this particular fool, no more than twenty by the looks of him, would not relent. The punk tried his best to look confident, with a half-cocked eyebrow and a grin that curled his scraggly mustache upward and bunched his pimpled complexion. His twitching, uneasy eyes betrayed him though, along with a pair of hands that wrung the life out of one another.

      “I don’t- don’t mean to pry,” he said, shuffling sideways to maintain eye contact as the sea of our fellow Grunts surged forward.  Just curious, ya- ya know.”

      Had he any seasoning, he would’ve known better than to ask such a question. A Grunt’s reason for signing wasn’t any of his damn business, a point I explained with a swift punch to his midsection.

      The shot staggered him backward, eyes bulging and hands clutching at the white tee-shirt around his stomach. After a gasp of air, his legs buckled and he toppled to the deck, landing with a heavy thud against the metal plating. After a sharp kick to his gut, I pressed onward without a second glance. 

      Lesson One: Personal lives are off limits in the Grind.