[u][b]May 11th, 1980: Villanueva de la Fuente, Spain[/b][/u]

Alvar Panzano had chugged down six El Cids before sunset, and now he was too drunk to mule race. The speed always went to his head. When he was drunk he would roll it somewhere out in the dirt. Instead, he watched his cousins and tried to forget that he had to go back to Madrid in the morning.

His cousins sped their mules across the dusty fields of La Mancha, dodging the brush and the rocks like hares fleeing a hawk. Their mules - homemade racing cars with bare-bone frames leaving them open to the air - took every bump with exaggerated leaps. That was the driver's fault, Alvar knew. They were playing. 

Alvar laid back and listened to the cackle of their engines. Pain flared out from his bruised ribs: a symptom of the fight that had got him suspended from University. The Pissants at the schoolboard had a knack for protecting loud-mouths from getting what was coming to them. The thought of Cornelio Cortez and the nails-on-chalkboard sound of his voice as he talked about how important his father was... it made Alvar want to track him down and beat him all over again. Perhaps this time he could tear his ears off. Imagine how it would look when a whiny-sounding ass like Cornelio talked to women without having any ears. Would he try to hide the bloody scars where they had been? That was a satisfying image. Alvar was finding that, on a cool night with a few El Cids in him, he could get as much pleasure just imagining himself beating Cornelio as he had when it actually happened.

He heard the mules come to a stop at the foot of the rise where he was resting. He sat back up, slowly so that his ribs didn't sting too much, and watched his cousins crawl out between the spindled beams of their vehicles. There were three of them - Estefan, Anso, and Tomas. They were all in their early adulthood, except for Tomas who was only twelve. It was the fashion for men to wear their hair slightly long so that it reached the collar of their shirts, and slicked back with a thick greasy layer of pomade. But mule racing did not agree with the style; it left their hair mussed up and covered in dust.

"Alvar, did you see that half-flip?" Estefan was holding his helmet under his arm.

"No." Alvar said. As usual, he did not sound excited, but he made sure to smile. 

"Tomas almost rolled it, but the mule bounced back up!"

"Good work." Alvar held his smile. The young boy looked proud at being recognized by his older kin.

Anso kicked an empty bottle on the ground near Alvar. "It looks like you have been having a good time." he said.

"I feel good." 

"You look like it." They all sat down on the same hill.

"Are you going to drive tonight? You don't look like you should drive." Estefan said to Alvar.

"I will go tomorrow morning. It only takes an hour and a half to get to Madrid from here."

"I wish you luck, cousin. These bureaucrats do not make good judges. If we were oil-men, perhaps you could flash some money in front of them to make it go away. But boys from La Fuente do not get that luxury."

"And when you are up there." Anso butted in. "Check out the girls. I have to keep telling you this but you don't listen. Twenty one is too old to not have been with a girl, but it is not too late. You need to do this."

And there it was. Anso had been with three girls before he was twenty, or at least this is what he said. It was the thing he was most proud of. Alvar, on the other hand, had simply never cared. It was not that he did not like women - they were fascinating creatures, otherworldly - but he did not know what he would even do if he got close to one. Anso's ideas were just vulgar. If he had the opportunity, he would fondle the statues in the museums. 

The other boys grabbed bottles and ritually clinked them together. "To up, to down, to center, and inside!" at the last word, they all drank deep. Alvar felt his head swim; whether from the booze or from tipping his head he did not know.

"I am not just going to Madrid to talk to the school masters." Alvar face scrunched as he swallowed the hard bubble in his chest from the amount he had imbibed. "I am going to join the [i]Ejercito[/i]."

The other boys looked at him with mixed pride and uncertainty. 

"They need interpreters." Anso said. "Your schooling will do you good. Don't you know some of the language of Ethiopia?"

"Some. And when I come back from the war, I think that the university will struggle to think of ways to keep me out."

"Everybody like's a war hero." Estefan said. "I would have went to war, if I were not the only physician in town. I am proud to see another member of our family answer the call of duty."

And then for a moment, they were silent. Alvar reflected on how calm he felt. That was rare. When in the city, he felt annoyed and out of place in every circumstance. But here, in the small town where he had grew up, among his family, he felt like a person again. Perhaps the military would help him find a place. When he had a gun in his hand and an enemy to fight, life would make more sense. 

A [i]zepelín[/i] appeared above the eastern foothills. With the sun long gone, the solemn blue of twilight remained, and the [i]zepelín[/i] became the only light in the sky. It glowed bright yellow and red along the compartments on the bottom, making it difficult to see the wavy checkerboard pattern on the balloon itself. 

"[i]Orolujo[/i]" Anso said. "Murcia to Madrid, maybe?"

"[i]Orolujo[/i] has a route from Algiers to Madrid now. Serving those high-class oil men who spent enough time in Africa to get apartments and Moorish mistresses." Estefan added. It was only the two of them talking now. 

"I have heard it said that scientists are looking to replace the [i]zepelínes[/i] with high-powered airplanes."

"They tried that with airplanes before, but nobody uses them for anything other than quick flights. Who wants to sit down in a noisy tube? And let's say planes do go faster in the future, would it be worth giving up a quiet ride in a comfortable lounge? Even the peasant zepelínes allow you to move around and stretch your legs."

"Perhaps if the planes go fast enough, people will have to use them. Imagine if a man lives in Madrid and commutes to Algiers to work every day? That would be a productive future."

"That would be a pain. You would spend all your free time going to work. Why would you not live in the town you work, or near to it at least?"

Alvar saw Anso push himself up. "The houses are better in Madrid. The shops are better in Madrid too. Who would want to live in Algiers? I doubt they have an electronics shop in Algiers. Even here we have an electronics shop." Alvar imagined that shop. It was a new brick building built partially into one of the old medieval adobe structures at the edge of town. Across from it was a lot that sold automobiles. Aside from those, Villanueva de la Fuente was the sort of town that hosted mostly taverns and food-stands. He had learned boxing in the oldest tavern. 

Ah this town. This home.

It wasn't his cousins that he would miss, or his parents or siblings or grandparents. They were just people. It wasn't even so much the town itself: a sleeping part of old Spain tucked between the growing cities. He would miss knowing where he was, and where he would be the next day. He would miss the dependability.

"It was founded by a German, you know." Estefan said.

"What?" Anso replied. They were at it again.

"[i]Orolujo[/i]. The [i]zepelínes[/i] came in with all those wealthy capitalists fleeing the anarchy after the Great War. That is big money. They won't give over to any high-powered planes so easily. Not if it costs them coin."

"Most of those men are dead."

"But the money is still there. That is the important thing."

Alvar interrupted. "Would boxing get me a higher rank in the [i]Ejercito[/i]? I was the middle weight champion last year for my school's league."

"Maybe. It is a sort of combat." Estefan answered. "But I wouldn't worry about. The [i]Ejercito[/i] is an honorable place. You will do well."

Time passed.

---

[u][b]Current Time: The Danakil Desert, Ethiopian Empire[/b][/u]

The heat was unbearable. It came with the sun, and before the Spanish soldiers could be ready for it, the temperature climbed to dangerous heights. In the afternoon, furnace winds would blow in from the desert and make it worse. The natives called these the '[i]fire winds[/i]'. They were the only thing more horrible than the sun.

Alvar's platoon had only been in Ethiopia for a week - coming in after the ashes of Djibouti were already cooled - but though they had been spared the horror of that initial battle, their experience of Africa so far had been nothing but hell. They were attached to the chaplain of their regiment, so Alvar's first taste of Africa had been helping with the dead. He was the only interpreter in their platoon, which left him dealing with whatever natives they ran across, and ensured his participation in most excursions outside of camp involving the chaplain or their platoon. He had seen Djibouti first hand, more times than he wanted. The remnants of the city stunk of ash, cooked flesh, and gasoline. It was still an uninhabitable place; men needed gas masks if they went too far into the ruins. There were places where buildings had melted into bubbled heaps. Walking on them was dangerous, as some concealed basements where fires still smoldered. There were also places where human remains, rendered by the fire, mixed with ash to create puddles of lye, so that chemical burns were not unheard of among those who ventured the ruins.

It was sickening. There were still questions as to how the fire had started. Rumor had it that it had been the Africans themselves, condemning their own civilians to die in the blaze just so Spain would fail. He had came to this war expecting to see grisly things, but that was an evil he had not expected. 

After leaving Djibouti, heat had become the new hell. They hadn't seen real combat yet. Ethiopian aircraft would buzz over them in ominous formation, but their only targets were the Spanish armor. He had seen a dogfight once in the early morning. From the ground, it looked like a number of planes buzzing around each other, with the sound of their guns having a disembodied quality that made it seem like a movie that was out of sync with its sound. 

He trudged along behind the Chaplain's truck, sweating his life out. He, like most of the men, had stripped to the waist, accepting an inevitable sun-burn as a good trade for the ability to breath. That did not save him from toting a pack full of gear, or from the responsibility of holding a loaded rifle just in case a group of suicidal Afar decided to launch an assault on their part of the column.

There was no singing or talking in the Spanish column. Only cursing. Alvar stared hungrily at the box laying on it's side in the back of the truck.

"I want to go in the confessional next." he said to Corporal Fonseca, the man nearest in front of him.

"Fuck off, Panzano. If we let you go in there, you'll touch yourself and we'll have to clean it out."

"That is a fucking lie." he protested. He had a habit of staring, he knew that. He couldn't help himself. But it was the rumor that he had been caught masturbating to the burned corpse of a woman in Djibouti that had killed his reputation with the men. He had [i]stared[/i] at the corpse, nothing more. It was fascinating. But that was it.

"The next time you go in that booth is when you confess, Panzano. Confess that you are a nasty little pervert." the other men heard him, and they laughed with the little energy they could still muster.

If the sun hadn't already turned him red, he would have turned that color now. He wanted to bash Fonseca's skull in and watch the brains leak out. He wanted to stake him down somewhere the desert and let the Afar have him. It was whispered that the Afar castrated their captives. That would be good. Men like Fonseca didn't deserve their dicks.

"If you have a problem with me, let's settle it right here. Like men."

"Then I'd have to touch you." Fonseca snarled.

"SOLDIERS! SAVE THE THUNDER FOR THE ENEMY!." Lieutenant De Oviedo shouted back at them. To argue with him would be to risk having your water taken away for a while, so Panzano kept silent. But he fumed. He hated De Oviedo more than Fonseca. The Lieutenant liked to scream. It was his screaming at Panzano about the rumor that had turned most of the platoon completely against him. 

So he raged on the inside. His attention was brought back to the confessional when he saw it's last inhabitant wiggle out. Fonseca, tossing his pack and rifle into the back of the truck, replaced him. The truck moved slow enough that it was easy for them to do. At the back of the confessional the Chaplain had set up a fan. It wasn't cold, but it didn't have to be. Any reprieve from the fire winds of the Danakil was welcome. So the men shared the compartment in shifts, laying on their backs as if in a coffin and taking what tiny relief it provided. 

There was nothing for Panzano to do but hate the others, to hate the sun, and to watch as the nothing scenery went by. It looked like they were walking on top of an endless pile of dried up, baked-to-death dog turds. That was the only was to describe the Danakil. How the Afar had made this place their home was anybody's guess. 

When dusk finally fell on the desert, the Spaniards stopped. They spent the last two hours before sun-down setting up their camps on the rocky hills overlooking the road. From up there, they could see an enemy approach and be prepared for it. Barbed-wire was rolled out along the perimeter. While some men slept, other men stood watch, making it so that most only had four or five hours to sleep.

For Panzano, his sleep was constantly interrupted. The Spanish armor moved at night to avoid overheating. That meant ceaseless rumble of heavy diesel engines on the road below. More than once he heard clustered gunfire. Some sounded heavy, from airplanes perhaps, or some African trick he did not understand. Other times it sounded like small-arms fire playing behind some far away dune.

Fucking war.

Before he was ready, it was his time to take guard. He found a place on his own where he would not have to be with any of the other pissants in his platoon. It was near a rock behind a storage tent. He looked out over the serrated ridges and watched for any Afar raiders, but it was the sky that drew his attention. It was big and bright. The stars were the only lights in this place, and they powdered the sky in a way that he had never seen in Spain before.

That was all there was to see. No traveling bands of wiry Afar. Now that he was awake, the sluggish progress of tanks and armored trucks was no longer distracting. He could only see a corner of it. Just motion behind a dune. Nothing worth watching.

But he came prepared. He had bought a pornographic magazine from a sailor. A "[i]Las Tetas de Diversiónes[/i]". His favorite part were the cartoons in the center, by a Spanish artist living in Venezuela who called himself "Juan Buentiempo". It made him jealous of men who could draw.

It kept him entertained through his shift. Before dawn, the rest of the company stirred awake. Alvar Panzano stuffed the magazine in his shirt and stood to attention. That meant it was time to pulled up stakes, to roll up the barbed wire, and to march through the cruel desert all over again. He rejoined the rest of the men.

"Gentlemen!" De Oviedo shouted. "There is a change of plans!"

There was only muttering, but nobody said anything. They did not have time before the Lieutenant was speaking again.

"We are thirty kilometers due north of Dire Dawa! That means thousands of black-skinned killers waiting to take your balls and spread them on their toast! They will not get the opportunity to do so! While our armor makes those black-skinned killers into black-skinned residue, we're going to ready ourselves to finish them off!"

Finally! The fighting! The war!

The men roared in approval. Their blood was up. After suffering the Djibouti, and the Danakil, they finally had somebody they could kill for the trouble.