Story: The Lapedusivian Military

The conscription of women into the Lapedusivian Military began very simply. It began on the morning of September 4th 2004, which would turn out to be a particularly rainy Saturday, when a clerk pressed the return key on his Dell computer.

In the two seconds that followed the pressing of the return key, within the inner workings of the laptop a complex series of algorithms streamlined itself into a very simple line. As it appeared before the clerk’s panda eyes, this line spiked a few minor times, but valleyed almost catastrophically again and again, not so much jumping as falling and bumping and falling further as it made its way across the screen to Year 2020.

The end point of the line was so far below its beginning that the clerk had to press the ‘fn’ and ‘page ’ keys in combination twice before he could see it.
Within twenty-four hours, the Defense Minister of Lapedus was notified of the document, which the clerk had helpfully printed out and labeled in red ink “Projection of Lapedusivian Birth Rate – Revert Soon”. Within forty-eight hours a committee was convened, its members spanning five branches of the incumbent party. The Prime Minister, after all, was expected to announce the date of the once-every-five-years Election Day soon. Several names for this committee were considered, and at the end of three and a quarter hours the acronym MIW was selected by popular vote among the seven committee members, none of whom actually owned cats. One member of the newly created Military Institutional Watch remarked that their constituents would probably start calling them the Men In White soon. There was a distinct pause before someone laughed.

A week and two days later, the Prime Minister made his announcement, and over the next six months the MIW, its function, and its ability to upgrade existing military technology were at the center of a ferocious debate between the incumbent party and the fragmented opposition. Regardless of the Lapedusivians’ feelings on this matter, however, on February 18th 2005 the People Action Party was returned to power for the twelfth consecutive time. Of the 14 wards that were not ruled walkovers due to election parameters, three stalwart opposition wards remained stalwart opposition wards, while the remaining eleven wards kept the PAP’s white flags flying for the weekend-long celebration, before removing them in accordance with the city-state’s laws regarding flag usage.

And while the PAP had won only 58 percent of the 1.22 million votes, 81 PAP Ministers took seats in the new 84-member Parliament. This was perhaps crucial.

Two months after Election Day, a member of the MIW presented the committee’s findings during a Parliament Session. His opening statement was this: “Perhaps it is not time to ask whether the Lapedusivian Military is ready for upgrading. Perhaps it is time to ask whether the citizens of Lapedus are ready for equality in the military.”

*

Anna Lazarin was about to make Marksman. And even though it was long past midnight, and even though she had to knuckle her eyes practically every minute, she could not help herself: she found the notion of making Marksman more deliciously ironic than celebratory. This was not because of the gender inappropriate title, which would be corrected as soon as possible, according to that day’s Routine Order. She cared nothing for gender inappropriateness. She only wondered how, after making Marksman, she would tell Betty Irkinson, now her bunkmate, but forever the bitch who had sniped her through doors repeatedly in Counterstrike when they were both wearing pinafores in the same high school. Betty Irkinson had turned out to be the sort of girl who couldn’t hit a cyalume stick-outlined target in real life.

But Betty Irkinson was not Anna Lazarin’s sole motivation. It was also vitally important to Anna that the next two shots hit their targets because she had discovered her utter and complete ineptitude at most things military.

In Week One of Basic Military Training, she had run one kilometer, and vomited twice afterwards. Worse, one of the two was a bout of only dry heaving. This was because she had, contrary to warnings, only picked at the brown goo that constituted breakfast.

In Week Two, she had only realized that she had not secured her MOP 4 goggles properly after stepping into the chemical chamber.

And in Week Three, she had laughed, but laughed incredulously, when four girls in her bunk, including Betty Irkinson, started calling themselves the Lape Mi Girls. And then she had failed to laugh when Mimi Shimujima, a second generation Lapedusivian, made a racist remark about the Lape Mi Girls to her while they were showering in adjacent stalls.

Yes. It was indeed vitally important to Anna Lazarin that she made the next two shots. As Recruit Anna Lazarin, she was Lazarin to her superiors, and nothing to her bunkmates. As Marksman Anna Lazarin, she would still be Lazarin to her superiors – but perhaps she would be Anna to her bunkmates, maybe even Lazyrin. She had only been not unpopular in Saint Joseph’s Convent, and she had learned that sixteen-year old girls in the military were still sixteen-year old girls. She did not want to sit alone in the cookhouse anymore; she was running out of pocket-sized books, she would not get off the island for another two weeks, and lately Shirley Mazinro had begun to give her hopeful looks from her own one-woman table across the cookhouse. If anything could give her all the determination she needed, it was the prospect of breakfasting, lunching, and dining with Shirley Mazinro. So as she lay on her stomach at the 300-meter mark of the shooting range, she thought of that prospect.

I am going to make the next two shots, she also told herself in the meantime, as she made sure that the dial on her M-16 was not turned to ‘auto’ or ‘safe’, as she made sure that the bullet casing deflector that marked her as a troublesome left-hander was secure, and as she made sure that her front and rear sight posts were aligned. She could hear Betty Irkinson giggling about the male safety officers – as if they wanted to be there, after the incident with Third Sergeant Charlie Sysinkis – and she could sense Shirley beside her, bored and unhappy about the gritty grass and the kamikaze mosquitoes, but she put everyone out of her mind, including herself and her petty concerns. So as she closed one eye, trained the other through the sight posts, and blocked out the noises around her, she told herself: In the circle, on top of the spike, fire. In the circle, on top of the spike, fire.

And then something moved in the circle, and so she fired.

The first thought in her head after that was that she had forgotten to wait for it to be on top of the spike.

The second thought was that she was very lucky the spike didn’t matter after all.