Literary Fiction / Military Fiction
Date Published: January 13, 2018
Molly Monroe had her future planned out for her. When she makes an impulsive decision to join the Marine Corps, her boyfriend breaks up with her, her brother bears the burden of guilt, and her mother feels betrayed. The people in Molly’s life have always tried to protect her, but she wants to protect herself.
As a Combat Camera Marine, Molly observes and records her environment from behind the lens, where image shapes day-to-day life. After she is wounded during a combat deployment, her dreams are frightening, and her memories are a kaleidoscope of scattered and chaotic scenes; a collision of past and present, real and unreal. Snapshots in time. Glimpses of war. Fragments of love: lost and found.
This story unfolds through multiple perspectives and as the negatives and positives develop, an image of the Model Marine is sharpened into focus.
Excerpt:
What was she thinking?
Escape.
The bus ride from Savannah to Parris
Island was silent except for the low hum of the engine. The driver kept his
eyes on the road and didn’t acknowledge the presence of the forty-or-so disheveled
teenagers on his bus. Most of the stale-smelling and wrinkled travelers were
too tired or too scared to speak. The air was thick with the musky scents of
the Savannah paper plant, the Beaufort County marshes, body odor, and the hint
of rain that wanted to fall but had not been granted permission. Apparently air
conditioning was a comfort they didn’t deserve. Even though it was past
midnight, the early-August breeze was hot and humid. The handful of open
windows offered just enough draft to keep her skin from sticking to her
clothes, but she could feel the sweat as it formed and pooled in the open
spaces beneath her bra. She ignored the sweat inching its way toward her belly
button; she sat motionless with her head pressed against the window.
There were long stretches of
darkness on the route from the airport to the island. She looked up hoping to
see stars, but the sky was as black as the asphalt. For the first time in two
months, the ice storm in her heart had thawed in bearable degrees, but now she
could feel the ache in her chest—the pain that accompanies loss. She had
finally done something that felt right, and it had upset everyone she loved.
It was strange how one night could
change everything.
She could see how her actions had
seemed rash.
“You did what?” Her mother’s shriek
was intensified by the clatter of breaking glass against the kitchen tile
floor.
Molly had moved quickly to pick up
the pieces; her mother had stood still.
“Molly, stand up and look at me,”
she’d said.
Molly had obeyed but had trouble
meeting her eyes. Instead, she had focused on the small red dot that had begun
forming a squiggly line down her mother’s left ankle. “Ma, you’re cut.”
“What happened to our plans, your
plans, for college?”
Molly shrugged her shoulders.
“Didn’t you think I might deserve
consultation in a decision like this?”
Molly nodded her head “yes.”
“So what were you thinking?”
Escape.
“Answer me!”
Molly closed her eyes against the
tears. She couldn’t answer.
“You do realize our country is at
war, don’t you?”
“But the recruiter said…”
“The recruiter will tell you
whatever he has to so you’ll sign your life away!” She had shouted and begun
crying so hard she could no longer speak. She slumped into a kitchen chair, her
anger apparently traded for despair.
Molly sat in the chair next to her,
hands in her lap, legs crossed at the ankles, her head bowed as if she were
praying. She waited for her mother to calm down.
“What’s going on with you, Molly?
You haven’t seen any of your friends since graduation—and Beth? Have you spoken
to Beth yet?”
Molly shook her head “no.”
“You need to talk to her, Molly. She
is your best friend, no matter what happened between Nick and her.”
“I don’t have time, Ma. I ship
tomorrow.”
Molly had kissed her mother on the
cheek and run out of the kitchen. She could hear her telling her to “come back
here right now” as she ran up the stairs. But she kept going and locked herself
in her room. She simply had not known how to have that kind of conversation
with her mother.
The bus stopped. A big red sign,
bordered by palm trees, greeted the newcomers; it announced the entrance to
Parris Island. The driver opened the doors, and a military policeman spoke in
hushed tones with him as another one boarded the bus. He walked the aisle from
the front to the back and then to the front again, studying each of them as if
they were criminals. The Marine didn’t speak. Then he got off the bus; the
driver closed the doors, and they resumed speed.
There was one road onto the island,
and as they crossed the bridge, Molly could tell that the tide was out. She
could see that there was only silt where she had expected to see water. The
smell of the mud was overbearing.
Her eyes had adjusted to the
darkness, and she was long accustomed to the weight of humid air in her lungs.
And it occurred to her then: she hadn’t really been trying to escape a place.
It was her own skin she needed to crawl out of.
About the Author
Sondra Sykes Meek is originally from Florida, but she has lived in several locations in the United States and abroad. She is a wife and mother of two, a retired Marine Corps Master Sergeant, and a Project Manager in the Defense Industry. She earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, and has several stories in various stages of progress. She hopes to write full-time one day, but for now, she writes in the spare, quiet moments of her life.
Sondra wrote and published Model Marine: A Novel to reveal the courage and sacrifices of Marines and their families. She wanted to offer readers another kind of hero: someone who is not supernatural, immortal, or from the future. Although the events of this story are fiction, the setting and characters are influenced by her experiences as a Marine. The narrative is as authentic as it can be without excluding civilian readers. The protagonist is named after a Marine Corps icon, “Molly Marine.” This is especially relevant now, as 2018 marks 100 years since the first woman joined the United States Marine Corps.
Sondra hopes all readers enjoy this emotional journey of love, loss, and sacrifice. There are real heroes hidden within the pages of her debut novel. She invites you to meet them, love them, and remember them.
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