Tanks For Nothing

We didn't learn about the war until it was well under way. Our small town was miles from the main towns and the passers-by didn't mention it. Maybe they were just trying to forget. You can do that pretty easily there; just forget. Forget about what's happened, or what could happen. That land has a strange and mystical power that draws you into the moment. It almost forces you to witness its beauty. And it is beautiful, so it doesn't have to try hard. It's rather hilly land that the township was built on, as you could deduct from its fairly obvious name; Hillier. Long green slopes that hide, then accentuate the emptiness. And when the tress and small cottages peak over the rises it's soothing and inviting to the eyes. There's perhaps only sixty or seventy houses in the whole community, maybe just over a hundred people. We all know each other, sometimes names escape me, but the faces are familiar. Even the tourists look familiar. It's a certain type of tourist that will stop in Hiller, most people drive straight through, but the ones who stop, they all look the same. They're peaceful people. The city folk scare easily and I took it upon myself to make sure they didn't stick around too long.
         
          One day a man pulled into town, quite frantically, and ran around scaring the townsfolk with stories of war. He wasn't our typical Hillier tourist; he was a weedy, scruffy looking young man, always scratching at his neck and thin wiry beard. He spoke too fast and his eyes tried desperately to keep up with his tongue. My first thought was drugs, but he went on and on about invasions, national promises of vengeance and intolerance. He was genuinely rattled. And that scared people. He left as soon as he'd come and we were left with only sketchy details and wandering imaginations. The first twelve on the scene didn't take long to inform the rest. None of us knew how to respond. We'd stopped getting newspapers delivered the year before because they never arrived on time and they always felt exaggerated or over-dramatic, so most people stopped reading them. Television signals were always weak so none of us bothered with television sets. We had no way of knowing wether it was true or not. We'd grown to love our disconnect with the outside world, but suddenly it was haunting. Stu, who ran the General Store, immediately put an order in for every paper he could get. 
          Those two days waiting for the papers to arrive were quiet, but electric. Nobody spoke to each other much, just nodded, and waved, and waited. I spent those days at home with my wife Babs. I wasn't fearful for our lives, I didn't really believe news of the end of the world was coming. But I did feel a change. We did things around the house we'd been meaning to do for years. We noticed each other in a strange new way, even after forty years of marriage she was never far from my eyes or arms in those two days. The news of a potential war, wether it was true or not, gave us the best two days we'd had in years. 
          The day the papers came brought everybody down onto Main Street. All the street carts, signs and stalls were all kept inside to make room for the crowd to gather out front of Stu's store. The delivery truck didn't even make it to the edge of town with all the people flooding the streets. The ones at the edge un-loaded the truck and carried the boxes through the crowd. Stu had set up a little stand to read the news aloud. It buzzed, like a New Years Eve celebration, but before breakfast. Stu was handed the first box and tore it open for the first paper, his eyes quickly darted around the front page. 
          'This one's from last week,' he shouted. 'Bring me another box.'
          More boxes were passed through the crowd and opened. He picked through the next box and opened another.
          'This one's four days old,' he said. 'But it sounds promising.' The people held their breath. 'The HMAS Sherman went down yesterday just outside the harbour. The crew were all successfully evacuated after the vessel struck the unseen rock formation and…' he stopped mid-sentence, his eyes frantically skimming the rest of the page. He turned the page, then another, then another, faster and faster.
          'Nothing,' he shouted. 'There's nothing about a war!' He was angry and the crowd was frustrated. Some shouted, most grizzled, I laughed. The crowd cried out 'Hoax!', and 'That man was on drugs!', and 'What a waste of time!' Some started to walk away but stopped, we all saw the trucks coming down the hill towards us.
 
          Three dark-green army trucks with canvas canopy's came around the small bend and onto Main Street. Unlike the delivery trucks, the crowd parted and let them roll right down to the centre of the crowd. They came to a halt outside Stu's store and two men stepped down from the first truck. The first was wearing a traditional Khaki-green uniform, but the other wore a smart grey pin-striped suit. Stu walked right up to them and introduced himself. The man in the suit spoke softly to Stu. Stu looking quite puzzled, searching the crowd until his eyes met mine. 'Michael,' he yelled. He motioned for me to approach him and then kept scanning the crowd. He then called out for Alan and Bob and waved us all over to the front line.
          'I think we should talk inside,' the man in the suit said. We all followed Stu inside and left our wives and the confused mob outside looking like a herd of cattle caught in a thunderstorm. 
          Stu cleared off a table, set five chairs around it and went out back to fix some drinks. The man in the Khaki's stood directly behind the suit against the wall. The suit smiled at all of us, individually, creepily. Stu returned with drinks and sat down.
          'I take it you have all heard the news then?' the suit said. 'This is why you are gathered together in the town?'
          We all nodded. The man in the suit took a sip of water. He was a bony-faced man who spoke in a European accent, where exactly I don't know.
          'My name is Manuel, I am from a private branch of security that I can't disclose. We were called into action last month when news of the war surfaced. Our Defence Forces were all abroad when the first wave came. Most were wiped out. But the ones who remain, remain abroad to fight. There is nobody left to defend our country but us, and the people, like you.'
          'I'm sorry,' Alan interrupted. 'Who's at war? Who started this whole mess?' Alan was our main carpenter and the main handyman of the town. He always wore overalls and has the largest forehead of any man I have ever seen. Bob was the head of the main council, he got around in white shirts and blazers most of the year. He looks like every other town council-man; short, fat and very red in the face. He remained quiet like usual, waiting to pick his side of the argument, the side he thought would win. Stu was our venture capitalist and ran the three main stores in town. He was tall, skinny and constantly moving. He looked a bit like that famous actor Gregory Peck, but I would never tell him that. I am the main mechanic in town, I spend most of my time topping up coolant in tourists cars and dragging tractors out of mud. 
          'We don't know who attacked first, or why,' Manuel said. 
          'If you don't know anything, why are you here?' I asked.
          'To prepare.' Manuel said, rising his caterpillar eyebrows to show off his creepy blue eyes. He then pulled out a stack of documents from his briefcase bound together by a thin twine. The covers were all grey and had big, bold black letters stencilled on the front. They all read 'Operations Manual'.
          'We've taken the serial numbers off of them and replaced all official Army classification with simple codes and non-military insignia. Now they are simply called T1, T2, T3 and so on. When they arrive…'
          'I'm sorry,' Alan interrupted again. 'When what arrives?'
          'The tanks.' Manuel stated flatly. We all fell silent, and then I laughed. Everyone looked at me, which only made me laugh harder. 
          'I assure you Michael, this is no laughing matter. Five tanks will be arriving in your town in three days and should the need arise it will fall on to you people to defend yourselves and make sure that the enemy doesn't make it up this hill into our larger cities.' 
          The other men looked concerned, I was loosing it. 
          'The enemy would, hopefully, never suspect and attack from simple townsfolk such as yourselves. This is very serious and important indeed.' His voice was rising. I think I really offended him. I was after all still laughing throughout his whole spiel. He was serious alright. Some more small details were discussed but I was only half paying attention. I was the first to leave the meeting. I said my good-byes at the door and went back to my bemused Babs in the crowd. I took her by the arm and walked her back to the car. As I opened her door I turned back and saw the other three idiots walking the suit and the soldier back to the trucks. As I pulled away from the town, the trucks backed up through the Main Street. We drove further away from each other with every second.
 
          I tried to put it out of my mind those next few days, but I caught myself looking, expecting to see tanks roll over my hill. I'd slap my face, laugh and go about my business. I fixed my neighbour's truck on the afternoon of the second day and that helped me forget all about it. By the morning of the third day I was convinced it was all a hoax. Someone was playing a major prank on the town and everybody had bought it. I made myself a cuppa and settled on the front porch to watch Babs hang out the washing. I took my first sip and the rumbling started. I didn't look up, I didn't want to. I just watched the pebbles on the porch skittle and crash into each other. It went on and on and on and I thought it would never end. I stepped off my perfectly swept porch and headed out to see if my doubts had turned on me.
          From the north-west corner of our block we could look out over the entire town. It took me five minutes to walk through the trees, across the clearing and up a small ridge. I sighed and leaned on the fence when the scene I'd hoped not to see, was all I could see. Five tanks lined up at the far end of town and two of those same canvas trucks were making their way back up the hill. I didn't want to, but I knew I had to go down. Stu, Alan and Bob would be waiting. All I could do was shake my head as I approached the gathering crowd. I still half-expected someone to burst out of a tank with a cake or something. That would at least make sense. The tanks looked big from afar but they only got bigger and more menacing with every step. They were parked on Main Street in a tidy line. The first one was a dark metallic grey colour. The smaller cabin area on top of the humongous track wheels housed one long, thick cannon. I walked right up to it and my head barely came to the top of the track that ran over a series of big metal wheels. I looked further down the line, the one directly behind it was exactly the same. The third and forth were a little smaller and painted an army-green but the one at the far end was by far the biggest. It was almost twice the size of the green tanks and had another smaller cannon protruding out the side and what looked like a machine-gun mounted on top of it near the hatch door. It was a duller grey than the first two tanks; it looked more like an evil, robotic elephant.  
          Nobody jumped out with cake. Nobody spoke a word. I slowly made my way towards the guys, they were mulled around the big elephant.
          'He's not laughing now,' Bob said, looking over at me. I stood with them but didn't respond.
          'Did Mr. Eyebrows drop these off?' I asked.
          'No,' Stu said and handed me an envelope. 'Just more Khaki guys, they handed me that and took off.' 
          I ripped open the envelope and pulled out a folder stamped 'Confidential' and a single sheet of paper that I read out loud.
 

Citizens of Hillier,

It is important that ALL of you read the operations manual for all five tanks. Some of them might look similar but all have been modified differently. Also read the contents of this folder carefully as they contain basic manoeuvres and battle strategies. I hope you do not need them, but if it comes to it we are counting on your town and two others by the coast to hold off any attacks until we can gather more trained men. I suggest you find another man and assign each man to a particular tank. Get to know this machine like you would your own family, and then teach what you know to another man, just as a pre-caution. 
We will be contacting you again soon.
 
God speed,
Manuel Onspario
 

          I handed the letter to Bob and opened the confidential file. It was mostly handwritten with hand-drawn diagrams, but some pages were cut out of real operations manuals and pasted in. 
          The four of us sat inside Stu's store reading the Operations Manuals. We'd read one, then pass it on, and read the next. When we'd read them all we started talking about who the fifth man should be. Once we'd ruled out the townsfolk who were either, too old, too fat, too annoying or hated at least one of us, we were left with two options; a nineteen year old kid named Mark, and a midget who we just called Shrimp. Sure we could get some old phone books for Shrimp or hand the keys over to a hormone-crazed teenager, but which did we feel better about? We decided to leave that decision until later. 
          As I came outside I'd expected some of the crowd to have dissipated but it had grown. The four of us were watched by every man, woman and dog all the way back to our new 'freedom protectors'.
          'Anyone have any favourites?' Bob asked.
          'I'm kind of partial to this green looking one,' Alan said.
          I didn't care to climb inside any of them, let alone choose - luckily though, I didn't have to.
          'I think Mike should have the big one, seeing as he's the mechanic and all.' offered Stu. The rest all nodded their heads. I just exhaled very slowly and very loudly for all of them, grabbed my manual and meandered over to the big, double-cannoned, machine-gun toting beast. I walked around it once and then climbed the ladder to the hatch. I had to steady myself against the rail when I reached the top, it was much higher than I had anticipated. I sucked in some more courage and opened the hatch to a strong mix of metal, dust and sweat. I screwed my face up tight and climbed within.
Once inside I only had to hunch slightly to move about the cabin. It looked like it had been gutted. They'd taken out all the technical equipment and replaced it with simple pedals and levers. There were two short seats and harnesses in front of small control panels by each cannon. The panel by the largest cannon had a few extra levers to make the big elephant move. The premise for driving it was actually quite simple. Each lever drove one of the tracks, if more speed was thrust upon one track, the tank would turn in the direction of the slower moving track, and pulling the levers into reverse acted like a brake. I started for the main controls when there was a loud crash and I was thrown from my feet against the back wall. It all went quiet for a moment, and then I heard shouting. I climbed up the ladder and poked my head out of the hatch. Bob's fat little head was also sticking out of his hatch, and looking rather sheepish. His tank was a lot closer to mine than before. The big idiot had reversed straight into me. We were all doomed! 
 
We used the clearing behind Main Street to have a little field test. The other three tanks could move forward through Main Street but I had to go the long way around, beside the creek bed. I took to driving my war elephant quite well, but that's what I did for a living, I was concerned for the other three. When I was the first to arrive on the field I grew nervous, I had visions of looking back at our town completely demolished. Our old buildings wouldn't stand up to a knock from a tank, and Bob had already one altercation under his belt. The two green machines, driven by Alan and Bob, appeared and made their way across the field towards me.
           It was surreal; opening the hatch of a tank and looking over at two of my neighbours popping out of matching green tanks. Instruments of war given to men who couldn't even win an argument with their wives. Bob looked like he'd been born again. He was smiling like he had a clothes-hanger stuck in his mouth. Our small-time politician finally had the power he'd always dreamed of. Alan just looked back to the town, nervously. I didn't blame him, I was too. There was still no sign of Stu. We all stood silently, listening out for signs of violence or destruction, but there was nothing. It was almost a minute before we heard a faint rumble off in the distance. Waiting for it to emerge was torture; it seemed to take forever, but all the time in the world couldn't prepare us for what we finally did see: Stu's tank came around the bend but not as we'd left it at the other end of town. Sitting on top of the cabin were about 15 kids, one even straddled the main cannon, with little legs swinging either side of it. I wanted to laugh, I really did, but I was mortified. How the hell did they get up there? And why would anyone let them?
I managed a quick chuckle then steeled myself as Stu popped out of his hatch, already launching into his apology. 'It wasn't my idea!' he said too quickly. 'I stopped out front of my store to get some drinks and snacks for us, and when I came out they were all over it. You know I can't say no to kids.' his eyes were as child like as ever.
          'This is a little different than giving away free Candy Stu!' Bob said.
          'Alright kids,' said Alan. 'Run on home, it might get dangerous out here.' nobody could say no to Alan. The kids slowly climbed off and ran back across the field. We just stared at each other. Where do you start? I just wanted to go home and put the kettle on, but we all had a strange new responsibility thrust upon us. We were all sitting in armoured fighting vehicles preparing to fend off an unknown enemy.
A Carpenter, a Politician, a Mechanic and Stu. Might as well turn the cannons on the town now and get it over with.
 
          We spent the afternoon flying around the field one by one, and by sun-down we were feeling pretty confident behind the stick, but moving these things from one place to another was primarily to place them in better firing positions. Now, it was time for target practice.
          We wanted to test the weapons further away from the town and Bob's field was perfect. There was a forty-foot oval at the base of our steepest hill; a perfect back drop to catch stray rounds and debris. We lined up the tanks facing the hill ready for the morning. We decided to meet first thing after breakfast, so we'd have a chance to get some sleep and put together our crude targets. We each went home to our wives and I can't speak for the other men, but, I went home to the best meal of my life and a look in my wife's eyes I'll never forget. There was a new power and youthfulness surging around all of us. I made love to my sweet Babs once after dinner, and then again after we'd constructed our dummy. I felt like a fifty-year old again, instead of a…well, moving on. I was exhausted but had trouble sleeping. I wanted to soak in this moment. Life was somewhere I never could have expected it to be, but I knew better than to fight it. I had a beautiful, giving, happily sleeping wife in my arms and next to the bed; a seven foot dummy I was going to blow sky high right after breakfast. Life was great, unpredictable, but great. Apparently there was a war going on somewhere.
 
I arrived at the field earlier than we arranged but didn't have to wait for the other guys; they were busy fixing their dummies to four large wooden stakes.
          'Jesus, did you all shit the bed or something,' I yelled out from half way across the field. They laughed, they always do. 
          'Who could sleep?' Stu said.
I propped my dummy up against the empty stake and noticed that it looked strangely like my father. It was even dressed in his old overalls and hat. We'd torn up old bed sheets and stuffed them with hay into a roughly human figure. We also added an old bag of tomato's to the chest for a nice realistic touch. I tied mine up and stepped back to look at the other dummies. Alan was down the far end knocking another stake into the ground to hold up the 'ass' end of his cow-like creation. He used barrels and wheat sacks to get the shape and then draped a painted sheet over the top to give the cow its spots. Bob was stringing up one of his scarecrows with a giant red target painted on its chest. Classic Bob, always cutting corners. Stu was tying a limp floppy body to the stake and then bent over to pick up a gigantic green head. I had no idea what it was and had to ask him.
          'This is one of them creatures I saw in the woods a few years back. You all didn't believe me, but I don't care. If they're watching, this will be a nice little lesson to 'em not to fuck with us!'
          I strung my dad up and he stood a full foot taller than myself and I looked up at him and smiled. We were all smiling, then, and all the way back to our tanks. The four of us gathered around Alan's machine. Inside each tank were ten boxes of ammunition. We stood over the hatch and watched Alan take the first round out of the box. They were large metal cylinders as big as a loaf of bread. He loaded it into the chamber and took his seat behind the controls. Alan looked up at us and we all looked at each other. Nobody said anything. The childish excitement and adult disbelief were clear on everybody's faces. Alan turned back to his target and the motor started up as the cannon moved into the direction of his eight foot long cow figure. He made some minor adjustments and sat still for a moment. He took a long, deep breath and fired. The noise was painfully loud. The recoil almost shook us off the top. There was a small cloud of smoke from the barrel but it cleared just as the round struck the hillside about ten feet above the cow. 
          'Not bad," said Stu. 'I thought you'd miss by much more than that." Alan didn't look up, he just re-loaded. With more confidence he lowered the cannon slightly and fired almost immediately. We braced ourselves more expertly this time and watched the round tear into the ground in front of the cow spraying dirt over the dummies. 
          'Shit!' Alan screamed as he reached out for the ammo box again. I thought a little humour might help so I suggested that; 'Maybe we should call your wife over and she could. . .'
          I'd relaxed too much on top of the tank as it went of beneath my feet and I was thrown backwards and fell to the ground behind the beast. Luckily the rain had softened up the soil and I didn't break my back. I stared up at the sky with a ringing in my head for a moment, then pulled myself up and walked to the front of the tank to see the head of the cow still tied to the stake, the rest of it was scattered over the hillside, some of it still on fire. I couldn't hear a thing but I shot Alan a big thumbs-up. They didn't care that I might've been hurt. I probably deserved it anyway.
          Bob blew up his scarecrow on his fifth attempt, it was just too skinny. Three of the rounds actually clipped the dummy but passed straight through into the hillside. The fifth one was dead on and sent the top half of the stake up into the air like a rocket. 
          Stu's 'lucky shot' exploded the head of his green alien on the first try. We made him fire at the head of the cow to prove it wasn't a fluke. It took him eight rounds to turn it into debris. 
          I was nervous being the last one to fire. I didn't care so much about being the best, I just didn't want to be the worst and my tank was much more intimidating in size. I was shaking slightly as I held the levers. I moved the cross-hairs into position, took a deep breath and closed my eyes as I hit the trigger. Even inside the tank the force was surprising. The entire tank moved in its tracks as the shell exploded out, and the sound of it hitting the hillside was deafening. A mushroom of dirt shot forward and covered the entire area. When it cleared I saw that I had missed my target by about three feet but 'dad' was only barely attached to the post. I could just hear the other guys hooting above me over the ringing in my head. They were obviously impressed by the fire power of my tank but I wasn't, I was afraid. I couldn't let them see that though, so I adjusted and fired again. The round tore into the ground in front of the dummy and exploded just before the tank. The entire dummy, stake and about ten tonnes of dirt shot into the sky. I climbed up and opened the hatch as it was still raining down. The guys all had their hand in the air, shouting like little kids. 
          'I guess that counts as a hit?' I shouted above them. They nodded with thumbs up and I allowed myself to smile, even though I was still trembling. 
 
          We stopped for lunch at Stu's place, still giddy. Bob even danced a little, which was a stranger experience for me than blowing up a dummy with a tank.  After the test we decided not to train up either the teenager or the midget. We'd keep the last tank as a spare. That day we left the tanks in the main field. Alan mentioned that he'd feel better if his war machine lived on his property should trouble arise, the others were quick to agree. I couldn't care less. I didn't think we'd ever use them to blow up anything besides potato sacks, and even if we did, I was sure we'd be no match for any opponent. The next day I went back to the field and the big grey elephant was the only one left. There were thick tracks in the mud snaking off in all directions. Stu had parked the spare behind his shop and covered it with a giant blue tarp. 
The path back to my house was a little wider than it had been before and I widened it a little further again. I parked the big dumb animal next to my barn, it was almost a long as the barn but only three-quarters the height. The barn looked like a big red toy box that had been lifted off and placed next to my new play thing. Only, I didn't want to play with it, but I wasn't going to complain either, so I made myself a cup of tea. 
 
          Every morning it took me by surprise as I stared out of my kitchen window. I had no intention of ever sitting in it again. I could hear the rumble of the other tanks tearing up the earth off in the distance, I knew the other three weren't sharing my restraint. I didn't see it myself but I was told a week later that Stu had helped his neighbour out with a little tree removal. Allegedly his chain-saw was busted so Stu blasted it out of the ground for him. A week later Alan's wife took his tank out for a joy-ride. She also took out their chicken coupe and half of their stone-walled garage. I wasn't surprised at all, they all expected me to laugh, and I didn't let them down. The weeks flew by. The newspapers stopped coming. We never saw the elusive Manuel again.
No news - in our case - wasn't good news. It's a terrible feeling waiting for something to happen, especially when I thought there was a good chance that nothing would. 
          Once a month we'd meet for more target practice. The boy's dummies were getting more detailed and elaborate. They wanted to meet every week, but I suggested monthly to conserve ammunition. You could tell that they spent every day of that month working on their targets. Dreaming. Longing for the day they got to blow it to pieces. They became quite good seamstresses in the end. 
          We were all learning skills we never thought we'd acquire. I guess that's one good thing you could say about war; it really broadens a man, or a woman.
 
          So, I'm sure you're desperate to hear where this is going. I'm sort of sick of talking about it, so here's the ending…
          Life went on its quiet-country-living way for a while; cups of tea, boredom and then, occasionally blowing things up. A bitter feud started up between Stu and Bob. From what I heard - mainly from my wife - Stu had accidentally rolled over some of Bob's chickens on a late night drunken tank-ride. Bob had said that was alright, but then accidentally blew up three of his cows in an apparent 'misfire'. Things kept escalating until one day a fist-fight broke out between the two of them inside Stu's store. Words were exchanged. Threats made. Both men ran off to man their war machines. Beth, a nice little towns-woman overheard the argument and rushed off to tell me. I believe her exact words were, "Stu and Bob are going to have a duel in the main paddock! With their tanks! You've got to stop them before they blow the whole town up."
          I choked on my biscuit and told her I've be down as soon as I finished my tea. I honestly didn't think that they'd go through with it. I was half way down the hill when I heard the first explosion. I started to jog. When I came over the ridge our pretty green field looked like it had been chewed on by a giant. There were several large holes and track marks in all directions. Smoke everywhere. Stu's tank was on fire but still firing and Bob's tank was approaching fast. Bob's tank clipped Stu's hard left and knocked it onto its side. Stu's tracks were still in motion so his tank spun on its side, still firing. 
          It was so absurd I didn't know what to do. Do I intervene, or let them blow each other up and let Darwin have his way? I tried to clear my head with a quick chuckle when a stray round soared clear and high over my head, speeding off the way I'd just come. The explosion left a pit in my stomach. Somewhere off in the distance it had come down and where that looked to be looked a lot like where my farm was. But what were the chances though, of that stray round hitting something other than miles of open land? 
          I still ran. I told myself it would be fine. It surely just ruined some crops or a nice patch of green. But then I saw my house ablaze.
          I hoped to god that Babs was down milking the cows or mending the chicken coupe door like she'd been meaning to. But I couldn't shake the image of her lying in bed reading one of her books. I just told myself she was fine, hopped in my tank and headed back to the field. What I planned to do when I got there, I still don't know. I just remember feeling like I should be feeling more. But I was just so…blank. I was sitting in my tank, racing off to stop two enraged friends from killing each other - with their tanks - and any innocent bystanders. You can read that one sentence as scary, daunting, unbelievable or just plain ludicrous. It was a moment of devastating clarity. I was completely overwhelmed by what had happened to our quiet little world and at the same time I saw that same little world as a single speck of dust on the face of a bigger world. If there was a god, and he did have a plan, then this was the half-time show.
 
          I rolled up to the ridge as I did before expecting to see the two still duking it out. But the field was empty; just smoking holes. But explosions still rang out across the land. I looked toward the town and sunk further into the unknown. A line of menacing black tanks were rolling down Main Street, soldiers marched by their sides in single file, the soldiers also dressed in black. The first tank fired steadily at the old stores and homes that gave Hillier its teeth, and they were being slowly knocked out. Soldiers were rounding up townsfolk and loading them into canvas trucks at the rear. 
          I, very calmly, took aim at the front tank. And, very calmly, fired. The round exploded out across the field and struck the pavement beneath the first invading tank. The shockwave sent the beast upward and back onto the following tank, turning them into a burnt little sandwich. 
          I thought I should re-load, I should try and fire again. But I couldn't. Why bother? I just opened the hatch and stuck my stupid, old smiling head out into the afternoon sun. Three of the tanks behind the black sandwich were slowly raising their cannons in my direction and three more were heading my way across the field. Off in the sky I saw bombers approaching like ground pepper amongst the mash-potato clouds. I looked back at the smoke rising from where my house used to be and thought everyone I know and love could be dead or dying. Mess and senseless swarmed all around me. I felt like all eyes were on me, like suddenly I was the centre of the universe, sitting alone, popping out of a big grey tank, on top of a once beautiful hillside. I heard explosions and air rushing furiously toward me and it was all so funny. 
          I hope that the last thing everybody saw was me laughing.
 
          Then I woke up here. That's it. That's my whole story. So, tell me, how did you get here?
 
 
THE END.