Welcome
J. Brook
It was dark on the bus, her journey almost complete, as she looked around at her fellow passengers who had been sleeping since they’d left the airport. She fought the exhaustion, perhaps foolishly refusing to give into it. Her eyes were wide open as she took in everything that she possibly could from outside the wide windows of the city bus. It was 2 A.M. on Wednesday and a sudden hard summer rain that moments ago beat loudly against her window was now just a sprinkle in the darkness.
Tuesday (almost 24 hours ago) had begun early and she had been dressed and ready to go before her father left for work at 4:30AM. Her mother and younger brother could not be roused from their deep sleep to see her off. Her goodbye to her father seemed awkward knowing he had never had the opportunity to leave this town he was born in. But her ride to the airport was waiting, so she gave her father a quick hug and wielded her heavy suitcases, finding them cumbersome. Everything a nineteen-year-old would consider essential was in those two bags.
As the car pulled out of her driveway she didn’t look back, but only ahead, to the pitch dark back roads that would lead her away from there. With the moon and the car’s headlights as the only source of light, they left that dusty crossroad, and the town’s only two traffic lights, a “town” other people only passed through on their way to more exciting places, places that she knew nothing about, and now it was finally her turn and she was leaving!
It seemed miraculous to her that she was allowed to choose her own path and to leave her home for the first time in her life! Strange how she had no fear of the unknown. She chose for her future a path no other woman she knew had taken, causing great anticipation and growing joy to deepen within her at the thought.
Now on that bus, 1000 miles from home, she witnessed for the first time in her life a magic she hadn’t known existed. The rain had turned the black asphalt road into a bright glistening highway. The rain and oil had mixed to create rainbows of color that amazed her. In its wet well-lit blackness this busy San Antonio highway reflected all the lights of the city! The rainbow of lights emanating as if magically from the road itself! Rows of car lights, bill board lights, rows of street lights and the beautiful red, yellow and green hues of miles of traffic lights all blinking and flashing their beams as they danced in mesmerizing distortion in the black wetness below them!
She was filled with wonder and joy to have had her first glimpse of the world she’d been trying, but failing, to imagine. With wide-eyed wonder and a growing sense of excitement she strained to see ahead, passed the moving wipers out of the bus’ windshield. Only she and the bus driver were awake to see her destination come into view. A huge sign shown in the near distance:
Welcome to
The UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
MILITARY BASIC TRAINING CENTER
Her heart skipped a beat.
© Debra Reagan 2018