I’d Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them

Wintric Ellis stands in between Big Dax and Torres as they plunge syringes into children in the narrow valley. Three more soldiers from their squad occupy a similar station several feet away, and a med tech shuffles back and forth, observing.

The girls and boys come forward with lesions and growths, unhealed wounds.

“What day is it?” Wintric asks.

“Doesn’t matter,” Torres says.

“School not in?” Wintric says.

No one answers.


“No school?”

The interpreter laughs.


“What?”


“Universities all on break,” the interpreter says, grinning. “Maybe US builds one right here?”

“Fuck you.”

“Easy,” says Torres. “Dude is with us.”