The People of Forever Are Not Afraid by Shani Boianjiu Read Free Book Online

Isn’t that weird?”
    I cannot help but laugh. These little crawling boys have no qualms. They are not afraid. And now they have begun stealing our base.
    “It’s not funny!” Dana says, her whisper louder than a shout.
    “It is sort of funny,” I say. “I mean, I bet the boys stole only the red ones to be funny.”
    Dana doesn’t get it. Her boyfriend is twenty-seven. They met when she was a senior in high school. She never knew him like I know Moshe; she never knew him as a boy. She is rubbing vanilla oil behind her ear, on her wrists and neck. This is because her boyfriend likes vanilla. He told her that once. She rubs it on her skin twice a day, even though he is so far away and cannot smell her.
    She asks, “Why would they care about being funny?” but I don’t even try to explain. I take off my military boots and climb onto the field bed with my uniform on, so I have more time to sleep before I wake up to train Boris. How could I explain to her that boys don’t care about being funny, that they just are?
    I don’t explain it to her. Instead I wake up when she is stillasleep and take the little glass bottle of vanilla oil and put it for safekeeping in the pocket of my pants.

    B ORIS HOPES we’ll start the training with actual bullets this time, but after we set up, I take his weapon from him without a word and unload it. He lies down on the cement, and I hover about him, correcting his body.
    I make sure that his left hand is at a ninety-degree angle and that his palm lets the gun rest on it without strain.
    “We are working with bone here,” I say. “If you work your muscles, they’ll shake.”
    As I adjust the angle of his hand, I can feel his pulse and smell industrial soap.
    “Don’t break your wrist!” I shout, straightening his right hand, the one holding the handle. “We talked about this yesterday.”
    I kick his legs, hard, so that his left leg continues the exact line of the barrel and his right leg is spread apart, making a forty-five-degree angle. His butt clamps with every kick.
    When I lean down and show him how to splatter his cheek on the buttstock, starting up then down until he is on target, I feel the softness of him, his pores with no hair.
    I place a coin on the edge of his barrel and lie down right in front of it, holding my head up with my hands.
    I tell him to look at me. “Aim for my eye,” I say.
    He slowly clicks the safety, then presses the trigger.
    The coin falls, hitting the cement with a tiny rattle.
    “Again,” I say. “We’ll do this until you are stable.”
    I place the coin back on the edge of the barrel. I lie backdown. He closes his left eye. His right eye looks into mine through gunpoint, circular and intending and blue. He presses the trigger.
    The coin falls.
    “Again,” I say.
    “Again,” I say.
    “Again.”
    I am going to do this all day. I’ll do it until it’s time for my shift. I’ll do it even longer. The hell with the shift, the hell with everything, again, again, again, and then—
    He presses the trigger and the coin stays on the barrel. The only part of him that moves is his left eyelid. Our eyes are staring right at each other, and we are silent.
    “Again,” he says, barely moving his chapped lips.
    The coin falls, then stays, then falls, then stays, then stays, then stays.
    I keep my eyes on his the whole time, but as soon as I let them wander I notice that his left elbow is wet, bleeding into his shirt from holding the gun for so long.
    “You are ready to shoot,” I say.
    I put five bullets in his magazine. We shoot from the flat cement.
    Three out of five! I swear! Two in the legs, but still, I swear! I run back to the cement after checking his target and load five more bullets in his magazine. “How did I do?” he asks.
    “Again,” I say, as calmly as I can, but I can almost feel the joy buzzing from my cheeks and into his blue eyes.
    Boomboomboom.
    “Stop!”
    Boom.
    “Stop!” I kick him.
    Four boys have crawled onto