I never thought I’d be this person. Like, ever. My whole life I’ve been that annoying friend, the one who brings up human rights at parties, who boycotts shit, who probably makes everyone roll their eyes when I start talking about, you know, the inherent goodness of humanity and how we just need to TALK to each other more. Pacifist, card-carrying, peace-sign-flashing… that was me. The kind of person who cried watching Bambi. And now? Now I clock in, five days a week, at a fucking drone factory. For real. It’s not like I woke up one day and was like, “Gee, I think I’ll go help build death machines today!” No, it was… gradual. Insidious, even. My partner lost their job, totally out of the blue, and we had literally zero savings. Zero. And the babies, man. Little faces, always hungry, always needing new shoes, always outgrowing everything. We were drowning, just straight up sinking. I tried to do my old freelance stuff, tried to restart my Etsy shop, but who the hell buys hand-painted coasters when the world is on fire and you can barely afford rent? And then the flier. It was just taped to a pole outside the grocery store. “ASSEMBLY LINE WORKERS NEEDED. NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY. GREAT BENEFITS.” And the pay… the pay was GOOD. Like, shockingly good. I remember standing there, staring at it, my heart pounding like I’d just run a marathon. I knew what the factory made. Everyone in town knows. It’s the big employer, the one that everyone whispers about but also secretly applies to because, well, money talks, right? Military contracts. Drones. Eyes in the sky. Delivering packages of… not so nice things. I walked away from that flier probably three times that day. Did a full grocery shop, came out, it was still there. Got back in the car, started driving, then pulled over and just sat there, head against the steering wheel, trying not to throw up. My kids’ faces just kept flashing in my head. Their laughter. The way my son says “mama.” And then my partner, looking so defeated, trying to pretend everything was fine. So I applied. Online, late at night, when everyone else was asleep. I didn’t tell anyone. It felt like… a betrayal. Of myself, of everything I believed in. The interview was a blur. They didn’t care about my resume, didn’t care about my past. Just, “Can you lift 20 pounds? Can you work fast? Can you follow instructions?” Yes, yes, yes. I needed this. I got the job. The first day was brutal. The noise, the smell of metal and something else… lubricant, maybe? Chemical. My station is, like, this long table with a conveyor belt. My job is to attach these little circuit boards to a larger plate. Over and over and over again. Click, screw, click, screw. Hundreds of them a day. I try not to think about what they DO. I try to dissociate. I listen to podcasts, usually true crime, because it’s so far removed from my own reality that it’s almost meditative. My brain just switches off, and my hands do the work. It’s mind-numbing, soul-crushing, and yet… there’s this weird sense of accomplishment when the shift ends and my quota is met. That I did it. I showed up. I earned that money. Sometimes, though, it gets to me. Especially when I see the finished product being wheeled out. Not the whole drone, but like, the main body of it, or the wings. Sleek. Grey. Impersonal. Designed to kill. And my hands… *my* hands helped build that. The irony is so thick I could choke on it. Me. Miss “Can’t even kill a spider.” Building instruments of war. I wonder what my younger self would say. Probably call me a sellout. A hypocrite. And she wouldn’t be wrong. She’d be absolutely right. My partner tries to be supportive. “It’s just a job,” they say. “You’re providing for our family. That’s what matters.” And I know they mean it, I know they’re grateful. But sometimes I catch them looking at me, and I see a question in their eyes. A quiet uncertainty. Do they see me differently now? Do they know I carry this secret shame around, heavy as a brick in my gut? I haven’t told my old friends. They still think I’m, like, a stay-at-home parent, maybe doing some freelance design or something. Which I guess I am, technically. When I’m not… doing *this*. It’s 2 AM and I can’t sleep. Again. My hands still feel the phantom vibrations of the tools. My brain is going a mile a minute. We talk about complicity, don’t we? About how everyone plays a part. And here I am, playing my part. A tiny, insignificant cog in a gigantic, terrifying machine. And I hate it. I hate myself a little bit for it. But then I think about those little faces, sleeping soundly down the hall, and the school clothes they need, and the doctor’s visit coming up, and I just… I don’t know. What the fuck else am I supposed to do? What the hell is a pacifist supposed to do when the wolves are at the door and the only weapon you can find is a goddamn screwdriver for building bombs? I just wanted to be a good mom. Is that so bad?