The Pairing

Opaque grains of dry sand escape his boot. Sand streams from the seams of his khakis, too. Collecting in piles, the sand forms a patchwork floor, all dirt and silica. Eventually, all that exists is ground to dust.

Whenever the winds whip, sand blasts. It pelts his skin, cruel as buckshot pellets. Lately that's 24/7.

It's even inside the cannery's makeshift walls, even inside his squat narrow bunk.

It's everywhere. In his food. Under his nails. Between his toes. Inside his ears. On his scalp. Scratching at his eyes.

It's up his nose and in his mouth and down his throat.

Sand clings, becomes itchy, calls fingers to over-scratched patches. He can't help returning to them, again and again.

He's reminded of that poison oak patch which grew unrestrained in his backyard. Long ago. When he was home. When home was a place that existed.

Nothing much remains. Not after Paris.

Hundreds of storms hot as desert fists pummel the village. The storms deposit shards like splintered glass. They come with one intention: to bury soldiers and their new brides, and anything else still standing.

*

Nathan snuffs his boot's toe into the sand to extinguish an imaginary butt.

Phantom calf pain screams. He needs to stretch.

But the line has formed, and Nathan stands in it. Can't leave now.

Five minutes from now, at precisely at five past noon, Nathan will draw his ticket. The heavily guarded antique black box on the other side of a decaying wall will decide. Which bottle, which bride.

*

Apart from sand and droplets of sweat, Nathan's uniform is immaculate. His crew-cut is effortless. His close shave, a work of art.

But that scowl, fallen ugly as wasted honor, and that smudge of disgust slumping like an anchor round his throat, that's all his father.

*

Nathan settles his mind. He plummets deep inside the dream of an ocean. He sinks so sweetly down.

*

Nudged awake by The Watcher, who plays soldier with the pointy end of an AR-75, Nathan returns to picking at scabs and tonguing sand.

Two pairs have gone ahead. Three more will follow. That's hard math. Nathan won't escape it. Not this time.

He and his partner--his last, first date, whomever she might be--are two of twelve sets of two. Their odds aren't good.

*

Like every other soldier in The Pairing, Nathan's rank and title will be observed at the precise moment his ticket drops, at which point he will be awarded Final Service Call.

The pertinent details will be entered on his permanent record.

If today's his day, his marrow, tissues, blood, and eyes will be extracted and catalogued. The rest will burn.

*

Nathan knows with a gnawing certainty that The Pairing will not go well. How could it? Today's Friday.

Nathan's always imagined living through The Pairing, getting married, carrying on, but the day he always envisioned is a Wednesday. Always a Wednesday.

Since the moment he was drafted into Sovereign Division, Nathan has known this moment would arrive. He has often pictured a pristine, snowy winter morning, a perfect frozen Wednesday, early golden hour, late into the short shadows of a refreshing holiday.

February would suit him best, or early March. He holds out hope a robin will appear to guide him onward. The blessed winged creature is his spirit animal. His witness. His mother's Death Form, as bright as Christmas lights. Warmer than a candle through the iced white bark of a stand of hardy pines. He always pictures her there, on his six, covering down.

*

Nathan received his call--The Call--three days ago. Command said Friday. Not eight months out, as is the standard for his unit. Command said now. In the towering days of August. Just three days' grace.

And here of all Godforsaken places. In this infernal, primitive excuse for a village, with its toehold on Earth's imploding navel.

Any other place would be better. Even Lexington. Or Lincoln. Or Madrid.

Instead, much to his chagrin, Nathan's fate will be decided here, inside the parched talons of broiling summer. Inside an inhospitable cannery.

*

Soldiers and villagers not randomly selected for The Pairing will form a little crowd. Frightened rabbits safe to live another day, whipped by sand.

Unable to turn their eyes away, they will begin the long effort of working toward moving past soul-crushing mourning for their volunteered kinfolk, knowing it is only a matter of time.

*

Nathan has met some of the villagers on night patrol. They stared at one another, faces blank, forced smiles failing to gain traction beneath thin knits that close mouths, and not just against the sand.

None wears a face Nathan could imagine loving. But it makes no difference now. He'll sip and live. Or sip and die.

Nathan believes the wine will sour — that their bodies will be forfeit. Like the lambs, and the horses, and the elderly and infirm.

He imagines his date wearing shades of white, her eyes like emeralds that see greener pastures.

It's too much to dream of ocean blues.

Anything he can hold onto, he clings to. He yearns to burn down these last insufferable seconds -- end the great not knowing.

He changes his mind about the color of her hair: brown, no blonde, no, red, to go with those emerald isles. That'd be lovely.

**

The cannery's dry air usually gets circulated by three overheated fans. It's impossible to differentiate the building's suffocating heat from that stench of burning dust from human skin, suffering into sand.

The third and final fan conked out 17 hours ago against the desperation. The soldiers' slow rhythmic breathing kicked in shortly thereafter. The villagers have no such training.

If it weren’t for The Pairing, Nathan would be at work right now, with his unit, sweeping for mines, or brushing inches-thick dust off the antennae. Or restocking the pack animals' feed. Or cleaning decrepit weapons likely to explode in impatient hands.

Instead he's here. Lifting his right boot up, one low step. Then his left, or what passes for it, battered a year back, whacked below the knee.

Won't be long now.

**

Nathan thinks about her. His mother. Her soft white ribbons. Her jet black hair. Her smell, like spruce and cinnamon, and rushing water.

He thinks about her Pairing. When soldiers' families still resisted.

**

As instructed, when instructed, at precisely five past noon, Nathan presses the squeaky lever using the sweaty digits of his strong right hand. His fingers click-click the metal pull, tugging lightly, jiggling it toward the left. His pulse escalates. A twinge cripples his gut.

It's familiar. The nausea of war.

One more quarter turn, just a touch more, and it's done. His card flutters into the air and falls lazily down. It sticks where it settles, like sand.

Nathan steps, twice, to the right, bringing his card to the clerk. His data are entered. His last choices are made.

It's harder, and easier, than Nathan thought it would be: knowing nothing else remains within his control.

His card dropped. His partner's name is chosen. That one bottle of mediocre wine, created long before Earth's wells ran dry, is opened.

Nathan's bride is presented, cloaked ostensibly to shield her from the sand.

All that remains is to sip from their shared glass.

Then comes the fall-out.

***

Copyright © 02/16/2020 by Christy Munson. All rights reserved.