Russia’s Putin threatens nuclear war and we promise “catastrophic consequences” in our retaliation. Can we, in our sleepy city of Greenfield, imagine what’s “catastrophic?” Let’s suppose posterity found the following entry in a Greenfield resident’s diary, obviously his last one, on the day his town was nuked.
… All through the night of terror, my wife and I heard the rumblings and explosions and saw the flashes like lightening outside our windows. With power out, and with no TV or cellphone working, we were kept in the dark, literally and figuratively. When morning came, we peered outside in dread. The sky was covered with smoke, especially darker over the city. We heard continuous noises from the direction of downtown that sounded like muffled explosions. Our neighborhood, unlike the distant city center, was eerily silent. “We’ve been nuked,” I stated the obvious to no one in particular, and my wife broke down and wailed. Regaining her wits soon, she grabbed her COVID-19 masks although obviously we had already received too much radiation from the blasts. By habit, she doubled the masks on herself and urged me to put them on. We saw one of our neighbors, two houses away, drive off in a great hurry and I idly wondered where he was going and if he was ever coming back.
Deciding we had to do something, we quickly gathered a few items of clothing and food to drive out to see what was going on in town. As we got closer to the city, we noticed dead bodies everywhere as we drove carefully to avoid running over them. Many of the bodies were charred black, their clothing still smoking. Some of the stately homes on Bernadston still stood, smoldering or burning, forlorn and desolate in their ghostly presence. We drove by our bank whose front door was open. A bunch of people were screaming and rushing in and out of the adjacent grocery store with everything they could carry in their arms, some staggering and falling down, but some managing to reach their vehicles. Bundles of money lay on the ground scattered in front of the bank but the cash drew nobody’s attention. A boy, about 10, with a grocery bag in his arms, noticed the money on the ground. He hesitated for a second or two but turned around and joined his family in the car. The scene of chaotic rushes and shouts prompted us to move on. Vehicles screeching and people running and screaming filled the streets. As we got closer to downtown we saw more dead and dying people crowding up the road.
The familiar landmarks near the Greenfield Common where we had always enjoyed our Saturday visits to the Farmers’ Market — the post office, the new library, the fire station, the theatre, the church, the restaurants, and the YMCA — were either leveled to the ground or were breaking and falling down. People in various states of injuries were strewn all over Main Street, lying here and there or limping and crawling around going nowhere, some asking for water, filled the air. Oblivious to the scene, an elderly man serenely pushed a shopping cart across the street, with what seemed to be his entire earthly belongings, carefully avoiding dead bodies. There was no sign of police, firefighters, or ambulances anywhere. The vehicles on the road, drivers honking and shouting, drove by us, some of them scraping our car. Some drivers brandished shotguns with no particular purpose. Greenfield had been randomly flattened as if a cosmic giant, belching out flames, threw a tantrum on the city.
The throng of vehicles pushed us along. The prominent car dealership at the end of Main Street was ablaze, many of its vehicles popping sparks and exploding into flames. The small-sized businesses and shops on both sides of the street around the dealership were either completely flattened or burning. We saw a young man, galvanized with pain and madness, with torn flesh and tattered clothing still burning and smoking, rush out from one of the dealership buildings with a wrench in his hand. He ran to the nearby fire hydrant and, helped by several other radiation-victims, succeeded in opening it. Water gushed out with great force, shooting as high as the tall poplar tree next to it, like a gift from heaven. All able-bodied people limped over toward the spewing water like drowning people spotting a life-saver. Some tried to drink it and many cooled their bodies for relief. But their relief was short lived as the water stopped, and the injured started screaming again when the relief was no more. Then the traffic cleared ahead of us and we moved on.
Soon we ended up at our local supermarket, now being busily looted, nearby stores belching black smoke, with the dead and dying all around them. Some looters staggered and fell to the ground, still clutching the groceries. I, too, slumped into my car seat, exhausted; radiation was already affecting us. One of the stores had a huge sign absurdly catching my eye, which urged us to hurry and buy whatever it was selling “Before It’s Too Late!” Only yesterday, no place on earth seemed remoter from Putin’s nuclear bombs than Greenfield. But just now, in carnage and devastation, Greenfield and Kiev, like other countless towns and cities the world over, have become blood brothers. We are all chained together as one — east west, rich poor, left right — now united in ashes, radiation, death.
My wife and I say our silent goodbyes and, now, we are quietly waiting for our ends. As we take our last breath, I am overcome by a sense of shame. Why didn’t we foresee this Armageddon coming? Why didn’t we act smarter and more boldly as citizens and as human beings when we still had the time? Shame! Shame!
Before I close my eyes, I am looking at that absurd store sign again as the last thing I shall remember: HURRY, BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!
Jon Huer, columnist for the Recorder and retired professors, lives in Greenfield.