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- My name is Haley. William Haley. I . . . I live in an apartment in a big city. It doesn't
- matter which. Every night my apartment is very quiet and . . . very empty. Dead. Nothing
- except a few traffic sounds from the street below, maybe some background music on the
- radio. The clock.
- My life is just as quiet, just as empty. Dead. And every night after I fall asleep I have
- a dream. The same dream, night after night.
- The dream always begins with a large black‐and‐white map of the city. At the centre
- of the map is a heavy black X. Around the X are a number of concentric circles. And then a
- bright red dot appears in the middle of the X. It feels as if that tiny needlepoint of red light
- is connected to some secret part of my brain. The dot opens up and colour ripples out
- around it into a scale of colours that fade at the edges of the outermost circle.
- It's always at this moment that I realize that this is the kind of map on which they
- chart the impact of a nuclear explosion. I always feel hypnotized by it. I bend closer over
- the surface of the map. Closer and closer, and slowly the inner circle expands and grows
- until it surrounds me.
- It surrounds me. Suddenly I find myself standing in the middle of a downtown
- street. A clear day, the middle of the afternoon. Windows glint in the sunlight. It's very
- quiet. There's no one else around. No cars in the street. Not a breath of wind. The city is
- empty except for me. I know ‐ I always know at this precise moment ‐ what is going to
- happen. I look down at the ground. There on the asphalt is a crude chalk circle drawn
- around my feet. The kind of circle a little girl might draw for a game. I know that this is
- ground zero. The bomb is going to fall. It's always the same and it's always a strange
- feeling to realize that I'm not afraid, not at all afraid. A great sense of joy wells up inside
- me. A desire to raise my arms to the heavens, to exercise all of my body in praise of this
- moment. Because only by being destroyed, only though the ultimate annihilation of a
- nuclear explosion brighter than a thousand suns can I finally lose myself, to turn to pure
- energy, become one with the universe. I will be totally cleansed of my mediocre existence,
- reborn into the cosmos. I will be truly free.
- And as I lift my arms and feel the ripple of muscles wash upwards, a great white
- light is slowly bursting outwards from where I stand. This is it. And then I realize what
- this is. I'm terrified. I know that it's too powerful for me. This is no dream. I'm gazing into
- the single eye of the fireball. I stare into that blank white eye, that tiny blinding point of
- light. It gazes back at me calmly, hypnotically. I'm frozen with fear. I know I'm going to
- die. I want to run somewhere, to hide. If only I were back in my apartment . . . I want to
- shout no!
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