Writing Prompt #5: Tiny stories

What the heck is this thing?

It was an old-fashioned card case. Inside was a red OPA token, a faded photograph of a handsome army officer. On the back of the photograph, an inscription read, "10/10. Full and satisfied."

Patty stared at the treasure in her hand. "What the hell is an OPA?" She opened her phone and looked it up.

Huh. The US Office of Prince Administration used them to freeze prices during World War II. The tokens were used for rationing. The red ones were mostly used for meats. Cool.

The black and white photograph revealed the eagle on his epaulets. Again, Wikipedia to the rescue. Colonel. Nice.

She sat down on an overturned milk crate amidst the dust and silence of her great-grandmother's attic. Several months after the funeral, only a smattering of boxes remained in storage. The downstairs furniture had already been distributed to the extended family. Here, in this third to last box, was a collection of card cases and notebooks.

Patty flicked open the next case. This picture was off a...hmm...three bars up, one down. According to her research, a staff Sargent. On the back was "5/10" but there were ten blue tokens.

She flipped open a random yellowed notebook. "Nice cock, but much too fast." The phrase caught her eye. Patty giggled. "Maman, you minx!" A box full of souvenirs  and ratings on old lovers. Oh, this find was hers and hers alone. For years, Patty had been been the black sheep of their family with her free-love attitude. Nice to know she came from *somewhere* along the family tree. No one else was in the attic with her. She slid the old box into a new one, taped it shut, pulled the cap off a Sharpie and wrote, "Recycling" on the side.

Soft-footed, she tip-toed down the stairs, took the box directly to her car, put it in the truck, covered it with a blanket. She and great-grandmother were going to have a good sharing of secrets tonight!

Sweet, tasty love

As I daydream about my Weapons Dealer Woman, I wonder what kind of man would love her. Of course, her clients would attempt to seduce her - after all, wouldn't you expect your lover to give you an incredible discount on your order for a gross of Super Seekrit High Powered Killing Thing?

But that's not love - it certainly can be funny, and perhaps fun, but I don't think she'd enjoy getting laid, not paid.

True love comes when someone sees your essence - the person you have the potential to be if you had enough courage. What would he see in this woman who had already sold her soul for revenge? What would she see in him?

I think he's going to be pretty compromised himself. Perhaps he'd be on the opposite side of the law - sort of. Perhaps he'd be her competitor.

And couldn't you just see these two violent and dangerous people meeting in the local coffeehouse and getting to know each other over a couple of decaffeinated lattes?

Coffee dates amongst the corrupt and wealthy! Now there's a situation for my angry girl.

Why I don't need to use illegal mood-altering substances.

This is an example of a random afternoon conversation in the Charming-Mercury household.

Me, arms full of clean laundry. I shout downstairs. "Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be an arms dealer?"

The Charming Man in the kitchen. "No."

Pause.

The Charming Man. "Is there something you need to tell me?"

Me, standing over the bannister, holding clean sheets.  "I just wonder if it would be a good career. You never run out of market. It's recession-proof. There is always new stock being developed and you don't have to pay for the R&D."

The Charming Man, being logical.  "I doubt you'd like your clientele much. And you'd have to learn about guns."

Me: "Yeah, that would be far too much work. I certainly couldn't make a living off of selling pointy sticks."

***

But now I'm stuck wondering what kind of person goes into the arms trade? The stereotype is that of a selfish, thoughtless person. Would he or she be redeemable? What motivates them to enter this job? Why deal in the business of war at all?

And this is why I don't do drugs. I think like this all the time. :)

An army travels on its stomach.

Unfortunately, The U.S. Navy SEAL Guide to Fitness and Nutrition doesn't have any pictures of yummy men, but what an awesome resource for my straight arrow hero!

Since the Seals are a male-only force, the book is of limited use to women, but come on! How often do you get to read articles titled, "Nutritional Considerations for Endurance Activities"?  With tables named "Table 11-3. Typical Land Warfare"?

Many years ago, I read a monograph on the food needs of Alexander the Great's campaigns. I need to find it again and compare it to the statistics in here.

Primary source research and other wacky hijinks.

Over the holiday weekend (and I hoped yours rocked, too), I got sidetracked by some research. I was figuring out how modern Berlin differed in layout from World War II Berlin, especially what happened to the land where the final bunker was.

(It's an apartment block and playground now. How very cool!)

In the course of looking that up, I found a book called In the Bunker with Hitler by Bernd Freytag von  Loringhoven.

Von L, as I started to call him, was a Captain in the regular Army, and was aide-de-camp to the Army chiefs of staff- Guderian and Krebs. He describes his experiences in the Bunker from July 23, 1944 to April 29, 1945.

It's a fast,  fascinating read, and I suddenly wanted to do a paper on Group Think and the Third Reich. Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes, by Irving L. Janis is one of my favorite books. This would be an amazing study, full of footnotes and quotes (and parenthetical statements).


But alas, there is only so much time in the world. So instead, I'm going to use In the Bunker... as a primary source on Hitler's behavior and personality in the last days of World War II. Some of my notes:

1. Never underestimate the power of charismatic, motivated, deluded idiot.
2. As much as it sucks, it really does help to listen to people who disagree with you.
3. As nice as it is in your own little world where your soldiers are at full strength with plenty of food, ammunition, fuel, and not being killed by your enemy, you might want to maybe, just maybe try playing make-believe.
4. The regular Army really didn't know about the war atrocities. I never understood that before, but after hearing how Hitler ran things, I see how he did it, and why. (Secret meetings with the Nazi party because he didn't trust or like the regular Army men).

This is why primary source research is the most fun of all.

World War I sucked.

Dulce et Decorum Est
by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.



Note: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - it is sweet and right to die for your country. In other words, it is a wonderful and great honour to fight and die for your country.