Black Helicopters

 

 

I remember the Black Helicopters. That's right, I saw them. They hovered right over the crib, shaking the rafters, the pulse of their rotors like a bass drum played double time deep in a black cat bone. I didn't know whether to fall screaming to the floor or run into the street shouting platitudes to glory and firing my riot gun at erstwhile targets hidden in shadows. 

 

I wasn't the only one. It seems our own River City had been chosen, along with other metropolises across the nation, as practice grounds for doppelganger constructions born of the sands of Araby and beyond. San Diego was one, among others, all without prior notice and a mere decade or so after the Big One - 9/11. 

 

Actually, I stepped out on the roof to observe a squad of choppers a hairsbreadth over 100 feet overhead maneuvering like the bats that rose from the Mississippi on many a summer evening, door gunners and missiles glinting menace on that moonlight night. I could almost reach out and touch them.

 

The paper was headlined with explanations the next morning. It had been an exercise to save our freedoms after all, in league with our now infamous efforts to save the world from "terr'ists" while spreading Democracy afar. 

 

Visiting the supermarket later in the day I questioned the two off duty policeman there if they had been informed, and, to the purpose of such an exercise. 

 

"You don't want Bin Laden attacking us again, do you?", in proper authoritative tones from the officer responding.

 

I didn't have the heart to remind him he had died, of kidney disease in Pakistan, just ten years before.

the fog of war --

even the general 

dons his battle fatigues