text: Joe sucked in air through his mouth then let out a coughing exhale. He covered his mouth too late, despite the fact that he was alone in his truck. Through his windshield, he saw the wide, rugged, filthy, death-filled area between the trenches. No man’s land. It was World War III and trench warfare was back and in a big way. This time, it was mostly due to laziness, but neither side would admit that. You’ve got the English or the French or something on one side and the French or the Swedish or something similar on the other side. Joe couldn’t remember what they were at war about but he knew that he supported the French. Or the Swedish. Trenches these days were pretty fun; Joe knew for a fact that one side had a pool table and heated bathroom floors. *Maybe I should’ve joined the military,* Joe mused. *I’m too fat for combat, but maybe they’d need numbers so bad that I’d squeeze in. Although I’m not French or Swedish or English so that would be a problem.* Joe wasn’t a soldier. Joe was a repairman. His specialty was in televisions, although he wasn’t really a specialist in anything. He was a jack of all trades repairman, as long as those trades were consumer electronics. And he had a doozy of a repair on his hands today. Both sides knew it as “The Speaker”, and that’s what it was: a titanic, colossal, double-sided speaker, one side facing each trench. No one knew who put it up; one day it wasn’t there, the next day it was, like an alien monolith. As Joe had heard, much of the fighting post-Speaker was over which radio station to put on. One side wanted the hottest pop hits while the other wanted to unwind with some classic rock. There was a detente for a day where holiday music was accepted by both sides, but this ended when Guns N Roses began blaring first thing on December 26th. Eventually, the two warring armies settled on public radio, finding the dulcet tones of the various hosts soothing. The shooting stopped as the soldiers learned about new books that were coming out soon. Then The Speaker broke, and resentment began to simmer once more. Both sides’ spies were blamed; the spies had previously been discovered to be spies, though both were so charming that they were incorporated into the other’s ranks. Though both spies pleaded that they knew nothing of the speaker breaking, they were executed in front of each trench. The message was clear: spying was fine, but fucking with The Speaker was not. This brought us back to Joe, sitting in his truck, an old revolver in the passenger seat. *What am I gonna do with this thing?* he wondered, picking the gun up and examining it. Joe came from a neutral country in the conflict, his unbiased presence being something both armies agreed upon after days of progress-less fighting. Joe detested war, not because of any moral objections, but because it seemed like a lot of work. Exercise was abhorrent to him; someone speed-walking past him on the street was something he interpreted as an insult and showing off. He had bad eyesight and flat feet and a head so big that an enemy sniper would tear up with joy seeing it in his scope. Joe pushed his glasses up and started speaking to himself. “In and out. There’s a ceasefire. They don’t want to shoot you. They just want the speaker fixed. They don’t want to shoot you. They just want the speaker fixed.” This became Joe’s mantra as he shakily opened the truck door, still holding the pistol in his hand. Eyeing the gun with each movement, he pointed it at the ground so as to avoid any accidental firing. Joe moved around to the truck bed and placed the gun in his right hand. He reached over the side of the bed and grabbed his toolbox. Gun in one hand and toolbox in the other, he took a deep breath, let it out, and began walking towards The Speaker. Though each step was slow, each heartbeat was quick and pounding. Sweat melted down his brow, and he could taste it and feel it sting his eyes. His tiny, circular glasses fogged up, either from perspiration or precipitation. The sweat wasn’t confined to his head; the running water loosened his grip of the pistol and toolbox. He didn’t want to squeeze either, careful not to accidentally pull the trigger. As he walked, he tried to wipe his glasses with the fabric on his workman’s outfit. He had to do so every few seconds, like windshield wipers in a hurricane. All Joe could see in between wipes were guns trained on either side; no people, no figures, only guns. He knew they weren’t pointed at him, but they were still pointed at him. Finally, he had arrived at The Speaker. He knew this because the dark shape he was walking towards was now very large. The Speaker towered over him like a skyscraper. Joe placed the toolbox and the revolver down on the mud. He used the fabric of his tucked-in shirt to firmly rub away the steam on his glasses before placing them back on this nose and wiping it. “Okay,” he whispered to himself. “Okay. Um. Let’s take a look.” He heard movement behind him. He jolted and turned around, but saw nothing. “Focus, focus, focus. Come on,” he whispered again. Joe began poking around The Speaker, or at least the area of The Speaker he could see and reach. As he examined the other side of it, he noticed an issue: it wasn’t plugged in. “You gotta be fucking...” Joe muttered before trailing off. He picked up the extension cord - about the size of a well-fed boa constrictor - and ran his hands down the length until he reached the plug. There was a socket in the ground covered by a superficial layer of mud. Joe kicked the mud off frantically. The soldiers peeked over the trench walls to watch Joe furiously kick the mud off the ground socket. Joe looked at one trench, then the other. “I found the problem.” He lifted the plug and its massive wire; he tried to lift it high but it was too heavy. “You’ve gotta-- this has to be plugged in. For it to work. You’ve gotta plug it in,” Joe shouted. He turned to the other trench. “This has to be plugged in here. See?” Joe rotated the plug so that the prongs faced the socket, then slowly squatted and plugged the large plug into the large socket. Immediately, The Speaker started producing sound. “There you go. See?” Joe tried to shout, though The Speaker was entirely too loud for anyone to hear. The sounds of a public radio host echoed through the land, and both trenches erupted in cheers. Suddenly, soldiers from both sides hopped up out of each trench and began jogging over to Joe. Joe shook the hands of both sides of soldiers, who began to mingle with each other like it was an office holiday party. Joe let out a quick chuckle before gulping, finishing it off with a smile as he shook hands. “Yeah, no problem. Just had to plug it in, that’s all,” he kept saying to the soldiers. *”However, we do have some unfortunate news,”* the public radio host said through The Speaker. The soldiers stopped talking to each other. Most ears were tuned to The Speaker now. “Yup, just had to plug it in,” Joe said again, before his ears, too, were clued in. *”Due to a lack of funding, Global Public Radio - the station you’ve been enjoying for over ninety-nine years - will be going off the air,”* the host continued. Joe’s smile froze on his face. *“This will be the final broadcast. Goodbye.”* The Speaker went silent. Both sets of soldiers began to examine each other. Joe spoke up, his newfound confidence slowly draining along with the color in his face. “That’s okay! That’s fine, I’m sure we can find another station you both enjoy--” A punch was thrown, right in front of Joe. Another punch. A tackle. A grapple between two men dropped Joe to his back as they rolled over him. His back caked with mud, Joe scrambled to his knees before dodging another set of fighting soldiers. Joe slipped onto his stomach before he began crawling toward his toolbox and pistol. He heard shouting in some language he didn’t know as a few of the soldiers sprinted to their sides, sliding into the trenches once more. The sound of the first gunshot seemed to reverberate through Joe’s skeleton. He sprawled out as flat as he could in the mud before he covered his head with his hands. Joe twisted into the fetal position before flicking himself over, inch by inch, toward his tools and gun. A bullet rang off the toolbox as Joe reached for it, and he pulled his hand back quickly, shaking it out. He quickly grabbed the pistol instead. Bullets flying overhead, Joe looked into the distance at his truck, a good one hundred yards away. His glasses fogging again, he squeezed next to The Speaker - now serving as a massive shield - and continued eyeing the truck in the distance. *Two options,* Joe thought to himself. *Stay here, use The Speaker as a shield, and hope the fighting stops soon. And that I won’t get hit. And that neither side executes me for being some sort of spy.* A bullet got so close to the top of Joe’s big head that he swears he felt its heat. *Or get to the truck.* As soldiers continued grappling in the mud and bullets sailed between and through their bodies, Joe closed his eyes. *Get to the truck.* With a shot of adrenaline he hadn’t felt since his first kiss, Joe climbed to his feet. As out-of-shape as Joe was, at this moment, he felt like the fastest man alive. He bumped into and knocked down two wrestling soldiers as he gained speed. Joe raised his pistol into the air and fired aimlessly, screaming as loudly as he could, a primal cry, a cry for life. Joe knew at any moment that his kneecap could be obliterated, his kidney punctured cleanly, his head splattered with bullets. In this moment, though, Joe felt alive in a way he hadn’t felt in decades. Halfway there as he weaved through charging soldiers from both sides, desperately trying to claw each other’s eyes out. “Get the fuck out of my way!” Joe screamed, his vocal chords unused to the power with which he ordered the soldiers, throwing his gun over his shoulder. Like a bowling ball destroying a house of cards, Joe knocked over more soldiers on his way to his truck. Twenty yards now, and not too many soldiers in the way. Joe dodged one soldier who was slamming another onto the mud before he slid next to the driver’s side door of the truck. His hand dove into his pocket with purpose, Joe identified which key he needed, and quickly inserted the key, turning it and throwing the door open. With the same precision, he slammed the door, put the key in the ignition, and threw the car into reverse. As he sped away backwards, he turned so he could look out the back windshield. He sped away from the skirmish, away from the combat, away from the war, away from The Speaker that brought him there. He would not be killed today. He may be killed someday, and he forgot his tools and maybe pissed his pants a little bit, but he was alive. And as he sped away in reverse, he screamed wordlessly. He then suddenly vomited all over his shoulder. *That’s okay. I can clean that up later.* Vomit on his shoulder, piss in his pants, but alive, Joe spun the truck around to face the other way, kicking up sheets of mud in the process. He drove away.