Verboten

Today’s word is verboten, an adjective that means forbidden, as by law; prohibited.

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The site was on a wooded, rural hillside, at the end of a dusty, rutted, unpaved road that was well marked with several signs warning lost travelers in two languages that the location was verboten to unauthorized personnel. She was comfortable and acclimated to the area around the small guard shack, it’s absolute silence and the total blanket of darkness that descended each evening, pierced only by the single high wattage floodlight directed at the end of a road that was barred with a tall concertina-wire-topped fence, and a heavy locked gate. Furnished with only a small desk and chair, field phone, and small space heater, the compact structure was sparse and isolated from the other buildings and personnel on the compound. Her assigned duties were simple and clear; only properly identified personnel were allowed access and she was authorized to use deadly force, if required. For alternating stretches of four hours each, she and her partner rotated between resting and guarding, but never leaving the compound until their 24 hour tours were finished. During her long, lonely, monotonous shifts of vigilance, nocturnal insects were her only companions and entertainment, as they fluttered and crashed, repeatedly and mindlessly, in their attempts to reach the bright beam of light reflected on the panes of window glass surrounding her.

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