1/13/2024, I found this worn neck gaiter in a pack of milsurp clothes. Flores, can you hear me? Flores, can you see me? Did you lose this at the post laundry? I’d like us all to share our cherished memories of Flores, whether he’s still in the E4 Mafia or moved on to opportunities in managing a chain of vape stores in Tulsa. You are not forgotten, Flores. Have a happy Easter.
Flores’s reserve unit was checking out of their barracks and he forgot to allow enough time to empty all their range latrines. So he emptied one next to the water point. The environmental department ignored the pile of toilet paper and excrement next to the road so that they wouldn’t have to file paperwork with the EPA for a 5 liters or more inadvertent release. Just as Flores knew they would. Sham on.
Rain drips, soaking into the floor, and Slothrop perceives that he is losing his mind. If there is something comforting—religious, if you want—about paranoia, there is still also anti-paranoia, where nothing is connected to anything, a condition not many of us can bear for long. Well right now Slothrop feels himself sliding onto the anti-paranoid part of his cycle, feels the whole city around him going back roofless, vulnerable, uncentered as he is, and only pasteboard images now of the Listening Enemy left between him and the wet sky.
Either They have put him here for a reason, or he’s just here. He isn’t sure that he wouldn’t, actually, rather have that reason…