Whenever I get word-fatigued from the afternoon of writing I usually go for a jog through the park closest to our apartment. It is generally an uneventful venture (though the walk there is lined with feral cats and nauseatingly oil fried chicken joints). Today was different.
I was jogging along to some Last of the Mohicans music (which, I must say, helps me feel epic when really I'm not) when I saw a man huddled in the bushes. It took a second for my brain to register the fact that he was wearing camouflage fatigues. And another second for me to realize he was holding a gun.
At this point my brain was going, "WTF? oasldkfja;slkdjfa!" But the other joggers/dog-walkers of said park did not seem too phased by the sight. So I kept jogging.
Behind the first set of magnolia trees I sighted even more camouflaged men. Holding more guns. Some were huddled in groups. Others splayed out on the ground in what I imagine is standard military splaying, elbows in the dirt aiming rifles at nothing in particular. (I'm sure there's a more advanced word for these guns, but I am not really a gun person (unless they are rifles from WWII in which case I could probably fumble my way through a description due to some good friends who are happily obsessed with WWII rifles)).
This is odd. I thought to myself and kept on jogging. Soon enough I came across a sign that explained it all: "ROTC training: 4-6."
Even though I knew the guns were fake (well, suspected they were fake, or at least, unloaded), it still felt incredibly strange and wrong jogging past a cadet who had a rifle aimed at me. It's just a reminder to be so thankful that I live in a country where that doesn't happen.
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