Unbloomed twists like charcoal spines of a smoke colossus
engulf a little mountain town by the water,
Streets young, naked, childlike.
Splintered rain breaks dawn—
BOOM.
Black snow flitters through the air/Violent Coalescence/Ashen Equilibrium/
Tatsoi Cabbage/Concrete Shadows/Rows and rows/All charred and black/
What if God is just a boy that left his toys lying around for us to destroy?
What if He died in the blast, too?
Who’s gonna pick up the burnt plastic?
—Sweeney “Sweets” Robinson, slumped over the table, former United States Army Air Force pilot, wakens to an oracle lining up his umpteenth shot. Snort floods to the brim. Whisky slides across the countertop and clinks against America’s forehead, spilling into his eyes.
“Wake up, Sweets,” the bartender says.
Don’t I know you from somewhere?
“You don’t know anyone, Sweets. But you’re the only one left in this place, and you’re running up a tab. Take your shot and get the fuck out.”
Sweets looks around. The Place is indeed empty. He raises Last Call, brown and vicious, and thumps it down—
Like melted rubber.
They looked like melted rubber on the pavement.
Lemme see ’em, Annie. Please.
Sweets swigs from his slosh. The lamp on the front porch swings loud as soft.
Annie gets a good look at him — eyelids trapped in soot, the kind you can’t wash — and wonders how he got so old in so little time.
“You don’t live here anymore, Sweets. Go home. You’re gonna scare them.“
This is my home.
He smears whisky off his lips. Annie wraps her shawl a little tighter, a closed cocoon; it’s cold in Lowell this time of year.
“You’re unwell, ain’t ya? I can smell you. Come on, let’s go down to the Pit. I’ll start a fire. We can talk there.“
We can talk right here. I’ll be civil, Annie, swear. Hand to whoever people prayin’ to nowadays, I won’t be a bother. I just wanna see my own.
“Settle yourself. You can’t be showing up like this unannounced and such, Sweets. What are they gonna think? Seeing you in a state like this? Come back tomorrow, when you’re reasonable.“
Sweets hurls his bottle at the ground. It splinters into an infinite, boozy fractal, all over the porch.
Who (burp) who’s the unreasonable one here? Have you lost your damn mind? We’re on the brink of annihilation, Annie. It’ll all be over tomorrow.
Melted rubber, streets leveled, dark countours painting the last moments of a million people: it all looks so goddamn unnatural in his head.
You really don’t get it. Do you? This time tomorrow we’ll all be dust. This house. All of us. This ain’t no war. After what we did—after what I did—they’re gonna respond. They’re gonna retaliate. And when they do…
Sweets points to the sky.
…there won’t be no one left.
Annie looks at him and just can’t believe how old he got in one day, with the press of one little button in a plane, miles in the sky over some Japanese city he could barely see beneath him.
Fine, you want me to beg? I ain’t too proud to do it.
I’ll beg.
Sweets kneels like a sunset but all twisted-like — charcoal spines of a withering ghost, once proud and free and brave and stupid and hopeful and American — praying for his Armageddon. He waits for Someone to smite him where he is, wiping him and his sins off this plane of existence like swatting a fly.
He doesn’t know Armageddon already passed him by, with the press of one little button in a plane, miles in the sky over a city of radioactive angels he’ll live amongst for the rest of his days.
“Look, everyone knows what you did, Sweets, and we thank you for your service–“
Don’t say that. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Sky bursts, and morning trickle turns into downpour. Sweets’ knees, all cut up from the broken bottle, open up a highway of sakura syrup streaming down the wooden steps.
“All that’s happened to you … being on the side of history you think you’re on … I can’t fathom that. And I wouldn’t dare tell you how to live with that. But baby … this is not your home anymore. We haven’t seen each other since before the war.
And the world’s not ending tomorrow, no matter how much you wish it would.
It’s gonna turn
and keep turnin’
and you’re just gonna have to come back tomorrow at a decent hour … when you’re reasonable.“
She shuts the door on him.
Hey. Hey! Don’t be like this!
Annie!
Sweets slips and falls backward
off the porch and onto the grass
landing softly with a thud
into nuclear nothingness
a spirited seppuku.
ANNIE!
Just Writing 