NaNoWriMo 2022
Girl Talk
American Kingdom: Day 13
Previous scene:
The barracks block was single level, one corridor lined with individual rooms, two bunks one desk per room. I thought it pretty luxurious compared to some but it would never win any five-star reviews on AirBnB.
I was given a room to myself. For military facilities, that’s five stars right there.
The taller woman, our apparent leader, looked at me. “Huh. There are five of us and forty cabins. Men the far end. Pick any room you want. I’m Annie, this is Hazel.”
“Molly,” I said.
“Yeah. Come this way.”
She led us along the corridor. The central section of our block was given over to bathrooms, laundry, storerooms, with large doors and walkways leading over to a parallel building that contained classrooms, mess hall, offices.
She opened a door — marked with the usual symbol — to a locker room with shower area.
“We were thrown in that bear pit two days ago. It was pretty ripe then and it’s gotten no cleaner since. You’re having a shower with soap and hot water right now. I hope you didn’t swallow any of that muck.”
No, I didn’t think so. But. “I got some stuff in my hair.”
Annie looked.
“Ewww. I hope that isn’t what I think it is. Um, how’s your contraception regime?”
“Oooh, gross,” Hazel winced. “Come on, I’ll do your hair.”
She began unbuttoning her uniform while Annie set the showers going.
Hazel sat me down on a stool and lathered the shampoo in, her fingers reaching down to my scalp and sending tingles along my spine.
Annie unwrapped my elbow, gently rinsing away the loose scabs that covered the graze. She lifted my arm to inspect the point of the elbow. “Looks like it’s healing up nicely. We’ll keep an eye on it.”
“There you are,” Hazel said, slapping me lightly on the shoulder. “You can do the rest yourself, and you’ll be needing conditioner.”
Once we were done, Annie hauled three bath towels out of a cupboard.
“Those clothes — all of them — are going straight in the wash.”
We dried up. The other two wrapped their towels around themselves but Annie held up her hand. “Mind if I look at your scar?”
“I’m a freak show now?” I’d had enough of that in the military.
“You wouldn’t — couldn’t have, really — remember me. I was at Bagram when they brought you in and I went with you on the medevac to Ramstein. You were pretty close to checking out. Heck, you were dead, girl.”
“Doctor?”
“Nurse then. Good to see you made it. Oh boy, you were famous.”
“I lost two good friends that day,” I said, thinking of Lance and Mojdah.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “We never get the personal stories of what happened, just the case details from the medics out in the field.”
“Yeah, I woke up in hospital in Germany with my front all stitched up and itching like crazy and I had no idea. Took me months to find out what had happened.”
“Looks like a clean heal. I’ll bet you don’t wear a bikini when you go to the beach, though.”
“Yup. One-piece all the way.”
“What about headaches, dizzy spells, fainting, things like that?”
“Nothing like that. Not unless I drink too much, anyway.”
“Do you drink too much?”
“Not really. A few beers, glass of wine. Nothing like when I was still a Ranger.”
“Good. My chemistry teacher would disagree but alcohol is not a solution. Hey, let’s get some fresh clothes on. Hazel, you’ll get these started?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Hey, none of that now. We’re all recruits together.”
Next scene:
The whole story (NaNoWriMo work in progress)
Daily notes
Not as much novel writing as I should today. I’ve been feeling increasingly seedy. Cold or Covid?
I wrote a couple of more generic stories while I contemplated my next NaNo steps.
This scene establishes a couple of new characters — hey we step into a new world and helpers and enemies pop up, now there’s a surprise! — and I sow the seeds for conflict and cooperation to come.
The next scene — yet to be written as I write this — will introduce a couple of new characters and we’ll start to get some conflict going on multiple levels.
Molly
