Flash Fiction : Ragtime

I have been determined to post something every day. I am still counting today as yesterday, since this day just started for me. This story is a little more poetic in its style than my other one's have been, but a change of pace is always nice. I wrote this quite a while ago, and it is based on a story I heard about a man named Ragtime. Comments welcome.

 Ragtime

You don’t expect to go when you are small. What can you do when you’re small?

I was the brain. My two brothers were the brawn. They went, and I wasn’t surprised. I didn’t think I would go.

 I thought I would get special treatment, being smart. I thought I was gonna be the “go to” guy. I was wrong.

I was like everyone else.

I could run. I could jump. I could crawl. So they took me.

They taught us how to shoot. How to get shot. How to die. How to not die. All important stuff.

Back then they only had two real requirements. Are you healthy? Yes. Can you lift more than fifty pounds above your head. Yes.

Go.

I couldn’t lift that much above my head. I barely got it to my chest. They said that was good enough and pushed me through.

Shots. Shots. Shots. Not liquor. Needles.

When we got there I ran. Like everybody else. I ran. I ran, I jumped, I crawled. I also ducked. I ducked a lot.

Everybody liked music then. Not that people don’t like it now, but we really liked music. We would match it to our heart’s to slow the world down. When we weren’t listening we felt it anyway. A guy would leave and walk like slow jazz, he would come running back to ragtime.

I remember the first one. They all laughed when I could fit. It wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t running. At first I thought it was freedom.

Tunnels aren’t freedom.

Firing a gun in there was like putting a cherry bomb in your ear. It hurt. Almost as much as it did the other guy. Almost.

I learned to swim in earth. They called me fish. I called them bastards.

Tunnels weren’t freedom, but they gave me leave.

I went down, with ten guys waiting for me to return. I came back and they were none. Blind. Deaf. Dumb. And cold. They were none.

I pulled out a radio and called support. I heard ragtime in the background.

After a while. It’s all ragtime.