February 21, 2018

Airman First Class Alex Manes loaded into the second row of seats in the armored carrier along with Airman Tony Belacci. Senior Airman Phil Juarez rode up front with their Army driver, who they only knew as 'Sticks'. The guy's chest patch said Stevens, but damned if he'd ever heard anyone mention his first name. Their tools and equipment were crated and riding in the back. Alex had checked every wrench and socket himself. He'd done it so many times, he could do it in his sleep. Matter of fact, he probably had, at some point over the last six and a half years.

He flipped his sun shade down over the rear window and glared out at the sandy, sun-baked landscape. F-ing desert. He'd spent the better part of the last decade with a dry mouth, cracked hands and a perma-tan. When his father had spoken of the glorious family tradition of joining the Air Force, Alex had always assumed that would mean flying above the clouds in a jet, not repetitively fixing the broken-ass pieces of crap.

But that dream had died a long time ago, shot down by a crappy eye exam. And that sort of thing wasn't a test you could study for. Just another defect that made him less than a man in his family's eyes - not that he cared anymore. This place had a way of cutting out the bullshit in your life, like no other experience could. He'd lost friends out in the sand, brothers-in-arms that were taken brutally and without rhyme or reason. Doing the job and staying alive were the only things that really mattered here. All the rest of it was just fluff and nonsense.

"Manes, you pack the extra landing gear module?"

Alex's head snapped up at his commander's sharp voice.

"Yes sir, along with the reinforced wing supports."

"Good." Juarez shuffled through the grainy black and white photos on his lap again. "Looks like the bird took a hard landing, but no major damage visible from the air."

A Raven UAV was down and stranded on the other side of Erbil. While the city was currently controlled by Iraqi national forces, the base's commander didn't want US technology sitting around on the ground for just anyone to take and sell. The Raven was one of the bigger UAVs, probably close to a million dollars of high tech metal, plastic and circuitry. Losing one would hamper Coalition efforts in the region for months. Their unit's mission was to repair if possible, destroy if unsalvageable.

Alex nodded and returned to watching out the window, always looking for anything that seemed off. Basic training felt like a million years ago, but his instructor's warning to always be alert was permanently with him.

The city was quiet, but a few people still walked with purpose down the streets, buying and selling, going to their jobs in offices or stores, kids on their way to community schools that had reopened after the fighting ceased. The buildings and streets showed scars from the worst of the conflict. Some brick facades had completely collapsed, turning sidewalks into piles of rubble. The city roadways were like the surface of the moon – pock marked by grenade explosions and vehicle fires. In some places, reconstruction had started, but many of the glass store fronts were still boarded up with a jumble of plywood and discarded materials from other destroyed buildings.

It looked like a war zone.

Alex laughed humorlessly at his own joke and reached down for his water bottle. The liquid was warm, as ever, but a soldier had to keep hydrating. Electrolyte balance was nothing to joke about.

The vehicle turned out of the city onto a four lane highway that was heavily used by military transport and supply trucks. The surface had been repaired, but some spots were still bumpy. On the outskirts of the northern suburb, they passed a school with a sports field that was probably once covered in astroturf, but had now been reclaimed by the blowing desert sand. The empty metal bleachers glinted in the morning sun and Alex squinted.

Memories of playing soccer on a field not unlike that one hit him out of nowhere. God, how long had it been since he was in high school? The lines on his face and the aches in his body told him it had been a long while. But sometimes, when he first woke up and the fog of sleep and exhaustion hadn't quite left his head, it felt like yesterday.

Things weren't any better, then. Not really. The emotional stress of living in that town was not unlike the feelings of physical stress he dealt with everyday in Iraq. They both took their toll on him. But there was something about the constant life and death struggle here that was almost easier to handle.

Back home, he'd been a target because of who he was and how he was. His different-ness was not his choice, but that didn't matter to some of those around him. He was judged for something out of his control. In this place, people wanted to kill him for the flag on his shoulder. And that had nothing to do with Alex, as a person. They were the same, but they were so very different.

The scent of freshly cut wood tingled in his nose as they passed a building under re-construction. One corner of the structure was a gaping hole, likely left when a grenade was tossed onto the Juliet balcony and detonated against the brick. Two dark haired men were hard at work, putting together rickety scaffolding so that they could reach to repair the damage. One was talking on his cell phone, absentmindedly holding a warped 2x4 while the other nailed it into place.

His chest ached at the pitchy wood smell and Alex rubbed a fist along his sternum. His father said that idle hands were the devil's playthings, so when he was off duty he was always busy. Whether it was maintaining his truck or repairing things around the house that didn't really need fixing, Master Sergeant Manes was never idle. Their porch could probably withstand a hurricane, it was so solidly built. The workshop out back had always smelled like wood or paint, solvent or motor oil.

The ache intensified when he realized he'd stumbled into forbidden territory. He never let himself think of that place. Never. The 8x10 building had played witness to both the best and worst moments of Alex's life. And once he started down the path of remembering, he couldn't block that face from his mind.

Despite the dry, hot air, his eyes watered as he stared out at the beige beyond his window - sand and building, rock and sky blurring until he couldn't distinguish features.

His trick of reciting maintenance schedules usually worked to block out that face, but he was having difficulty remembering how to start. He couldn't see the words in his head, because those damn curls were in his eyes. And they were soft, he recalled; wild and soft and they felt so good between his fingers.

How could that face be so clear to him after all the years and distance? It was as real and precise as his own reflection in a mirror. And it haunted him when he closed his eyes, but he couldn't let go of it, couldn't push it away. That face and those curls and the stupid smirk below them were his reasons to keep going – to keep doing the work and staying alive. But while the face was always there, Alex never let himself think of it directly. That was too hard, too much. So the foggy feeling was all he could allow himself. The lurch in his heart at the near miss made him breathe a little harder. No, he couldn't go down that road.

Alex blinked and focused on the landscape passing him by. The ridge off to the west was warming up as the sun hit it with full force, turning the rocks from grey to beige to a rusty red. Actually, he thought with a half-smile, the scenery was not unlike New Mexico. Deserts a world apart were still both deserts, after all. And he wondered if maybe that face was looking at the sunrise too, watching the colors of the rocks change and the night time chill burn off in a shimmering of light. Maybe he was, and maybe he was remembering similar things in a foggy way to protect his own heart, too. And didn't that make Alex feel a little less alone in this godforsaken place.

The explosion came without warning, the IED hidden in a burned out car wreck on the side of the highway. Upon hearing it, the scaffold builders back along the highway walked to a waiting car and drove off, their spotting jobs complete.

The humvee landed on its roof, the passenger side completely shredded. Alex was somewhat shielded, sitting behind the driver's seat on the opposite side of the vehicle, but shrapnel was an evil thing. It could never really be avoided. And after the wreck stopped rocking in place, there was only silence and the sound of the hot wind blowing across the pavement.