Stand up straight! Hands to your sides!
‘All we need now is a ten hut,’ thought
Sebastian. He was graceful, and the
eyes of several in the unit were on his
unit. Those eyes included the eyes of
Carson, whose hands would normally
be in his pockets. ‘Alright, you sweet
potatoes!’ shouted the sergeant, who
was glowing with charge, ‘let me see
those digits.’ All present presented
all they had. Except Skeezer. But he
was half blown, had been for months,
and nobody questioned it, nor seemed
to even care. ‘Take it easy on the
manicures there Fitzhauser.’ This was
a game that would go on all morning.
When Carson’s section was dismissed,
he slowly put his hands deep into his
pockets and stood for a minute in the
spot he’d been for what seemed like
hours by now. Then he swiveled as
slow a swivel as his tronic boots
allowed, until he was 180, then
with the slightly fizzly and upper
registered ‘whoosh!’ Sebastian
watched his backside as his body
rose a bit above the dust, and he
didn’t unlock his focus until Carson
had disappeared in the distance,
which was quite a while, as Carson
kept his skids on a speed about that
of an old school, backwoods airport’s
long flat escalator. The one you’d see
your mother arrive on, twice a year,
never bothering to lift a foot to make
any extra speed either coming or going.
Or where you might meet your lover of
seventeen years just at the crook between
Christmas and New Year’s once every two
or three of the same seventeen. Sebastian
lifted a digit or two in salute to Carson and,
in doing so, felt the rush warm up through
his legs and hips and up into his head, which
once reached, his eyeballs did a little jittery
but relaxing little flutter. This flutter would
log the vision of Carson’s disappearing back
side, archiving it for later, just as it had every
morning for nearly two and a half years. ‘Tuck
your pants in, rookie!’ came the Sergeant,
glaring Sebastian down, or perhaps the more
appropriate way to describe the look was that
he was screwing holes right through him.
Sebastian just winked at him and curled up
his hands into little fists like a kid ready to eat.
