Hey y'all. I've got a hairline fracture in my right ankle and daytime TV still sucks so here's some more Over There FanFiction.
This is not a continuation of my Sgt. Hotness Scream trilogy however, I'll be using some characters from those stories because I like them and because I can and like I have to give you an explanation, child please. In lieu of a synopsis, Lt. Underpants is dead. Welcome to Over There A. U. or After Underpants. Other than that, I don't really know where I'm going with this except in the very broadest of senses so hold on to your edible panties!
Daglesh: a black dot. In Hebrew calligraphy it is used to change the pronounceable emphasis of a word.
Taking the blame for the Iraqi Police's snafu that left a third of Mosul in the dark a month earlier was proving to be a costly good deed for the Tarateers. The new nickname, which according to an informal poll of U.S. Army interpreters amounted to One Full of Farts, was an improvement on the earlier Ulooj or Pigs of the Desert for those who were into its translated form. At first, letting the fledgling security forces retain their credibility with the skeptical population they served had seemed like a good idea but as word that free food was being handed out to anyone who showed up started to spread, the population of every affected neighborhood increased exponentially. Not even bunnies were that fertile.
Twenty minutes after the Iraqi Police took over their new headquarters, a toaster had finally overloaded a grid designed to service a population the size of South Central Los Angeles and landed a quarter of a million people in 1365 A.D. A month later Mother Army was still feeding the last three percent of those affected in tiny neighborhoods like Amali and al-Bareed, not yet realizing that so long trucks full of food kept showing up, people willing to take it would always be at hand.
This was Pfc. Esmeralda Del Rio's new job, food distribution, and she was starting to feel like Wal-Mart associate after eleven days of feeding the denizens of Daglesh Square, al-Bareed. Five trucks were parked at the intersection of Road 52 and Avenue B, formerly Saddam Hussein Road and Saddam Hussein Avenue, not that the incarcerated dictator was overcompensating for anything. Pvt. Mitchell was helping her by checking identifications before the food was handed out and punching a hole in the ration cards instated a week earlier to cut down on the repeats. Both the women's ears were ringing after two hours of the incessant noise coming from the mostly female crowd.
One truck over, Pfc. Simpson was similarly engaged with his right hand in a splint having recently learnt why punching men wearing body armor was never a smart thing to do. He'd not only hurt his hand but gained extra duty and lost some of his measly pay and all for a blow that had failed to even budge the man who cut in line in front of him on spaghetti and meatballs day.
The line before his truck was the shortest of all the queues and he looked up with hope in his eyes, wondering if he was going to make it back to base for the second episode of King of the Hill. It was unlikely. No matter how quickly his partner in monotony managed his hole-puncher or how fast the food went out of its boxes, he always had to wait for a ration card.
"Ration card ma'am," he urged dully holding a sample card in the air. The black robe in front of him looked up.
"No I'm..."
"No card," he said pointing to the card and shaking an MRE, "no food." The woman handed Simpson a folded sheet of paper. Baffled by the simplicity of the unexpected he repeated his directions. "No card, no food."
"I'm not here for food," she said.
"Then move to the back of my line ma'am," Simpson added without noticing he'd just replied to a statement made in perfectly understandable English. He waved her away.
"Your commander promised medicine would come for me." She unfolded the sheet of paper and waved it in the air without budging from her spot in line. People from the adjacent queues gathered around Simpson for the entertainment value of what seemed to be brewing. Most of them didn't have the benefit of Hank Hill on satellite TV.
"Ma'am I only have food."
"Your commander promised. Look." Simpson took the paper and stared cross eyed at fuzzy black print. $1,700 a month was not enough pay.
"Ma'am I only have food," he repeated. Beside him Esmeralda cursed in Spanish, something about the size of Simpson's genitals.
"Dios mio, just ask Sergeant Scream!"
"Hey nobody asked you!"
"So then Arabic is the official language of Watts?" Simpson looked at Pfc. Del Rio and it dawned on him that he'd been conducting a conversation in his mother tongue. He brought his radio to his mouth.
"Sarge come in," He did. "I've got a woman here, says she needs medical attention."
"Medication," she corrected.
"That's what I said." Simpson returned his radio to his vest where it belonged. The woman shifted her weight from one foot to the other and looked up at the sun hanging steadfast in a cloudless sky. Sensing a more receptive audience in Pfc. Del Rio, she sought the woman's eyes.
"Could you look in your truck please? There should be ten boxes from the Red Cross with this name," she held out laminated ID badge with her name and photo. Esmeralda took the badge and looked at the inventoried contents of her truck as listed in her clipboard. There was no medication in there; she had loaded the truck herself. SSgt. Silas negotiating the haphazard line eliminated the need to respond.
"Who's sick here?" He asked Del Rio.
"SSgt. Silas?"
"Jam… Mrs. Al-Shahrani?" She recovered before he did and the blush in her cheeks intensified though the impossible afternoon heat had put it there first.
"Is there a problem?"
"I'm awaiting remittance of medical supplies from the International Red Cross Sergeant. A Captain… Baron," she said checking the name in her fax and emphasizing the wrong syllable of The Duke's given name "told my boss they'd be shipped with the food today." Without needing to be told, Del Rio placed her clipboard on Silas's outstretched hand. Simpson followed suit. The remaining three trucks didn't need to be checked; items six though sixteen of Pfc. Simpson's load were clearly marked as Red Cross parcels for the newly minted al-Bareed Women's Health Centre.
"Ten boxes ma'am. Does that sound about right?"
"Yes Sergeant."
"My people will deliver these as soon as they are done with the food ma'am."
"Shukran Sergeant, thank you." Jamila refolded her fax as small as she could bend the paper. One of her hands disappeared into her purse. "Sergeant, perhaps you or one of your colleagues could spare a moment to deliver some of the lighter supplies now? We need… everything. You have the address right?"
"I'll see what I can do ma'am."
In case you already lost count, that was chapter one.
Thy Author.
PS: Thank you Bianca.