The Uniform ( another very short story )

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                                                        THE UNIFORM

         " You're never going to believe what I just found. You got to come over right away and check this out. " That was Calvin talking to his best friend Mike . As he headed out for Calvin's house Mike lied to his mother that he was going to the library. Mike had been forbidden to go to Calvin's house ever since Calvin's mother got a job, leaving Calvin untended in the house for hours at a time. The week before they had discovered a stash of Calvin's fathers Big Tit Paradise magazines. On the phone Calvin's voice had a tone that indicated he had discovered something bigger than big tits. There was fear in his voice.

     Mike walked the two blocks to Calvin's house. The excitement in his friend's voice had greatly energized him and he was on the front porch in no time. Calvin was waiting behind the front door and let Mike in immediately.

      " It's in the basement," was all Calvin said as he headed toward the door that led there. The basement could have been just about any basement in 1967 middle America; a washer, a dryer, a beer fridge and all of the usual things that end up in the basement.

     Calvin grabbed a small stepladder and set it up next to a locked metal cabinet. He retrieved a key from the top of the cabinet and came back down. He opened up the cabinet which was a makeshift wardrobe with various winter coats and suits hanging in it. Calvin reached in all of this and pulled out a hanger with something heavy covered by a grey dry cleaning sleeve on it.

       There was a large nail sticking from a vertical support beam and Calvin hung the thing there. He told Mike to do the honor of opening it himself and Mike very quickly removed the grey plastic from over the thing. 

      It was a uniform and before he could even take in it's physical properties he was aware of a smell, familiar though not from memory. It was an odor he instantly recognized but could not name.

      Mike's eyes took in the swastikas and ornamentations of the full dress Gestapo uniform and knew this was not a prop from a Hogan's Heroes episode. The utter blackness of the material sucked the breath from his body as the knowledge of something ancient and inevitable found its way inside of him. He could feel it in his spine.

       " Pretty wild, eh ? " said Calvin but Mike's mind was somewhere else.

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