20 minutes
There will be 20 minutes, I’ve been told, from launch to detonation, which is more than the proverbial 15 minutes of fame but less than it takes to soften butter.
Time enough to watch a sitcom and boil a pot of water for a last linguini aglio e olio or if you’re feeling industrious: make love with generous amounts of foreplay or mow the lawn, or rake leaves into neat rings around your blast zone.
Also time enough to run, naked, into the street with pots and pans, collect friends and neighbors and howl in defiance of a mushroom moon
or better yet — stage an epic last pillow fight because what revenge is sweeter than feathers and laughing?
And yes; this is maudlin and yes, I am obsessing but am I not spending more time in constructive engagement with those 20 minutes than all the minds at Los Alamos?
Did they think, when the gigaton was up, that they’d salute the flag and then neatly fade to black? Did they even consider just how long and awkward 20 minutes will be, thinking about what a dumb idea this was?
But that’s their problem.
I, however, am planning ahead, ~more idling than prepping, really~ knowing full well the go-bag ain’t going no where
and given enough overpressure, stockpiles of canned goods will flatten like a beer can on a frat boy’s head.
So I’ll spend 20 minutes rounding up my kids, who will, in God’s infinite mercy, please God please be close by and I won’t have to waste those last minutes on frantic texts that get sucked into elecro-magnetic oblivion
Then quicker than a launch sequence, I will plop them into my bike basket and ride as fast as Dorothy into the twister, singing loudly about thermal rings around the rosie and one last lullaby about the bough that finally breaks before we lay we down,
and we’ll be fine, really, totally ready for that final fall so long as we’re all in the cradle together.
top photo from Digital Journal
bottom photo by the author