Impossible Odds

inner voice switches from remindingme how bad this is, to: I’m too young to die, I’m too young to die, repeated in a loop.
    The men fall in behind us. My God, there are a couple of dozen, at least. And those are heavy machine guns carried by some of them. A few of the men also have those long belts of ammunition I’ve been seeing all day, slung over their shoulders. The caliber of the bullets is very large.
    I want to scream out at them. You think you need enough artillery to stage a military assault, just for me and Poul? What’s the matter with you?
    What do they think we’re going to do? Do they really believe we might make some sort of hero play? I don’t even know karate.
    I have to think. Clear my head. Have we done something terrible without knowing it, some cultural mistake? Do they think we’ve got something to do with their enemies, whoever their enemies happen to be?
    Because otherwise, what possible purpose could it serve to use up this much manpower on the two of us? Why would anybody commit these sorts of weapons for two unarmed humanitarian aid workers?
    Right there, the thought occurs: Heavy weapons only make sense if they are there for protection. But what would other attackers want that these men have? Well, there are the guns, the ammunition, and of course, there’s always Poul and me.
    The heavy weapons aren’t there to keep us from running away. They’re there to keep us from being stolen. This thing is closing in around us like a cave-in.
    They move us farther into the scrub desert and keep us walking out there for a long time. The night air is quickly cooling off. I’m shivering steadily now and can’t stop. We are walking in the middle of the group and all moving quickly. I guess that’s good, since it helps to generate a little body heat. Poul is close by, but we are forbidden to speak.
    The darkness is heavy, no moon, no ambient light. The sky is crystal clear and the stars are brilliant, comforting in their familiarity. Nothing else about this situation or these people is familiar in the least.
    We stumble between the low thorn bushes. I’m not wearing boots or sneakers, but at least my heavy sandals are tough enough to stand up to the terrain. Still I keep scraping the tops of my feet on low-hanging branches.
    A river of small noises follows along with us. People recognize it from war movies. Soldiers call it battle rattle: the sounds of dozens of guns and ammunition belts being carried by dozens of men. Even if they aren’t talking, these men are putting out that low undercurrent of metallic noises. I suddenly hate the fact that my taste for clunky large necklaces and bracelets too cheap for kidnappers to bother stealing means that I now make similar sounds. I’m harmonizing along with their battle rattle and for some reason I am angry about it. There’s nothing to be done with the anger, so it just adds to the curdling sourness out here.
    I can’t keep myself from crying in fear, but I do my best to keep it quiet. Some of the men talk in low voices, but most of them just march along. They seem particularly grim. I wonder if they know something to be grim about.
    The young boy appears close to me, walking along and toting his AK-47 like a toy. I’ve heard him called Abdilahi by some of the men. It sounds familiar enough; the name “Abdi” is used on its own and as a prefix to longer names by many men in the region.
    Abdilahi jumps over next to me and snorts in derision. He gets close enough for me to see him pointing his rifle at me. He makes a few shooting noises, and this amuses him to the point of laughter. I don’t know what to do in response, so I simply turn away and avoid anything that would invite interaction. Even for his tender years, Abdilahi is far gone in both his khat use symptoms and hischild soldier mentality. The wild eyes, the speeded appearance, the unformed brain of an adolescent khat addict are all over him. Abdilahi is what your brain looks like on drugs.
    Fortunately, something else grabs his fleeting attention, and he fades off into the dark. It’s good to have him go, but it doesn’t stop my obsessive inner voice from continuing to spout my fears in variations of This is really bad and I’m too young to die.
    There is sharp pain pulsing in both my feet from the ground obstacles, but there is also an odd form of reassurance to that. I’m gasping at life like a fish on the beach, and pain at least is evidence of being alive. This isn’t