...but someone's got to do it.

[jack_babalon]

Finally! After having spilt over 500 gallons of crap coffee down a throat that had no time for breakfast. After smoking several thousand packs of generic cigarettes in the hopes of keeping the gun out of his mouth. After surviving the team building character assassination attempts of his closest friends. After picking the pockets of the men he had just bribed. After months spent shuffling through the black mail room for his next performance review. After all those long hard years filled with hand shaking, back slapping, back stabbing, knee pad polishing, name dropping, ladder climbing and when all else failed actually working had passed... Yuri was, with neither ceremony nor congratulations, promoted by his superiors.

The rank of First Assistant Gunnery Watch came with a boost in pay that took him from poor to broke overnight. It was enough to buy a night in bed with his wife (though he only needed two minutes really). That and to keep fed the children that hated him a little more with each passing day. Sometimes the extra change in his pocket even bought him another drink after work. Most importantly though it was enough to earn the scorn of those below his rank and the suspicion of those above it.

Yuri reported to Maxim Gun Post #35 first thing in the morning as ordered. His job was to work the Saw which entailed the adjusting, readjusting and maintaining of the Gunnery Watch's elevation. What exact purpose or benefit this action provided had long since been forgotten by Command. His immediate superior, whom he knew on a first name basis, told him that in his eight years working the Watch, not once, not even by accident, had he ever fired the Maxim Gun.

The fact was they were guarding nothing from no one with no end in sight.

It was true that the years of kissing ass and having to put his money where his mouth was, meant sooner or later everything would taste like shit. Still Yuri hung in there. Enviously dreaming of the day when he'd be the one manning the Gun and some other asshole would have to work the saw.

Comments

[quickly-9.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but the minute you stop watching Yuri- the second you let your guard down, that's when they'll hit ya! You just keep on sawin' comrade and I'll keep right on seein'. We can't get complacent. They could be coming in at 7 feet or at 9. Heck, I heard at one station the bastards even came in at 11 feet!! Both the gunner and the adjuster got their sweet babushkas blown to sputnik and back. And all because the lazy adjuster was too tired and wouldn't push down no further! Well not on my watch Yuri, old boy. Not on my watch. You just keep those arms a pumpin'.

[karis-straif.livejournal.com]

Your mind is truly amazing... yet very very scary!!!

[daucus-carota.livejournal.com]

Alright... which came first the chicken or the egg?
xxx

[gaeasdaughter.livejournal.com]

Ahh, the feel-good story of the summer!