the hard gray line

temporary duty in kalemie. no flights since last monday, because everyone has cancelled after our accident. stuck in the house: too much time to think. i've already read 4 novels this week.

i go for a jog to clear my head. the sun is burning molten through the haze; searing caustic through my daze. instead of turning around at my normal halfway point and going back, i impulsively decide to run as far as i can in this direction, and then just walk back. or keep going. i'm not really sure.

i'm starting to feel good, endorphins gushing through my consciousness. up ahead on my left, a beech 1900 climbs into the sky, the sunlight glinting off her profile. a whisper. the ghost of a friend. aiming straight into the heavens from the departure end of kalemie’s runway 24.

rudi, how can you be gone?

approaching my limit. my body screaming at me for reprieve. i stubbornly push on, picking out a tree in the distance to make it to before i stop; maybe a half mile away. sweet torture, this. you masochist you. the road turns to sand; deep sand. i agonize through the last few minutes but make it.

legs on fire, stumbling; briny sweat mixing with salty tears, streaming hot down my face. i wander off the path toward the beach, still struggling and disorientated by the loss of my friend.

walking back, slow. muscles tensed rock-stiff under the icy cold shower. the phone rings in one of those preloaded, corporate-designated ringtone choices that enable me to define my individuality and personality. it's ilunga, my operations manager. i hear him talking to someone else in the background, speaking swiftly in swahili.

"can you do a medical evacuation for a woman in critical condition? she is having major complications with her pregnancy, and will likely die by evening if she can't get to a hospital."

the nearest one is 334 miles away from her, in lubumbashi. weeks of overland travel on the worst of roads. but only 2 hours and 14 minutes flying time in the caravan.

i soberly collect my thoughts; swiftly running through the planning mentally. fuel. time enroute. cars and ambulance pick ups. keys. pack an overnight bag, you won't be able to return before sunset.

i used to fly for an air ambulance in montana a few years back. when the phone rings at 2 am during a snowstorm, you are instantly awakened with a jolt of adrenaline.

i depart, speeding 74 miles south to moba, where my patient is waiting; unstable, deteriorating. a road crosses this runway halfway down: i do a low-level, high-speed pass to get everyone's attention.

peeling off in a right climb, reducing torque to 500. airspeed 140.....flaps 10. propeller full forward.......inertial separator open........landing lights on........ignition on. 120 knots. flaps 20. dropping the left wing; turning teardrop back to the threshold. 100 knots......flaps 30......rolling out on final. there's the glideslope, slowed to 80......

i touch down and bring the propeller into full reverse, lightly tapping the brakes. pulling to a stop next to a parked landcruiser. my patient.

the woman is helped up the stairs by two men, and her husband gently straps her in. she stares into space; silently bears her needle-sharp, eye-crossing pain. he speaks to his wife lovingly; in a reassuringly-quiet, calm tone. sits down next to her. we depart.

the climb out is rough. the heat of late afternoon has turned the atmosphere unstable. thinking back to my air ambulance days, trying to extract some means of helping my passenger. i have no medical training, and no medical crew on board to help. what did my nurses and medics do?

oxygen. i don't have any.

you are in an unpressurized aircraft. fly low.

i can't though, the haze and moderate turbulence are too great. they are taking a visible toll on the poor woman, who looks like she would prefer to crawl into a corner somewhere and quietly die.

i continue climbing. finally, at 12,000 feet, the haze layer settles out in a hard gray line. the heavens above are stable; resisting humanities' endless pollution rising from below.


glancing over my shoulder, my patient seems more comfortable. i decide to stay here and leave the bumps below, even though i wish the air were denser.

the propeller stays at 1800 rpm and i set the maximum continuous inter-turbine temperature. the GPS says 167 knots. painfully slow, but the van is not known for her speed. relax. you'll get there.

too much time to think. the muddled, thick gray mess below with no answers. the butterfly effect of choices. choices that end in such violence. why did rudi descend so early? one decision and 17 people smash into rocks.

in my slow-motion melancholy, i think about the thin red line. words from this film fill my private, dejected, swollen silence. the only constant in the world is the steady purring of a turbine. it holds us in isolation, in a solitary confinement; far above the unpopulated jungles of the remote, pulsing-green heart of africa. hanging, dangling, strangling by a string over our own sad planet. why does this mother choose to risk her own life trying to save her baby?

a glance from your eyes, and my life would be yours.

so much brutal savagery in humanity. we are forced to appeal to certain made-up, mr. rogers' neighborhood words to make it simpler to self-justify. easier to swallow. sanitized, soft and clean phrases to veil ourselves from the inherent violence of our choices.

war is a surgical strike. innocent people killed are collateral damage. female genital mutilation is a cultural tradition. we eat hamburgers, not shredded cow (why don't slaughterhouses have windows?).

it's a fetus, not a human life.

pro-choice: one violent choice that destroys a lifetime of choices.

65 years ago, the americans were here in congo. off the right wing, down in that messy, cancerous blanket, is the old mine of shinkolobwe. forgotten history. never learnt history.

the uranium for the hiroshima atomic bomb came from here. we're burning 700 pounds of jet fuel to try to save a life; actually two lives. a couple pounds of rocks from over there vaporized 80,000 people instantly.

we're living in a world that's blowing itself to hell as fast as everybody can arrange it.

lots of humanities' fastest technological advances have been in times of war. so many of the greatest and sharpest minds in history have been dedicated to developing new ways for us to kill each other.

this great evil. where does it come from? how'd it steal into the world? what seed, what root did it grow from? who's doin' this? who's killed us? robbing us of life and light. mockin' us with the sight of what we might've known.

does our ruin benefit the earth? does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine?

is this darkness in you, too? have you passed through this night?

america is generous with aid to africa. but for every dollar we give, western mining corporations extract 14 dollars worth of gold, diamonds, oil, uranium, cassiterite. a condition of the aid is this "trade agreement."

$700 billion dollars a year. not much of this stays here. africa's abundant resource wealth, in honest hands, (are there any?) could change millions of lives. instead, the rich make sure africa remains dependent upon aid. they ensure that current power relations are not altered. and that nothing will ever really change.

where is it that we were together? who were you that i lived with? the brother. the friend. darkness, light. strife and love. are they the workings of one mind? the features of the same face?

our 'leaders'. what are we up against? who are these minds that lead us nowhere but to more death, more destruction, more hatred, more misunderstandings, more distrust? more walls, more guns. more of everything that we already have too much of; nothing of what is needed now.

the self-perpetuating cycle of hatred and violence. and a new generation indoctrinated before they are even old enough to defend themselves from such poisonous dogma. just following orders, sir. it's always someone else's fault.

shut up in a tomb. can't lift the lid. playing a role i never conceived.

descending into lubumbashi, back into the muck and mire; back into the world of men. i land and taxi in to the ramp. the husband and i help the woman out; painfully slow.

a vehicle comes to take her away. he thanks me. she is too fragile to whisper. will she be ok? does it even really matter? this ceaseless tug-of-war between life and death. we all know who wins, eventually. only human beings actively try to accelerate this process.

i secure my airplane and am driven into town, to the air serv base. later i call to try to get some news of the mother and baby.

nothing.

the tough part is, uh... not knowing if you're doing any good. that's the hard part.

a dripping, blood-orange moon rises, swollen to the brim. the last time i bothered to look it was just an impersonal sliver, hanging high overhead.

if i never meet you in this life, let me feel the lack.