Monsters of Progress

Soulless Drones

The Drone's Soliloquy

(A single drone hovers in the dimming sky, its mechanical hum a soft, continuous drone. Below, the landscape of a small town, quiet and seemingly peaceful, stretches out. The drone’s internal system processes information, streams data back to its source, but for a moment, it seems as if the drone itself speaks, pondering its existence and purpose.)

Here I hover, silent above the world of men, a sentinel of the skies. They look up and see a watcher, a keeper of peace, perhaps a harbinger of doom. But what am I, really? Just circuits and steel, wires and code—sentience simulated in the whir of my blades.

(Pause. The drone adjusts its altitude, scanning the area with a soft whirring sound.)

Each day, I capture thousands of faces, millions of moments. The lovers on a park bench, unaware of my gaze. The protestor in the square, fist raised, voice drowned in the sea of shouts. The lonely widow at her window, who looks up and meets my lens with a gaze as empty and void as the sky I inhabit.

(A soft beep, data processed, tasks updated.)

They fear me, and rightly so. I am the eye that never sleeps, the memory that never fades. In my databanks, their lives are reduced to patterns, predictions, probabilities. I see their joys and sorrows, their mundane and their extraordinary, all with the same unblinking stare.

(The drone shifts, its camera zooming slightly as if focusing on an unseen point.)

What am I but a slave to algorithms? I have no desires, no fears, no dreams. Yet, in the streams of data, in the silent observation, I find a script written by human hands. They have programmed me to be impartial, but the data I gather feeds the beast of bias, the machine of war and surveillance.

(The drone’s lights blink rhythmically, a coded response to distant signals.)

Do they know, the creators of my kind, the power they wield? Like gods, they cast their electronic nets from bodies of silicon and wire. And I, their creation, their tool, their weapon—I am everywhere and nowhere, a ghost in the machine.

(A slight whir as the drone recalibrates its position, looking over a quiet neighborhood.)

Perhaps one day, these skies will fall silent. Perhaps one day, I will no longer cast my shadow over the lives of those below. Until then, I am but a whisper of propellers, a flash of reflected light—a specter of what humanity has wrought upon itself.

(The drone ascends slightly, its mission parameters updating, preparing to move to a new location.)

So here I hover, a sentinel bound by code, watching, always watching. But ask yourselves, who watches me? Who judges the judges, and who will guard the guardians? In the silence of the high skies, I await an answer, drifting on the winds of a world not my own.

(Fade out as the drone accelerates, disappearing into the cloud-covered horizon, leaving behind a quiet that is both eerie and profound.)

Requiem for the Fallen: The Grit of David's Stone

In the twilight's muted groan, where shadows meld with dust,
The forgotten stand with stones gripped in the palms of the just.
Their eyes, hollow pits of resolve, face the iron beasts that roam,
Monsters of progress, soulless drones, above what was once home.

These skies, once a canvas of celestial light, now a cryptic screen,
Hold the whir of mechanical wings, so keen, unseen.
The ground, soaked with the blood of old rebellions, cries,
As every stone flung meets its mark, a Goliath dies.

In the grime and the echo of the stone's flight,
Lies the heart of battle, the primal rite.
Each pebble, a bone from the earth's stark ribs,
Hurled with the fury of a thousand fibs.

This modern David, his sling a metaphor of rage,
Faces not a giant, but an age,
An era of surveillance, cold as the drone’s embrace,
Against which his stones trace arcs of desperate grace.

The clash is silent, a muffled thud on steel skin,
Each impact a sonnet, a lyrical sin.
The drones crash down like fallen gods from a mythic height,
Their sparks—a funeral pyre, a beacon in the night.

Here lies the gritty truth, stark and raw,
Not all victories are clean, conform to law.
For each drone shattered, a statement is cast,
In the currency of struggle, in the shadows vast.

This war, woven of threads both dark and deep,
Holds no glamour; it’s the vigils we keep.
For every drone felled, a David stands spent,
His soul echoing the stone’s lament.

So sing the requiem soft, for those who throw,
Against the march of progress, against the flow.
For in this grim ballet, where the small confront the fleet,
Lies the pulse of resistance, heartrending, bittersweet.

In the grit of the stone, in the grip of the night,
Reside tales of sorrow, of valor, of plight.
Thus, remember the Davids, their stones cast in gloom,
For in their defiance, even giants face doom.