Jackson remembered now that he had been sleeping. Pretty damn hard too he felt as his head still wasn’t fully clear from being startled so suddenly by Monty’s ugly mug staring at him, and his annoying voice calling his name. It was a hell of a sight to have to wake up to, especially when you weren’t ready for it.
“Me wake you up Sir? Your yelling damn near woke half the unit. The guys elected me to figure it out.”
“Elected you? We testing a new military democracy here pal?”
Jackson knew Monty had taken it upon himself to check out his friend. But a little ribbing wouldn’t hurt.
“Ok, ok. I chose to figure out what was going on at the Colonel’s bunk despite the grave risk to life and limb. You sure have been talking in your sleep a lot lately sir, but today was by far the loudest and the longest.”
Talking in his sleep? Jackson didn’t think he did that sort of thing, at least no one had ever told him before that he talked during his sleep. However, like they’d just discussed, he hadn’t really slept close to anyone for a long, long time. This was great though, he thought. There was definitely nothing like having your unit thinking you’re a “nut-job” to get them to fight for you. This would be real great.
“Alright Montgomery? Lets hear it then. What was I saying? Did I award any promotions while I was asleep? Demotions? Are you my superior now? Tell me. What’ve I been saying?”
Monty fell into step beside him as they walked out of the bunk area and into the makeshift cleanup center made up of the ultra sanitary barrel full of water, hanging bag of antibacterial cleanser, or shower goo as it had been affectionately nicknamed by the men, and a group of mirrors. Jackson dunked his hands into the water, lamenting the fact that it was always so damn cold in that dirty barrel, and squeezed the bag shooting some of the shower goo into his wet hands. Rubbing them together to create a lather, he spread his fingers around his face to clean the final vestiges of sleep out of his system and to get himself going a bit. He pulled his hands away and took a look. There wasn’t any shower goo left that was for certain. All the grease and grime had absorbed it. His face was just too dirty damn dirty for a palm’s worth to make a difference; it didn’t matter though because you could never get clean in this place anyway.
“Well Boss, it hasn’t been that pleasant, and, like I said, this time was one of the worst, though it’s been nearly this bad before. It’s all about fire and people dying. It…uh…it kind of makes us nervous if you know what I mean? Like what do you know that none of us know? You know what I mean? Course it doesn’t help when you come within a single nerve twitch from shooting the guy who wakes you up right between the eyes. Guess I’m lucky you like me boss. What if it had been Landazzo? Now that would’ve been fucking messy. After all, you hate him.”
Jackson laughed, but he was a little confused now. What in the world had he been saying and why was he talking about fire and dying. It sounded familiar to him, but why? Continuing with his fruitless two minute grooming effort, Jackson looked up into the mirror. He shook some of the loose water droplets off the skin of his face, but there were still remnants of his goo lather caught in his whatever-o-clock stubble. He hadn’t shaved in at least fifteen hours, but he wasn’t in the mood to do it now either. His sandy blondish hair was still functionally short, but growing out a bit longer than he preferred. Jackson always felt a little bit dirtier when his hair got too long; best way to keep it clean was to keep it short enough to prevent anything from getting in there. The inch long groove under his left eye was starting to heal pretty nicely. The medics had pumped him full of antibiotics to prevent an infection, but it would still scar. He could remember the heat of the pain from receiving it, still fresh from action just over a week ago.
Jackson squeezed his eyes shut forcing the last of the watery goo mix out of them. Monty was still talking, still firing away about the things he’d been apparently screaming about in his sleep. Fire and people dying. Why would he be screaming about that?
