CHAPTER 5

VOLUNTEER 4711

“Do you want clothing first?” I wonder if he just wants to sleep naked. I’m hoping he’s feeling well enough to leave then I can eat and get back to my normal farm slash brothel life. He ignores my question, so I assume he doesn’t want to dress.

“How is my ….?” he asks.

“I do not understand.”

“How are my males?”

“I don’t know. I ask now,” I reply and turn to leave the room.

“Wait,” he says. “How long have you been here?”

“I don’t know,” I reply. It isn’t that I don’t know a vague time period, I just don’t know how to express it in their language. I hold up seven fingers and then point to the pink sky.

“Seven days?”

“No,” I recognize the words for days. I make a round motion with my hands as if to say, ‘more.’

He says something else, and I look at him blankly.

“I don’t know,” I repeat.

“You’re a Water woman, yes?”

“That’s what they call me.”

His sharp blue eyes size me up as if he is deciding something. I don’t know what to do, so I just stand still, waiting. Then he says, “Go see about my males.”

I leave the room in search of the other volunteers. I visually check each one of his males and try to get some idea of their injuries. I return to my room and close the door.

“Ten males. Most are okay. Some have bad broke hand and foots,” I say willing him to understand me. I don’t have this kind of vocabulary.

“Everyone healthy?”

“Yes. Okay.”

“Bring me my clothing, Volunteer.”

I pick up his clean clothing from where I had folded it. He gets out of bed naked, and my eyes can’t help but inspect his penises again, innocently dangling between his thighs now. If he caught me looking, he doesn’t mention it. He instructs me to dress him, and I don’t hesitate. I have the feeling he’s leaving, and I’m already thinking about plain oatmeal.

Once dressed in shoes and all, he seems like a completely different person. “Volunteer, follow me.”

I follow him out of the farmhouse to where the transport crashed. All that’s left is black technology on charred grass. However, my patient gets to his knees and begins searching. He asks me something, but I don’t have a clue as to what he wants, but I want to look helpful, so I get on my hands and knees and start looking as if I know what I’m looking for.

“Found it!” my patient says, standing.

I stand too, looking pleased he found whatever it is in his hand, a tiny black device. He does something and then talks into it. I can only make out a few of his words and I realize that before, he was speaking slowly and clearly for me. I can make out that he’s calling a mother ship or something. When he finishes talking into the black device, he looks down at me and speaks slowly but sternly, “Go tell my males to prepare. We are leaving. Go quickly, volunteer.”