He’s been at it for a number of days. Day in and day out, it’s the same grueling routine. The weight room is equipped with every single machine thinkable, allowing all the recruits to work out every single muscle possible.

For Private Koh, this was the life he’d been dreaming of. Bulking up and being able to finally have some semblance to the glorified manhood that can only be attained through this fake showing of masculinity was constantly on the forefront of his thoughts.

Private Koh never really acted on his dreams and ambitions in grade school. Sure, his mind was constantly at work, filling his head with wild notions of being immensely ripped and having all the guys gawk as his enormous pects and all the girls swoon over his huge muscles. But when it came to actually getting to that goal, he never did anything. So how he passed the army fitness test was quite an amazement to everyone that knew him. Private Koh never doubted himself though.

As a result of having never really worked out for the past nearly two decades, these past few days have been hell on earth for him. Repeatedly. With each day that went on, his tired body could not keep up with the pace of the strenuous workouts that the daily regiment demanded of him. It was getting harder to merely keep up with the runts of the program. He was getting scared that his hopes and dreams were literally slipping through his fingers because he was too weak.

And so, here he is. They’re working on their fifth set of push-ups, having to do twenty-five to complete each set. For him, it was as easy as pie.. on day one that is. Now, just merely bending his arms to a 90 degree angle and returning to the upright position causes his tired arms to shake in pain. He winces under the pain that the nerves in his arms send to his brain. Any outsider could tell that Private Koh was nearing his breaking point because his entire body was shaking and his face was turning bright red, perhaps brighter than even Jupiter’s red spot.

The sergeant in charge of his company noticed this. In fact, his entire group noticed. Even the weakest link that everyone pointed out on day one was aware of Private Koh’s struggles. Concentrating entirely on successfully completing each repetition of one push-up, he was never aware of the sergeant’s impending approach until there was a shadow cast upon him. So intent was he on finishing that all the words that were spewing forth from his superior’s mouth never made it to Private Koh’s ear. The only way he knew that he was being yelled at was by the cascade of spit that rained from the sky above him. Even if he could hear the verbal abuse being thrown at him, he wouldn’t have paid it any attention.

Deep in his mind, he realized that this was nothing that would be handed to him. He would have to suffer through the pain to perhaps gain any semblance of muscle definition. That was why he was here. The intense and rigorous training that only the army could provide was where he needed to be. Even amongst the simultaneous struggling from him and the spitting and yelling from his sergeant, Private Koh had resolved to see this till the end.

Down. Up. Down. Up. Each action sees him shaking as if there were a magnitude 7.0 earthquake going on underneath him. The redness of his face seems to be a harbinger of an impending explosion of some sorts. But all things aside, Private Koh manages to complete one push-up after another, until finally, another set of twenty-five is complete. Time for some rest before he must return to the hell that is his life.

09.27.08, 1-1.39am