Walk on the Wild Side by Tom Fynes

He'd always been small and had grown up slow and angry. Rejected by girls, bullied at school. He learned how to blow the fuse, very quickly. Joining the army seemed like a great idea. Until he was fucked over by them as well. Pleaded with the recruiter. But got the usual, not up to standard, spiel.

“Rules and regulations, sonny. We’ll keep you on file.”

That all changed with Tora Bora. And the extensive Kareez tunnels the T-Men used, to hide from the wrath of the Great Satan. The Army came back for him. They insisted on giving him the stupid Dwarf name, Gimli. The anger just boiled under his skin.

“I’m no Dwarf, I’m a man, I’m a fucking man.”

After pounding the area with massive air strikes with no results, the US Army decided to go sneaky beaky. So, the U.S. Special Operations Command, determined that a new team needed to be outfitted and trained. To work down the extensive Kareez warren of rabbit holes. Chasing the elusive T-Men. Or whatever else High Command was hunting for.

That somehow, would both light the beacon of Democracy in the Afghan and get us the Willy Wonka Golden ticket out of there.

So Special Weapons 4 was created. Home of the Angry Inch Handlers. Nobody in their right gazula wanted that gig. All that expensive Army training, just to end up on Snow White Patrol. Long Lead Dog Handlers. To a bunch of fucked up, unhappy, bitter, always pissed, sawed off shotgun sized Dwarves.

It took the Dog Handlers an age and a few stab wounds to realise they were not fucking Dwarves. They were drunkards, liars, thieves, but they were also fucking men.

After swapping more than a few blows and blunt instruments they eventually got the message and accepted them as equals. Just four survived the brutal training course. They trained alongside the Dog Handlers and the Belgian Malinois. A highly intelligent and fearless breed of dog. Which could never be said of the newest recruits to Special Weapons 4. Gimli, Hurin, Narvi and Nali. Outfitted with Manitoba High Tech Vests. Trained to hunt and kill T-Men. Deep down in the confined, claustrophobic darkness, that was the Kareez tunnels. And the dark dank Ali Baba caves of the Tora Bora.

Then suddenly overnight the US Defence downsized. The Afghan party was over.

The day of the machete wielding bean counter had arrived. The department controlling them, just vamoosed overnight. And they were, just like that, out on the street. Switched off, discharged, gutter fucked. Kicked out of the only family that treated them like an equal. Even if that family, still thought of them secretly, as dancing Snow-White Dwarves on a long chain.

But for now, the dancing Dwarves, where back, walking on the wild mean hungry streets of New York.

Never able to reveal what they had done, what they’d seen. They watched with bitterness, as the returning glory boys of the Afghan campaign cashed in with their million-dollar Hollywood book deals.  For them, it was a problem just finding work, in the Big Core.

The city, that suffered from rampant insomnia and did not ever, give a loser a winning streak.