The Volunteer

ONE.

I hate waiting rooms. They make me nervous. They're always full of plastic plants, and perfectly white walls, and magazines that are almost a decade old and certainty aren't meant to be read. Then there's the people in the room with you. You look at them, and you realize they've all got problems. And at first you might laugh, until suddenly you realize that you are just like them, and you've got problems as well, which is why you are here.

So here I am in an typical waiting room. Wait, let me re-phrase that, the waiting room is typical enough, but as for what I'm waiting for, well, now, that's atypical. Another thing about waiting-rooms, they often have posters or pictures hanging on the walls. Usually very boring pictures. This waiting room has a poster that says MOTHER EARTH NEEDS YOU! and it shows an athletic, blond, blue-eyed young man, his fist connecting with an eight-foot tall, slavering alien. The young man is the only thing stopping the alien from getting its hands (or is that mandibles in this case?) on a tall, heartbreakingly beautiful woman wearing a sort of robe made out of woven vines. She's supposed to be Mother Earth, but she looks like Tanya Taylor, the latest pop-princess to hit #1 on the music charts, and that mostly because of the size of her breasts rather than any musical ability.

Anyway, underneath the supposedly-inspiring image are the words JOIN THE TERRAN ARMY TODAY! And that's why I'm here. To join the Terran Army, to fight the good fight, to save good ?ol Mother Earth, the cradle of humanity, from the evil onslaught of the bug-eyed creeps from outer-space. Well, not really. I'm joining the Terran Army today because if I don't, then they'll make me. You see, there really is no choice. You're going to join the Terran Army today, whether you want to or not. Whether you're randomly assigned to some cannon-fodder unit on a God forsaken rock at the farthest reaches of the galaxy or if you end up with a cushy job as a navigator on an interstellar cruiser with six tons of solid metal between you and the enemy, well........that's up to whether or not you are a volunteer or a conscript.

And as far as the bug-eyed aliens go, well, personally I've known humans who are probably more cruel-hearted and disgusting to look at that any of the numerous enemy alien species we humans have fought against. So I've got nothing against multiple-armed inhuman freaks. Never let it be said that I am a speciesist.

I'm very nervous, and I'm looking around the waiting room. You can tell how damned nervous I am, doing a thing like that, because I already know what it looks like. Minus the propaganda, I've seen this motif dozens of times. Doctor's office, dentist, job-interview, wherever.....they all look the same.

The occupants of this waiting room aren't much different than the ones you'd find at any of the afore mentioned locations, except that there are no whinny kids. There's a pale, wimpy looking guy with a briefcase. He's clutching it as if it is More Precious Than Life Itself?. He's balding, and his skin is pasty. He doesn't look too well. Probably going to get something boring like being assigned to record the exact number of ironing boards that are being shipped annually to the planet Seriph VII.

Than there's this really old woman. I mean, really old. I wouldn't be surprised if she remembered when Lazaurus was restored to life. Actually, I probably would be surprised. She doesn't look like her memory probably is that good. As to just what she's hoping to contribute to the war effort is anybody's guess. Maybe she's going to knit socks for our Brave Boys at The Front?, or pack lunches for the infantry.