Atomic redux

It happened again last night. The sound of artillery shells, gunfire, a plume of smoke. Just as I stood on the hilltop overlooking this menacing mess and saying, this is only a scuffle, a trifle of a misunderstanding, all shall be well, the cloud of dust rose to a roar and coalesced into a colossal mushroom, an umbrella of soil and debris sprouting an ever longer stalk, sucking the world into its nuclear vortex, rising towards the sky. And I, standing frozen on that hilltop, saying fuck, fuck, fuck, they’ve finally done it, it’s really happening, it’s real, they did it. The bunker crazies were right all along, and I haven’t got a bunker, there’s only this house in the distance, its skeleton crackling with radiation. Don’t go inside, that’s what they said in Pripyat, don’t go. But here I am, standing on that hilltop, some people down below climbing, breaking their fingers clawing at the rocks, digging themselves a den. The roads are gone, and now I’m scrambling over shards and rubble, a doll (or is it a child?) that’s missing a leg and an eye, and at last I am inside the deadly house with its ruined rooms and walls gaping open, overlooking that hill on which I stood just a moment ago. A sheep’s carcass lies in the living room, and a man is tearing at the fatal flesh. I run upstairs and slap the dusty shutters shut. Some of the slats are missing, and through the openings, hazy sunbeams are pouring over the wreckage.