They’re moving the young conscripts into the border zones again, same as ’73 but with cheaper uniforms and dumber radios. I watched my cousin get drafted last month — they gave him a rifle that jams if it rains, same as they gave my father. War isn’t coming, war is already here, it just hasn’t started shooting in public yet. They rotate the troops through the desert like sand through an hourglass, each batch dumber and more tired than the last. We build roads for tanks nobody wants to drive, bridges that lead to nothing, concrete walls that only keep out the people who live behind them. I know engineering — I know what breaks, and when.
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