Going Into Space 2

Corrado is only 20 years old. He's a smart young French guy from the Basque region (the first time I talked to him of course I hassled him about how to make poulet basquaise--poor kid, he probably doesn't even know how to cook an egg, let alone buy a piece of chicken ...!) but now it seems he wants to enter the French army.

I'm a little old, but when that vapid non-response comes from someone, ie. "Why?" "Enfin, ch'ais pas" one has to batten down the hatches, tighten the screws, give the lecture, if you will. The Lecture.

So I gave him The Lecture.

"Whaaa????" were my first utterances, though they hardly qualify as plural. The meaning was definitely plural, though.

I think the following two words including an "f" capitalised what I was trying to say to him.

So, I lectured. And he listened. Kind of like a small dog when you're telling him he's done a bad thing on the sidewalk. Tail wagging a little bit because you're talking to him calmly but also squirming because he doesn't know what you're so pissed off about.

"Corrado," I said, "why on Earth would you want to give your soul"--and I repeated it in French, "ton âme"--"to a barely-human organisation that is going to crush you during the first year, crush, crush crush like a ripe grape, then try, try and try again to build you back to where you were before they crushed you in the first place?"

“Ch’ai pas.” “Enfin.”

Indeed.

But I guess that like legions before Corrado, they’re gonna do what they wanna do.