Microcosm: A Study of Life on KAF through Film and Television

Imagine, if you will, a community. This community consists of people from all over the world. There are barely any members of the community under the age of 18, or over the age of 60, with the vast majority of its members falling within the ages of 20 and 40. There is no unemployment. Obesity is extremely low. The passport ownership rate is nearly 100%. Men outnumber women 8 to 1... maybe by even more.

This is what the population of KAF looks like to me. I didn't perform a survey or anything, the data is simply drawn from estimates from my observations. Also, it's now been four months since I've been outside the 1-mile radius circle with my bedroom at its center, so I've become intimately familiar with the landscape within that circle. Some faces stick out - like the ones I pass at the same times every day.

Before I came here it was suggested to me that life here would be like Groundhog Day, because of the repetitive schedule. I'll sometimes extrapolate the deep thoughts I've had on that film into my experience here. For Instance: How long would it take for me to punch my equivalent of the Ned Ryerson in the face?

It would probably take longer than I'll be here so you shouldn't worry, KAF version of Ned-the head.

In Groundhog Day, Bill Murray is trapped, if he tries to leave Punksatawney the snowstorm traps him there and no matter where he goes, he always wakes up at the bed-and-breakfast with "I Got You, Babe" playing on the radio.

Even if I wanted to, and I'm not allowed to leave KAF, but sometimes when I look outside the base into the haze of dust that limits the visibility I think that if I were to head straight out into that mist, I'd wind up face to face with KAF again not unlike the TV show LOST wherein whenever a character tries to leave on any sort of craft they end up back at the Island, or (another obscure reference) that movie Identity in which the multiple personalities of a mind affected by multiple personality disorder meet at a motel and kill each other off one by one. If any characters in that film tried to drive away from the lonely motel, they'd wind up back at the motel. What I'm trying to say is, it's an overused trope, but applicable to my situation. If only there were a giant unexplained four-toed statue here on KAF...

I sometimes get the feeling that when I do leave here I'll have a sort of time management superpower, at least for a few months before I get used to regular life again. I've often run the scenario in my head of being in a job interview somewhere down the road and the interviewer telling me that I may be asked to work at odd hours. In the scenario I just laugh at this interviewer, because no schedule of hours could be odder than the one I've had here.

My Brother-in-law Paul and I had this conversation online a few weeks ago:

Paul: What do you do on weekends
Me: What's a weekend?

Right now, the concept is mind-boggling. Do you mean to tell me that there are two whole days at the end of a week, with nothing planned out? At this point, the lengthiest amount of time that I've gone without working has been 18 hours. That was way back during the government shutdown, and that was probably a one-time thing. By my calculations, the total number of hours I will have worked in seven months will be the same as working one and a fifth years of a 40-hour-a-week job. I think I'll deserve a bit of time off, but will I be able to handle time off? I won't know what to do with my time. I may have forgotten how to relax!

I'm sure I'll figure it out. If the worse comes to worst I'll just watch Groundhog day a hundred times. I friggin' love that movie.