Alleys & Ruins no. 78, Steel Drums (2005, Detroit, MI, 2:15am)
I have an unhealthy obsession with nuclear war and its aftermath – this influence is clearly stamped on my work and I have felt this way since my early teens. I used to dream constantly about it, and my thoughts would often wander to the subject during the day. I might be speaking with someone and I'd suddenly imagine a bright flash to my right, and what would follow. I can’t help it… In school, any paper with an open subject would immediately become a paper about nuclear war. I still have these thoughts, however they have diminished. But as grim as the subject is, and as much as I loathe the thought of it ever happening, I still love watching or reading all kinds of dystopian dramas. And unfortunately, I believe in my lifetime at least one major city somewhere on this planet will be destroyed in a nuclear battle.
I had a nuclear war dream recently, but it was unusual because of its humorous ending and so I wrote it down:
The foolish decision is made to launch a first strike. The nuclear codes are entered and an electrical current carrying the launch command is sent to the missiles. In my dream, I see this current leaving the pristine government office and running along street cables at night. The current, carrying this doomsday command, is now running along cables through desolate, abandoned city streets, still late at night. It reaches its destination: a boarded up building at a vacant street corner, and comes to a sputtering halt. The missiles can’t be launched because some go-between business, required to get the missiles up, has gone bankrupt under our faltering economy.
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