Cody Marby

Four nautical miles from the turbulent coastline of civil war. Midnight in Mogadishu, wide awake onboard.
 
Landing silently, our UAV just returned from its invisible flight. It greeted the captain with intel, the sustenance of war. The stars seem to increase in number every night. Perhaps they are the souls of those newly departed, staring silently at what they’ve lost. I'm below deck most of the time. I have machinery to tend, fuel to test and feed to the engines. They're always hungry. So am I, but not for this. Yesterday I heard chirping on the flight deck that there would be a government soon. If only I could count on that like I can count the casualties. I can't even count on my own engines. They're always breaking down—with grief, I suppose. With stress from being overworked and out-of-place. They seem to do everything except help. And people are more complicated than wires and bolts and raging infernos of internal combustion. Especially war-torn people. Especially people fueled by fear and mistreatment and mistrust. How can the machinery of governance spring up to fill the void overnight? Can it? My soul begins to wonder, soaring above the melancholy of a gentle mind pushed miles and miles beyond some very important boundaries. A mind now disfigured and worn, left wandering the lonely waves of darkness that live between the stars.