The Divide

The Hindu Kush doesn't care who you are.

I learned this truth crouched behind a rock outcropping, my laptop balanced precariously on my knees, listening for signals while storm clouds gathered across the valley below. The mountains stood like ancient sentinels, indifferent to the war being waged across their slopes and whether I lived or died in their shadow.

Night was falling. A storm approached from the east, its dark clouds illuminated by intermittent flashes of lightning. Soon, the deluge would begin, and with it, the impossibility of extraction until morning at the earliest…another night on this godforsaken peak.

"You good?" Mac's voice, low and steady, cut through my thoughts. He appeared beside me like a ghost, his weathered face half-hidden beneath his helmet.

"Yeah," I lied, fingers still typing, eyes scanning the horizon. "Just peachy."

Mac chuckled, the sound barely audible above the growing wind. "First storm in the Kush? You're in for a treat."

The first heavy drops began to fall as Mac settled beside me, his back against the same rock, his rifle across his lap. Unlike me, he belonged here somehow. Not because he wanted to be there—nobody wanted to be there—but because he'd made peace with it. Found his purpose in the chaos.

"Storm's gonna wash out comms for a while," he said, offering me a stick of gum. "Might as well get comfortable."

The rain came suddenly, violently, a wall of water that reduced visibility to mere feet. Lightning split the sky in jagged bursts, illuminating the mountains in harsh, otherworldly light before plunging everything back into darkness. Each thunderclap shook the ground beneath us, indistinguishable from the distant boom of artillery.

I stared into the storm, feeling strangely small against the vastness of these mountains. The ferocity of nature made our human conflicts seem insignificant.

Mac looked at me sideways. "Something on your mind?"

"Just thinking about the storm. And war." I said. "How quickly they both change everything."

He nodded slowly, understanding in his eyes. "One moment you're watching the most beautiful sunset you've ever seen, the next you're holding your buddy while he bleeds out. The distance between those moments is shorter than most people realize."

The brutal honesty of combat veterans still caught me off guard sometimes. They could speak about horror and beauty in the same breath without contradiction. I'd been with them for three months and still felt like a stranger in their world.

"You think we'll make it down?" I asked the question before I could stop it.

Mac didn't answer immediately. He looked out into the storm, his profile briefly illuminated by another flash of lightning. I saw something in his face. It wasn’t fear, but a clear-eyed recognition of mortality that I hadn't yet learned.

"Maybe," he said finally. "Maybe not. But I'll tell you this…whatever happens, you won't walk off this mountain the same person who climbed up."

I knew he was right.

Already, I could feel the change, like tectonic plates shifting inside me. The naive analyst who'd arrived in-country was disappearing, replaced by someone harder, who understood things that couldn't be taught in training facilities or captured in intelligence reports.

The mountain was changing me. The war was changing me. There would be no going back to who I was before.

"When the darkness is complete up here," Mac continued, "sometimes those lightning strikes are the only illumination you get. Makes you see things differently, even for a split second."

We sat in silence for a while, listening to the storm rage around us. I thought about home…real beds, hot showers, mountains without enemies, nights without mortars. It seemed like another life, another world entirely. Perhaps it was.

"You know what's funny?" I said, not expecting an answer. "Three months ago, my biggest worry was making my car payment on time."

Mac's laugh was genuine this time. "Amazing how quickly perspectives change. Nothing like a near-death experience to sort out your priorities."

A particularly close lightning strike illuminated the entire mountainside, the thunder following almost immediately. I flinched involuntarily. Mac didn't.

The storm continued through the night, eventually settling into a steady downpour. Mac took first watch while the others and I tried to sleep, curled uncomfortably against the rocks, my weapon clutched against my chest. I dreamed of home, safety, and a life where thunder and lightning were the worst of my fears.

Dawn broke reluctantly, the sun struggling to pierce the lingering clouds. The mountains glistened, transformed by the night's deluge, beautiful in a harsh, unforgiving way. Below us, the valley was shrouded in mist, hiding whatever dangers waited for us there.

"Extraction's been pushed to 1400," Mac informed me, checking his radio. "If the weather holds."

I nodded, resigned to more hours on this peak. My body ached from the cold, from tension, from fear. But something else stirred within me, too…a strange pride at having endured and survived another night in this place where survival wasn't guaranteed.

"We'll make it down," Mac said, reading my expression. "And someday, you'll make it home. But that boundary? The one between before and after, between who you were and who you're becoming? That stays with you forever."

He was right, of course. The mountain would eventually release us from its grip, but never fully let us go. Its lessons, written in rain and lightning, in fear and resilience, would remain etched in our souls long after we left its shadow.

I looked across the vast, rugged landscape, still beautiful despite everything. The storm had passed, but its memory lingered in the charged air, in the distant rumble of thunder moving away. Home seemed impossibly far, yet I knew now that distance wasn't measured just in miles, but in experiences that couldn't be undone, in transformations that couldn't be reversed.

"Ready?" Mac asked, gathering his gear.

"As I'll ever be," I replied, following his lead.

We began our descent, a few figures made tiny by the immensity of the mountains, moving carefully between heaven and earth, between yesterday and tomorrow, forever marked by the narrow divide that separated them.