Tag Archives: nuclear winter

Contemplating the “Eve of Destruction”

nuke

The mushroom cloud of the first test of a hydrogen bomb, “Ivy Mike”, as photographed on Enewetak, an atoll in the Pacific Ocean, in 1952, by a member of the United States Air Force’s Lookout Mountain 1352nd Photographic Squadron.

Disclaimer/Trigger Warning: If you’re already nervous about what Donald Trump is capable of as President of the United States, you probably don’t want to read the following.

Don’t you understand, what I’m trying to say?
And can’t you feel the fears I’m feeling today?
If the button is pushed, there’s no running away,
There’ll be no one to save with the world in a grave,
Take a look around you, boy, it’s bound to scare you, boy,
And you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
Ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.

-from “Eve of Destruction,” written by P.F. Sloan in 1964
recorded by Barry McGuire July 1965

On twitter, I came across a comment made by award-winning, San Francisco based journalist Chip Franklin:

Trump can launch nukes whenever he wants. I’m not shitting you. NO ONE can legally stop him from a first strike. Mattis couldn’t stop him, and now he’s gone. Imagine Trump’s state of mind when his removal is imminent. So, once again, F*ck you GOP.

You can find that twitter commentary HERE.

Mr. Franklin included a link to the December 23rd Washington Post story Trump can launch nuclear weapons whenever he wants, with or without Mattis written by Bruce Blair, who decades ago was an Air Force nuclear missile crewman and now an Anti-Nuke activist, and Jon Wolfsthal.

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The Long Dark Winter

freezing

© 2013 loniangraphics

“God it’s cold out there, Simon.”

“You say that every time you go out for supplies. Of course it’s cold. How’d you do?”

“The Rogues’ shipment from down south came in early. Paying those mercenaries cost a lot, but I managed some oranges and strawberries this time. How about you?”

“Got enough fuel from Old Man Mayberry to last us a couple more weeks at least. By then, he says he can get us some more.”

Carrie set her groceries down on the counter. It’s only a one room cabin, originally built as an artist’s retreat several miles outside of town, but now Simon and Carrie Mitchell call it home. Being small, it’s easy to heat, which is important, since the overall global temperature averages 3 to 4 degrees F less than it did before the Indian-Pakistani nuclear war five years ago.

It’s a limited “nuclear winter,” not quite like all of the disaster movies of the previous decade, but it will be fifteen years at least before the climate begins to return to pre-war levels.

I wrote this in response to the FFfAW Challenge-Week of May 16, 2017 hosted by Priceless Joy. The idea is to use the photo prompt above to write a piece of flash fiction between 100 and 175 words, with 150 being the ideal. My word count is 174.

When I saw the photo, after turning over a few possibilities in my mind, I settled on the topic of large scale nuclear winter. I first thought that it would be set off on purpose by a madman to counter the effects of climate change.

Then, doing a bit of research, I decided to lessen the effect and scope to show that even a “small” nuclear conflict could do long lasting damage to the environment.

I imagined that traditional government would break down, at least in certain areas, and that mercenaries would provide necessary services for an inflated price.

To read more stories based on the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.