Okay, I'm going to fight. I'm going to be part of something bigger than myself. Could I do it? What was this going to be like?

I drove home in a daze, not seeing the streetlights as they changed, not thinking of anything but the coming months. Would I be prepared. The sun was setting on a hazy Friday evening and I wondered how many days like this were left: Peaceful, calm and free of carnage.

The weekend was a mass of activity. I called my parents, people I hadn't talked to in months, to let them know as indirectly as I could and using as few details as possible that I would be out of pocket for a while and not to lose faith that I'd be thinking of them. I didn't allow myself to wallow, but my heart still felt a tug knowing I was severing ties now so I wouldn't have to later.

I spent the weekend in a restless haze, starting activities, but then dismissing them as futile under the circumstances. Pay my cable bill? Why. I wasn't going to need that anymore. Shop for a house? Why? Wasn't there a chance it could be rubble within a year?

I spent so much time worrying about these future responsibilities, with my place in this newly imagined world, and I couldn't keep still waiting for thing to begin. I wouldn't have long to wait: I'd be up bright and early on Monday to begin the training.

As it happened, the anticipation left me little time for sleep. I lay in bed, arms crossed behind my head, starting at dark shadows on the ceiling. I thought I could see past it to the stars beyond. I wonder what lay behind them.

I couldn't sleep, that was for sure. I never even felt myself drift off until the alarm slapped me awake seemingly seconds later.

"No. No! No!" I didn't care that nobody could hear me scream. It just felt good to shout at something, anything for the injustice of having to wake up when I'd had so little sleep.

 

---

 

My editor called me in at 10:25 a.m. Friday, April 20. I want to remember details like that because you never know what you'll be asked by history to recall later.

"How's your workbook coming?" she asked as I entered her glass-enclosure office.

"Fine," I said. "I was going to finish it up over the weekend."

"The number are impossible," she said. "What a pain in the ass. Really, take all of the things I wrote with a grain of salt. It's not really a performance review. Plus, it's really beside the point. You'll find that out."

"I imagine," I said, not really sure what she was talking about.

"Has anyone talked to you about the training, about why we're sending you?" She leaned forward, her hands at her knees. She spun her head quickly, giving a look out beyond the glass. It looked as if she was making sure we weren't being watched.

"I got a letter in the mail, but it just said this was management training and that it was a day-long session."

"Right," she said. She took a long deep breath, and leaned back in her chair.

"There's a war coming, Omar. Nobody knows how soon, but you know that we're involved, correct?"

"I've heard rumors," I said. "The company is working with the government on some defense stuff, but we're not really sure what their weaknesses will be."

She nodded. "It's a diverse company with lots of interests. We're just one small piece of it. But they're looking for leaders with potential. And you're young. I think you'd be much better off going this route than seeing what happens when the military shuffles you around."

My heart was beating quickly. I could feel it under my dressy work shirt. My armpits were warm from nervousness. I was taking deep breaths. "We're pretty sure this is happening, then," I said, hoping this was all a big maybe.

"We're sure," she responded, her voice low and sad. "Just a matter of when, not if."

"War. Aliens. I don't really know what to say."

"Just do the course," she said quickly, thrusting a completed blue workbook at me. "Take this. Learn. Be safe. Maybe we'll still have a newspaper to run when this is all over."

I left her office, and watched as she went back to typing her e-mails. They were coming, these creatures, whatever they were, at this very moment. When they arrived, we might be decimated. I didn't know what I'd be fighting. I didn't know why they thought I could be a leader when I wasn't even sure where to focus my building fear.

I wondered how I'd be in battle, planning or patching through communications, or maybe just holding a gun on some front line of another planet's soil.

Okay, I'm going to fight. I'm going to be part of something bigger than myself. Could I do it? What was this going to be like?

I drove home in a daze, not seeing the streetlights as they changed, not thinking of anything but the coming months. Would I be prepared? The sun was setting on a hazy Friday evening and I wondered how many days like this were left: Peaceful, calm and free of carnage.