Soldier, Mother, Engineer
Sevgi Zubeyde Gurbuz
400 Words: Personal Notification for a Busy World
February 21, 2007
400 Words: Personal Notification for a Busy World
February 21, 2007
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400 Words is a magazine of short-short nonfiction, edited by Katherine Sharpe.
This literary zine comes out once a year, with writers focusing on a different theme for each issue, but always writing a piece of 400 words or less. The theme for the first issue was autobiographies. The second issues' theme was 'compulsions'. The third issue features 'work' as a theme. Their slogan is "We print true stories for people with short attention spans." |
Well, one day when surfing the internet I came across 400 Words, and their challenge to write a 400 word short story. I don't remember what the prompt was, except that it was autobiographical, but this is what I submitted that was selected for publication:
There are two me’s. The first is stable, rational, well-educated, and successful: the engineer who followed in her parents’ footsteps, taking the safe, sure path. The other is the dangerous, adventure-seeking, undaunted dreamer; a pilot, expertly gunning down enemy warplanes, surviving impossible dogfights. There is who I am, and who I wanted to be.
Several years ago, I found myself sitting in front of my computer at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory when suddenly I heard loud thumping noises overhead on the roof. Probably some workers making some repairs, I thought. I was wrong. The following morning, everyone was talking about the great hail storm that had struck, damaging many people’s cars. But there I was, totally clueless about the world, having been imprisoned in my windowless, electronic dungeon.
That was when I finally realized the pathetic nature of my existence, and decided to make a break.
I volunteered to deploy to Diyarbakir, Turkey as a Turkish linguist, just when the U.S. began sending troops to Iraq. Nirvana! Now I was scuttling all over eastern Turkey, involved in every possible kind of job, ranging from security, to civil engineering, to logistics and negotiation. It was 24 hours a day, 7 days a week of non-stop action—and I loved it.
I was actually nuts enough to want to go on that cancelled mission requiring a bullet-proof vest. I wondered if I would ever get to see the Iraqi cities of Mosul or Kerkuk. I didn’t. But I went east far enough to climb the peak where Noah’s Ark supposedly landed, just five kilometers from the Iranian border.
Then one day, the U.S. pulled all its forces out of Turkey. After six months of bliss, I was back in upstate New York flying a desk again. I couldn’t stand watching from the sidelines, so I got out of the service, became a civilian engineer, and got married. About a year later, our first child, a boy, was born.
But don’t think the dreamer in me has died. Oh no, I still eagerly look forward to the day when I can show my mischievous son a picture of me in fatigues, face camouflaged, holding an M16, and carrying a pretty mean look—just a little reminder that his mommy is no softie.
Several years ago, I found myself sitting in front of my computer at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory when suddenly I heard loud thumping noises overhead on the roof. Probably some workers making some repairs, I thought. I was wrong. The following morning, everyone was talking about the great hail storm that had struck, damaging many people’s cars. But there I was, totally clueless about the world, having been imprisoned in my windowless, electronic dungeon.
That was when I finally realized the pathetic nature of my existence, and decided to make a break.
I volunteered to deploy to Diyarbakir, Turkey as a Turkish linguist, just when the U.S. began sending troops to Iraq. Nirvana! Now I was scuttling all over eastern Turkey, involved in every possible kind of job, ranging from security, to civil engineering, to logistics and negotiation. It was 24 hours a day, 7 days a week of non-stop action—and I loved it.
I was actually nuts enough to want to go on that cancelled mission requiring a bullet-proof vest. I wondered if I would ever get to see the Iraqi cities of Mosul or Kerkuk. I didn’t. But I went east far enough to climb the peak where Noah’s Ark supposedly landed, just five kilometers from the Iranian border.
Then one day, the U.S. pulled all its forces out of Turkey. After six months of bliss, I was back in upstate New York flying a desk again. I couldn’t stand watching from the sidelines, so I got out of the service, became a civilian engineer, and got married. About a year later, our first child, a boy, was born.
But don’t think the dreamer in me has died. Oh no, I still eagerly look forward to the day when I can show my mischievous son a picture of me in fatigues, face camouflaged, holding an M16, and carrying a pretty mean look—just a little reminder that his mommy is no softie.
