Rage will seethe in the dark without night,
The facts undeniable drown out false words.
And angry flames leave smoldering blight,
Feeding roaches, rats and birds.
He hated welding. Unfortunately, no one was buying his poetry. Poetry was why he lived, but he needed something to keep him alive for it, so he grabbed the contract offer posted in the vacant store window. Besides, visiting a foreign country would offer something different to inspire his verse. At any rate, just about any place on earth was better than where he was living.
The riots had boiled up over the space of a single hour. He smelled the fire before the first tenement went up in flames, had written about it in his poems. He fled the building with only his old netbook. His poetry book, he preferred to call it, since he rarely bothered to use it for going online. That is, until he was ready to post the next batch of poems. He kept it in a special pocket he added to his coat, a padded and shielded section over his heart.
In another pocket was the multi-source charger and a spare battery. The poems burned in him hotter than the raging fires of the riots, and he was never without the means to record the words. Hidden on the cord around his neck was the backup jump drive.
So he added a few extra pieces of natural fiber clothing — synthetics were dangerous for welding — from the charity stall at the big cathedral and an old pair of sandals, and signed up for the job in that warm tropical land far from home. He felt truly inspired when, of all things, some passing truck dropped a pair of well worn, but still usable, welding gloves. Welding helmets were always available, but gloves required cash money, and were expensive. The dumpster behind the gym yielded a small duffel, just enough for his clothing, carry-on sized.
He needn’t have feared the TSA mauling, because they were flying him and his fellow workers on a cargo charter with the welding equipment, generators, and some special fittings for the job. The ancient turbo prop aircraft kept some of them awake, but he had always carried ear plugs and headphones to shut out the noise of the world when he wrote, so it was simply a nice vibration which lulled him to sleep as their flight pierced the night.
The sign in the local language alleged this dirt airstrip was an airport. He dug into the breakfast at the cafe next to the runway, not so much because he liked the food, but it was his first meal in a couple of days. Actually, he didn’t like it much at all, but he was already beginning to have that dull aching along the sides of his head which came from doing without food too long. The trucks hired to take them to the job site with the equipment looked in desperate need of his welding skills. He took an extra liter-sized water bottle because he figured his ride would probably be the one to break down.
They made it, after a fashion, but he ended up needing the water simply because it was hot. He figured the trucks made it so well only because the whole route was downhill, but not steep enough to really fry the brakes. The moderate air of the airstrip gave way to savanna scrub, with only a tropical strip along the beach even lower yet from the table land on which the job site stood.
Tents everywhere, of all sizes and descriptions. Most of them were military surplus, of course. He recognized the purpose of most of them by sight. They were shown their bunks and he took the most isolated cot in the vestibule at the back. Then they were herded to another tent and signed the usual non-disclosure forms, and were given an advance. The lunch from a roach coach was slightly better than the breakfast. Then they were shown the drawings and plans for what they were building. It took several hours to cover everything, and they toured the entire work site. Yet another secret government project with lots of cryptic electronics involved.
Because the equipment wasn’t all in place, they were allowed to change and walk down into the village below, just in time for dinner. The last word from the supervisor was the wake-up time tomorrow.
