Pilot to Bombardier, are the boulevards burning? The out-of-Dodge roads? We feel still heavy with payload, though smoke whispers of smoldering — of hamlets and metropolises aflame. Pilot to bombardier, I remember kissing my wife in the hanger, remember you brushing the bomb like some mother delivering her son to his first school day — gravely aware the guidance systems of his eyes would come on-line after the short time out of your arms, learning. Pilot to Bombardier (you would never proffer your child to a burning schoolhouse) why are we flying, cradling meteoric clusters, over lands already bursting with war- heads and small arms fire and child soldiers and students of battle and all their constant hopes that the blast we carry might be the one to eradicate enemy and enemy alike? — a shockwave to slow all air and artillery until they drop harmless as Mars’ iron tears. Pilot to Bombardier, we’re losing altitude. We’re going down. Mayday, mayday, the earth calls to us.

Pilot to Bombardier