The Scientist

He clutched the bag tightly, looking with avid suspicion at every shadow, scrutinising the wisps of smoke that rose from the underbelly of the dark city. His laces were subjected to the horror of sewer water that had frothed up and escaped the rat’s abode. He did not stop to tie them, nor did he pay heed to them, for the slick gears of his mind were hard at work.

Every detail of his creation lay dangling from the roof of his mind. He pulled them down, one after the other, making certain that every one of his twisted formulae was correct without doubt. Anything could go wrong. He watched a solitary newspaper drag itself unwillingly across the street, pulled by the strings of air, and at once thought of the articles that would shoot around the globe, relaying news of horrific measure, painting him as a hero in the States, but a fiend everywhere else. At the end of all the hardships of war, the crimes unspoken, the martyrs unsung, only the ultimate sacrifice could end it for good. To create a polar revulsion, not unlike the uranium that would cause it. Presently, he was broken away from the safety of his mind by the faint glow of the covert mission centre. The time had come; the fate of a city, held by the weakest of links in iron chains, was to be severed.

He stepped through the reinforced iron doors after giving a knowing nod to the guard, who acknowledged him from behind a newspaper filled with propaganda. He went on into a blurry landscape of mismatched lights and heavy machinery.

The plane that was to carry out the sickly sweet task had almost reached its destination, and the flurry of emotions that had been nibbling at his soul broke away to show him the true cost of his actions. Eight words lay dormant in his mind, prepared the night before as he lay in bed. He picked up the red telephone to receive confirmation of the devastation caused to that unfortunate Japanese city. With a heavy heart, he said, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

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