I am sitting in the dark again, the blue light of this screen being the only thing illuminating the medals I keep in the shadow box on the far wall. It is nearly 0300. I am seventy-six years old and I am currently waiting for a message from a young woman named Sarah—she is in another time zone, somewhere much brighter—to tell me when I should begin my technical revisions for the engineering firm. I am a "freelance consultant" now, which is just a polite civilian term for a man who cannot stop working because he does not know how to be still. I have spent nearly fifty years trying to learn how to exist without a superior officer, and it seems I have finally admitted defeat. In the service, there was a designated order of operations for every waking second. You did not have to decide if the latrine needed scrubbing or if the intel report was the priority; the structure dictated the man. But here, in this quiet house with the lace curtains my late wife insisted upon, the silence is deafening. I find myself standing in the kitchen for forty-five minutes, just staring at the linoleum, unable to determine if I should make a pot of coffee or finish the spreadsheet for the bridge project. It is a profound sort of paralysis. A total collapse of the executive function, as the psychologists might say. I feel like a clock with a broken mainspring—plenty of expensive gears, but no movement. So I hired her. I told myself it was because I was "overwhelmed" with the workload, but that is a lie I tell to keep my dignity intact. I pay Sarah to be my Commanding Officer. I sent her a message yesterday that simply said: "Please tell me what to do tomorrow." And she did. She sent a bulleted list. 0800: Breakfast and medication. 0900: Review Chapter Four. 1200: Walk for twenty minutes. 1300: Lunch. I followed it to the letter.