Chapter 14 third chapter

The man stood on a small heap of raised clay, looking at the roots of the giant trees, which had been washed bare by the dun gurgling water.Rain poured down from the sky; a great brown swell tearing at the roots of the trees and breaking violently into the spray.The rain alone had reduced visibility to several hundred meters, and it had already soaked the man in uniform.The uniform was originally gray, but the rain and mud had turned it a dark brown.The uniforms, which were once outstanding and close-fitting, have now turned into ragged clothes that are constantly dripping under the rain and mud.

The tree tipped over and crashed into the brown eddy, spraying mud on the man, who backed away and raised his face to the gray sky, letting the relentless rain wash the mud off his skin.The big tree blocked the rush of pouring mud, forcing part of it to flow over the clay mound, forcing the man to retreat even further, to a rough stone wall and a tall old concrete lintel, and the road behind was cracked and rough, all the way It stretches to a small, ugly farmhouse that squats near the top of a concrete knoll.He stayed there and watched the long brown trail of high tide go by and eat up the little clay canyon; Rolling, headed for the drenched valley and the low hills behind.The man looked at the crumbling river bank on the other side of the flood waters, where the roots of the giant trees had ripped out of the ground like exposed cables; then he turned and walked ploddingly toward the farmhouse.

He goes around the house.The vast concrete square foundation, nearly half a kilometer on a side, is still surrounded by water; waves of brown water lap the edges on each side.The towering and heavy old metal structure has long been in disrepair, looming in the misty rain, occupying the concrete floor full of potholes and cracks, like forgotten pieces of an oversized chess game.The farmhouses—looked ridiculous by the concrete surrounding them—look even more absurd under the abandoned machines, simply because they are so close to each other. The man looked at these as he walked around the building, but didn't see what he was looking for.He stepped into the farmhouse.

The killer shuddered as he swung the door open.The chair she was strapping to - a small wooden chair - leaned dangerously against a row of heavy chests of drawers, and as she twisted the legs scraped harshly across the stone floor, causing both the chair and the girl to slip and fall on the ground. on the ground.She hit her head against the pavement and cried out. he sighed.He walked over, his boots creaking with each step, dragged the chair up and set it up, and kicked away a shard of mirror as usual.The woman lay there relaxed, but he knew she was faking it.He moved the chair to the center of the small room.He watched the woman carefully as he did so, avoiding the direction of her head; he had been given a head-butt while tying her up, nearly breaking the bridge of his nose.

He looked at her knots.The cords on her hands behind the chair were frayed; she tried to cut the knots with a broken handheld mirror on a chest of drawers. He left her hanging lifeless in the middle of the room, where he could see her, and went to the cot he had dug out of the farmhouse wall and fell heavily on it.The bed was dirty, but he was too tired and soaked to care. He heard the rain beating on the roof, the wind howling through doors and cracked windows, the steady drip of water from the leaky roof onto the paving.He listened for the sound of a helicopter, but there was no helicopter.He didn't have a radio, and he didn't know if they knew where to find it.They would search as long as the weather allowed, but they would look for his staff car, which was long gone; it had been swept away by an avalanche of brown water.That could be days of waiting.

He closed his eyes and fell asleep almost immediately, but the consciousness of defeat seemed to prevent him from escaping, and grabbed him, filling his almost asleep head with flooding and retreating images, harassing him unable to rest, to recall To the constant pain and depression of waking.He rubbed his eyes, but his dirty hands got sand and dirt into them.He wiped a finger clean as best he could on the tattered, dirty sheet, and rubbed some drool over his eyes, because he thought if he let himself cry, he might not be able to stop. He looks at the woman.She was pretending to wake up.He wished he had the strength and intent to go up and beat her up, but he was too tired, too aware that he had to face the whole defeated Legion besides her.Whipping any human being—let alone a helpless, cross-eyed woman—would be a pathetic and beautiful compensation for his real survival, and his downfall, something he would regret forever.

She moaned exaggeratedly.A thin stream of snot dripped from her nose, dripping onto the heavy coat she was wearing. He turned his head, disgusted. He heard her blowing her nose loudly.When he turned his head, her eyes were already open, staring at him maliciously.She was actually just a little cross-eyed, but that imperfection displeased him all the more.With a good bath and decent clothes, he thought, the woman should look almost pretty enough.But now she is buried under a greasy green overcoat, covered in mud, and her dirty face is almost hidden; partly the collar of the heavy coat, partly her long, dirty hair , the hair was stuck to different places of the coat by shiny little balls of mud.She moved strangely on the chair, as if scratching an itch with the back of the chair.He couldn't tell if she was testing the knots in her hands or if she was just bothered by fleas.

He didn't think she had come to kill him; but she was almost sure she fit the dress, an assistant.She had probably been left behind during the retreat, wandering around either too frightened, too proud, or too stupid, until she saw a staff car stuck in a storm-washed pothole.Her attempt to kill him was brave but also ridiculous.She killed his driver with one bullet purely by fluke; a second hit him in the side of the head, and she dropped the gun with an empty magazine and jumped towards the car, knife in hand, as he collapsed.Cars that weren't driving slid down waves of lush lawn and into the river's brown eddies.

What a fool.Heroisms sickened him at times; they seemed insulting to the soldier who weighed the risks of a situation, and made for calm, shrewd decisions based solely on experience and imagination.A military career that doesn't show off won't win medals, but it will win wars. Still dazed from the bullet grazing, he fell into the rear running board as the car lurched forward and slammed into the force of the river.The woman nearly suffocated him in the water with the thick, thick coat; he couldn't throw a solid punch at her with his head reverberating from the bullet wound to his skull.For those absurd, confined, frustrating minutes, the fight with the girl seemed like the chaos that his army was sweeping across the plain; But the heavy coat wrapped and imprisoned him until it was too late.

The car hit the concrete island and the whole thing flipped over, throwing both of them onto the eroded gray surface.The woman screamed softly; she raised the knife that had been stuck in the folds of her green coat, but he was finally able to clear the way, and his fist landed a satisfying hit on her cheek. She hit the concrete floor; he turned to watch the car skid off the slipway, torn apart by the rising brown tide.The car still lurched sideways and sank almost immediately. He turned back then, wanting to kick the unconscious woman.But he kicked the knife away, sending it spinning into the river, following in the footsteps of the destroyed staff car.

"You can't win," the woman said, spitting. "You can't beat us." She shook the little chair angrily. "What?" he said, waking up from his daydream. "We'll win," she said, shaking the chair's rattling feet violently on the stone floor. After all this, why am I tying this stupid fool to a chair?he thought. "You'll be fine," he told her wearily. "Things are... looking a bit down. Are you feeling better?" "Get ready to die," the woman said, glaring at him. "Nothing could be more definite than that," he agreed, looking at the leaky ceiling above the battered bed. "We are invincible. We will never give up." "Well, you've proven that you're not invincible enough." He sighed, remembering the history of the place. "We have been betrayed!" the woman yelled. "Our armies are never defeated; we—" "Ambush from behind. I know." "Yes! But our spirits never die. We—" "Oh, shut up!" he said, turning his legs to the side of the narrow cot to face the woman. "I've heard the shit. 'We've been robbed'. 'The folks from back home are failing us.' 'The media is against us.' It's all shit…" He ran a hand through his damp hair. "Only the youngest or dumbest thinks that war needs to be sustained only by armies. As long as word travels through the whole...country...whatever it is...that's fighting. It's yours Spirit; your will, not lying on the ground and complaining. If you lose, you lose. Don't complain. If it weren't for this fucking rain, you would lose this time too." He said when the woman took a deep breath Raise a hand. "And, no, I don't believe God is on your side." "Heretics!" "Thank you for the compliment." "Hope your children die! And die slowly!" "Well," he said. "I'm not sure if I'm eligible, or if I am, we'll have to wait." He fell back on the bed, then sat up again immediately with a look of horror on his face. "Shit; they literally recruited you when you were young. It's horrible for anyone to say that, let alone a woman." "Our women are more manly than your men," the woman hissed. "And you still give birth. I suppose the options must be few." "May your child suffer and die a horrible death!" the woman screamed. "Well, if that's what you're thinking," he sighed, lying down again. "Then the most I can bless you is that you become the idiot you apparently are." "Barbarians! Heretics!" "You're running out of expletives; I'd suggest saving some for later. Though reserve power has never been one of your guys' strong suits, has it?" "We'll crush you!" "Hey, I'm crushed, I'm crushed." He waved a hand disinterestedly. "Shut up now." The woman howled and shook the small chair vigorously. Maybe, he thought, I should be grateful for the chance to sidestep the responsibilities of command, to face the sudden changes that fools can't handle themselves, enough to bog you down like mud; , swept away, abandoned, cut off, retreating from vital strongholds, crying for help, for comfort, for reinforcements, more trucks, more tanks, more rafts, more food, more radios... After a certain point he becomes powerless.He can only confirm, reply, deny, delay, order to stop; and then nothing, nothing, nothing.The reports continued to pour in, a monochromatic mosaic of paper made of millions of pieces, a photograph of an army disintegrating bit by bit, rain-softened like paper, wet, brittle, and finally crumbling. So he ran away when he was alone...but secretly he wasn't grateful, wasn't really happy; There is no way of knowing what happened.He is as anxious as a mother worrying about her young son who has just set foot on the battlefield, forcing her to tears or screaming without objection or feeling powerless, a momentum that is not paying attention and cannot be stopped. (He finds that this whole process does not require any enemy troops at all. The war exists between himself and his army, dealing with various situations. Adding a third party is really superfluous.) First the rain, then the hardships they had never heard of, then the landslide that cut him off from the rest of the command and escort, and then this muddy, tattered, would-be-killer idiot... He sat up again, burying his head in his hands. Is he trying to do too much?He had only slept ten hours last week; had that clouded his sanity and impaired his judgment?Or is he sleeping too much?Does this slightly more vulnerability make any difference? "I hope you die!" the woman's voice shouted harshly. He looked at her, frowning, wondering how she could read his thoughts, wishing she would keep her mouth shut.Maybe he should gag her. "You're backing down," he pointed out. "You told me a minute ago that I was going to die." He fell back on the bed. "Bastard!" she screamed. He looked at her, and suddenly it occurred to him that lying here, he was as much a prisoner as she was sitting.Snot appeared again under her nose.He turned his head away. He heard her snort, then spit.If he had the strength he would laugh.She spat in contempt; but what was a drop or two of hers compared to the flood that submerged a fighting machine, especially one he'd spent two years training in? And why, why did he tie her to the chair in the end?Was he trying to create extra opportunities and fates to plot against himself?A chair; a girl strapped to a chair...similar age, maybe older, but with an equally bleak future, wearing a deceiving long coat trying to pretend to be bigger, only failing.Similar age, similar body shape... He shook his head, forcing his thoughts away from the fight, from the defeat. She saw him looking at him and shook her head. "Don't laugh at me!" she screamed, rocking back and forth in her chair, angry at his contempt. "Shut up, shut up," he said wearily.He knew it wasn't convincing, but he couldn't make it sound more authoritative. Surprisingly, she shut up. The rain, and her; sometimes he wished he could believe that was fate.Perhaps believing in the word of God is sometimes useful.Sometimes—like now, when everything is against him, every turn of his will cause him to be writhed again by the vicious knife, to be struck again on the scars he has already earned—if one can believe that It must have been much easier to accept that it was designed, all preordained and written, and you just have to turn the pages of some gigantic, indesectable book... Maybe you never get a chance to write your own story (and his own) own name, though such an attempt would be a mockery to him). He didn't know what to think; was there really a good and suffocating fate out there, as some thought? He doesn't want to be here.He wanted to go back to the rush of reports and command orders, enough to kill other thoughts in his mind. "You're losing battles; you're losing wars, aren't you?" He considered saying nothing, but seeing that she would take that as a sign of weakness, he decided to go ahead. “Such a sharp insight,” he sighs. "You remind me of some people who planned this war, cross-eyed, stupid and stagnant." "I'm not cross-eyed!" she screamed, and immediately began to cry, her head bowed in heavy sobs, her body shaking and her coat folded, her chair creaking. Her long, dirty hair covered her face and hung over her head from the wide lapels of her long coat; her arms were almost parallel to the ground because she was so leaning forward weeping.He wished he had the strength to walk up to her and put his arms around her, or smash her head; he would do anything to stop her from making that unnecessary noise. "Okay, okay, you're not cross-eyed. I'm sorry." He lay back, one hand over his eyes, hoping his voice would be convincing, but sure it sounded as insincere as he was. "I don't want your sympathy!" "Sorry again; I retract that statement." "It's...I'm not...that's just a...slight flaw, and that didn't stop the Army Council from accepting me." (He remembered they accepted children and pensioners too, though he didn't mention it to the woman.) She sniffed vigorously, and when she raised her head and turned her hair away, he saw a big lump of snot under the tip of her nose.Without thinking he jumped up--screaming indignantly from his fatigue--and tore off a piece of the thin curtain over the bunk as he walked towards her. She saw him coming with a little piece of tattered cloth and screamed with all her might; she told the rainy world outside with her bare lungs that she was about to be murdered.She rocked the chair so violently that he had to rush forward and put a boot on the brace between his legs to keep the chair from falling over. He threw the rag over her face. She stops struggling.She was limp, not struggling or writhing, but knowing there was absolutely no point in doing anything. "Fine," he said, relieved. "Now, blow your nose." She blew. He pulled back the rag, folded it, put it on her face and asked her to blow it again.She blew.After he folded it, he wiped her nose vigorously.She made a long, high-pitched sound; her nose was sore.He sighed and threw away the rag. He didn't lie down again, because then he would be very sleepy and think a lot, and he didn't want to sleep because he didn't think he might wake up, and he didn't want to think because it wouldn't help him at all. He turned and stood in front of the door, as close as he could get, which was still ajar.The rain poured in. He thought about the others; the rest of the commanders.Hell, the only one he trusted was Rogtan-Barr, and he was too junior to take command.He resented being put in this position, stepping into an established chain of command, often corrupt and full of privileged close relatives, and having to spend so much time because any absence, hesitation or even a break would leave him surrounded A clueless foam head has a chance to make matters worse.But then again, he told himself, what general would totally like him to take over command? He wasn't far enough away, anyway; some crazy plans that almost certainly didn't work, and his less obvious attempts to wield weapons.There was so much still on his mind.That private place, one he knew civilization wouldn't look into, though that was out of their surly excesses, not because it couldn't be... He forgot about women.She didn't seem to exist when he wasn't looking at her, her voice and her struggle to break free were just the result of some ridiculous supernatural manifestation. He opened the farmhouse door.You can see everything in the rain.Individual raindrops turn into lines in slow eyes; they form the shape you carry in your heart again and again, stay in sight for no more than a heartbeat, and then continue to repeat. He saw chairs; a ship that was not a ship; a man with two shadows and saw the unseen; a concept; Joining, smashing and creating so that a particular group of cells continues and can move forward and make decisions, keep moving, keep deciding, knowing that - if nothing else - it's at least alive. And it has two shadows, two things, needs and methods.The need is clear; defeat the enemies of life.The method is to take and twist matter and people at will, and then win over everything that can be used in battle; nothing can be excluded, everything is a weapon, and the ability to manipulate these weapons is to find them and choose whom to use Aim and fire; this talent, this ability, is the use of weapons. A chair, a ship that's not a ship, two men with shadows, and... "What are you going to do with me?" The woman's voice trembled.He turned to look at her. "I don't know; what do you think?" She looked at him, eyes wide.She seemed ready to inhale for another scream.He just couldn't figure it out; he asked her perfectly normal, appropriate questions and she acted like he said he was going to kill her. "Please don't. Oh please don't, oh please, please don't," she sobbed again, crying without tears.Then her back seemed to snap, and her pleading face dropped almost to her knees. "No what?" He was confused. She didn't seem to hear him; she just hung there, her limp body shaking with sobs. It's times like this that stop him from understanding people; he just can't figure out what's going on in their heads.They are repulsive and unfathomable.He shook his head and started walking around the room.The room was fetid and damp with a feeling that there was no room for improvement. This place has always been a difficult hole.Perhaps some illiterate illiterate lived here as guardians of this or that abandoned machine, an astonishing number of years shattered by the apparent love of war these peoples displayed; hard life in an ugly district. when will they comeWill they find him?Would they think he was dead?Had they heard his radio message, after the landslide cut him off from the rest of the command convoy? Did he do the damn thing right? Maybe he didn't.Perhaps he would be left behind; they would consider the search useless.He hardly cares.Being held captive would add no additional pain; his mind was already on that.He could almost take it if he wanted to; he knew he could.He just needs to have the strength to be harassed. "If you're going to kill me, can you do it faster?" He was starting to get tired of these constant interruptions. "Well, I didn't intend to kill you, but if you keep complaining like this, I might change my mind." "I hate you." She seemed to be able to come up with only this sentence. "And I hate you too." She cried again, very loudly. He looked out into the rain again and saw the Starblind. Retreat, retreat, the rain murmurs; chariots get stuck in the mud, men surrender in the torrential rain, and everything falls apart. And a foolish woman, and a runny nose... He laughed it off, at the time and space between the great and the trivial, at the grand immensity and the shoddy absurdity, like a terrified aristocrat who must contend with drunken, dirty The plebs ride in a chariot, the latter afflicted with disease, having sex in front of them, richly dressed and fleas. Laughter, that is the only answer, the only answer that cannot be refuted by ridicule; it is the lowest bottom of the common denominator. "Do you know who I am?" he said, turning abruptly.It occurred to him that she probably didn't know who he was, and he wouldn't be surprised if she tried to kill him because he was sitting in a big car, not because he was the commander in chief of an entire army. .He wasn't surprised to know that at all; he almost expected it. She looked up. "what?" "Do you know who I am? Do you know my name or class?" "Don't know," she spat. "Should I know?" "No, no," he laughed, turning away. He briefly looked at the gray and rainy high wall outside, as if he was an old friend, then turned and walked back to the bed, lying on it again. The government doesn't like it either.Oh, he promised them the increase of riches, lands, riches and fame and power.If civilization didn't pull him out in time, they'd shoot him; they'd kill him for the sake of this defeat.That would have been their victory, but it was also his defeat.Standard complaints. He mostly tries to tell himself he's going to win.He knew he would, but only the instant paralysis in defeat would make him really think, try to rewire the web of his life whole.And then his thoughts would go back to the battleship called the Staplelinde, and what it stood for; he would think of the Chairmaker, and the evil that echoed behind that mundane description. The defeat this time is better, it's not personal.He is the commander of the army, he is responsible to the government, and they can get rid of him; but in the final moment of reckoning, it is not he who is responsible, but them.There was nothing personal about this conflict either.He had never met the leaders of the enemy army; they were strangers to him, familiar only by their military habits, their preferred style of troop movement, and their manner of combat.That splitting cleanliness softens the rain that hits the head with a hammer.Only a little bit. He envied those who could be born and brought up, mature with the people around them, have friends, settle down in one place with a certain group of acquaintances, live an ordinary, unobtrusive, and risk-free life, Get old, get replaced, kids come to visit...and get old and smile, resigned to what's gone by. He couldn't believe he could feel this way, long to live this way, to have such a deep-buried despair, such an abundance of joy; not to have to tug at the threads of life or fate, but to be insignificant, unimportant, unimportant . It seemed so sweet, so infinitely alluring, now and in the future, because once you step into this situation, once you're there... do you feel like doing what he did, pushing those heights?He was skeptical.He turned back to look at the woman in the chair. But that doesn't make sense, that's stupid; he's thinking ill-considered things.If I were a sea bird...but how can you be a sea bird?If you were a seabird, you'd have a small, dumb head, with a penchant for half-rotten fish maws and gouging out little herbivorous eyes.You will not know poetry, and you will never know flight as well as the human beings on earth long to be you. If you want to be a sea-bird, you can be one. "Ah! The head and entourage of the camp. But you're not quite right, sir. You should have tied her to the bed." He jumped up; he turned and reached for the holster at his waist. Kirif Sokovot Rogtan-Bal kicked the door shut and shook the rain off a large, shiny cloak at the door, smiling ironically, looking exasperatingly fresh and handsome, despite his recovery. Haven't slept for days. "Baal!" He almost wanted to rush at him.They held each other's hands and laughed. "Exactly. Hello, General Zarqawi. I wonder if you'd like to share a stolen car with me. I have an amphibious vehicle out there..." "What!" He opened the door forcefully, looking at the water country outside.A big, battered amphibious truck was parked fifty meters away, near one of the tower-like machines. "That's their truck," he laughed. Logtan-Barr nodded unhappily. "Yes, I'm afraid. They seem to want to go back too." "Really?" He laughed again. "Yes. By the way, I'm afraid the government has collapsed. Forced to cede office." "What? Because of this?" "I gotta say, that's how I got the feeling. I guess they were too busy blaming you for losing their idiotic war and didn't see that the people were affected by it too. As usual." Rogtan-Balr smiled. "Oh; and that crazy idea of ​​yours, the one where the Commandos put submersibles in the Marklean Reservoir? That worked. The water all leaked out of the dam, flooding the river; according to the intelligence it didn't break completely, but... ...overwhelmed, right? Anyway, a hell of a lot of water washed away Fifth Corps headquarters in the village...not to mention a large chunk of Fifth Corps, men and tents that have drifted past our lines from the last few hours That's how it looks...and we thought you were crazy for weeks dragging that hydrologist around the staff." Rogetan-Barr folded his hands. "Never mind. It must be serious enough; I'm afraid there have been calls for peace." He looked the general up and down. "But if you're going to make a deal with our people, I think you'll have to look better than this. Did you wrestle in the mud, General?" "Just wrestling with my moral conscience." "Really? Who won?" "Well, this is one of those rare occasions where violence doesn't really solve anything." "I'm well aware of this situation; it usually comes up when a person is deciding whether to open another bottle of wine." Barr nodded towards the door. "Please first." He took out a large umbrella from his cloak, opened it and held it forward. "General; let me do it!" Then he looked at the center of the room. "What about your friend?" "Oh," he said, looking back at the woman, who turned and stared at them with horror on her face. "Yes, my captive audience." He shrugged. "I've seen weirder mascots. Let's take her too." "Never question the top," Barr said.He handed over the umbrella. "Come and get it. I'll catch her." He glanced at the woman comfortingly and touched the brim of his hat lightly. "Only in words, ma'am." The woman let out a scream that pierced her eardrums. Rogetan-Barr flinched. "Does she do that often?" he asked. "Yes; and watch her head when you lift her up, she nearly broke my nose." "That shape is attractive enough. See you in the amphibious vehicle, sir." "Okay," he said, slipping through the doorway with an umbrella and whistling down the concrete slope. "Bastard heretic!" screamed the woman in the chair, as Rogtan-Bahr approached her and the chair cautiously from behind. "You're lucky," he told her. "I usually don't take hitchhikers." He lifted the chair and the woman on it, carried them to the vehicle, and threw them behind the vehicle. She was screaming the whole way. "Has she been this loud all the time?" Rogtan-Barr asked, reversing the machine out of the flood. "Most of the time." "Surprised you can still hear yourself thinking." He smiled miserably as he watched the rain pouring down from the window. In the ensuing peace, he was demoted and forced to surrender several medals.He left later that night, and Civilization didn't seem at all displeased by what he had done.