In Continuum.

That Maggot Business

Since we are on the topic of area-cleaing,aside from the vulgarities which i am aplogising for,i'd like to share a rather...memorable experience that the lot of us had one summer night last year.Area-cleaning really is part and parcel of a guy in the army,and though the importance of it drops as you progress with your army life,you must admit that because of area cleaning you are more conscious of the cleanliness of your own room.Seriously,before this i wouldnt even have cared if there is a half eaten chocolate bar in my room,or a hill of notes lying on the table.After the 'training' of area cleaning,i treat those as bloody eye sores and can never leave them lying around.

But anyway,back to the incident i told you about.There was this night i remember,when we were suddenly called down to gather.Because my platoon was the duty platoon that day,we were in charge of...whatever that was coming up.We braced ourselves for the worst,but like all events that need to be braced,nothing can ever prepare yourself for what it is to come.

Anyway,before we go on to that,let me tell you a little story called "The Pond".Once upon a time,my ex-OC came up with the brilliant idea to dig a pond in the company line to have fishes in them.I still have no idea why he decided to do such a ridiculous thing,but i guess it has got something to do with Fengshui.Who knows?They do the dumbest things for those two chinese characters.

Anyway,so the first hole was dug one afternoon with a small crowd gathered,and it gradually went downwards into the earth while everybody watched.It took about three weeks,perhaps even a little more than that to complete,and throughout the whole time we had to help mix cement,dig holes,build brick walls,paint the bottom of the pond,build wooden fences,carry flower pots,so many other extra bullshit dumped on because of a fancy idea somebody higher up had.And how does shit flow?

Ever downwards.

Anyway,the pond was completed,and it wasnt even fancy.Sure,the little mini-garden around it,i thought it was neat.But the DIY fountain that he built was rather amateur-ish.Besides,the water soon turned green for some reason,and it looked like a badly polluted lake of toxic waste.I wondered how the fishes actually survived,and if they were surviving at all,since the green crap floating on the surface was so thick,light couldnt penetrate to the bottom of it.

So where did all the soil that was dug up go?Some fancy bastard placed them in trash bags and threw them in the rubbish point at the back gate of the camp,in one of those big green rubbish carts,waiting for the truck to collect them.

But they were too heavy,and one of them apparently toppled,spilling all the sand onto the ground inside the rubbish point.Because of that nobody else could dump their trash,and the truck couldnt come in to collect anything else.So it was US to the rescue that very night,walking down towards the rubbish point with not a clue on what we were supposed to expect then.

The first gate was opened,and then the second.When the second one did,the smell of decay and trash attacked our nostrils,with waves of poisonous fumes and racing cockroaches into the night.The green cart with the bags of sand laid on its side,with the bags broken while the sand spilled onto other older trash.The trash there mustve remained there for ever,because as we took a closer look,the contents in the bags were moving.

But they were not moving,as we later discovered.I remember the scene when Indiana Jones opens the stone door to the hidden chamber where the great ark was hidden,Sallah asked him why the ground was moving.Then,with a firey torched thrown down,they later discovered that the ground wasnt moving,but the snakes crawling all over.

Maggots.They were,everywhere.On the ground,on the plastic bags,crawling from rotten boxes and inside them,infesting the corners of the rubbish collection point,with cocoons of them stuck to the sides of the wall,while the rest of them feasted on the rotten food in meal boxes,and decayed fruits left by us.

We stared in horror,as the lights went on and were later instructed to go in and lift the green cart back onto its wheels.The lot of us had our tshirts tied around our noses,and the braver souls went deeper into the point while others stayed closer to the gate,the only source of fresh air,though already polluted by the disgusting stench that was floating out of the metal gates.The floor was soft,covered in slime and goo,and our shoes sank into the slime as we applied strength to the overturned cart.It was way too heavy,and some of us had to pull the bags out.I forgot who,but somebody did,and more maggots flowed out of the green cart.

I remember a lot of screaming,and a lot of yelling.But most of the time,we were just groaning and moaning to the situation we were in,because everything was like the worst nightmare of some hygiene freak.The rubbish point,in itself,was like a actualization of that nightmare,with the maggots crawling everywhere and the slime coated floor.Not to forget the racing cockroaches and the stench.It was the perfect setting for the worst nightmare,and we were living it with our shirts over our noses,and our hands covered with slime.

We heaved,and we pushed.The cart finally got onto its feet,and one of the wheels HAD to give way.It tumbled while we were trying to push it out of the rubbish point.With the maggots still crawling everywhere,we pushed the cart back out and then ran away down the road into the night,crawling at our backs and then screaming at the top of our voices.Yeah,go on and say that these boys are whining,that they couldnt even deal with an army of maggots.But you werent there,you werent there to witness the mountains of maggots and the fighting roaches.The stench alone was appalling enough,and i remember scrubbing myself three times over that night,and throwing away the shoes that sank into the thick slime.

That maggot business,a business i am willing,but unlikely to forget.