).Fireworks · 2:54pm Mar 30th, 2013
I don't like fireworks. I dislike being close to them because I find them too loud and quite frankly boring. But more than that, I hate sitting at home and hearing them. Every couple of weeks we get it here, doesn't even matter if there's an occasion. Without fail it puts me on edge. Because there are only three things with that kind of sonic effect.
The first are obviously fireworks.
The second is distant thunder.
The third is the end of my life as I know it.
That last part sounds a little intesne right? Hear me out. Ever since I was small, I've been acutely aware of just how vulnerable my city is, we're so isolated that it feels like there's any number of ways things could go wrong. But the number one thing that's bothered me the most for as long as I've been capable of thinking about it is how vulnerable we are to surprise attack. And for just as long I've had the occasional dream, this one in particular, where I wake up to that same rumbling sound. It's maybe 2 or 3 in the morning. I roll out of bed and onto my feet while the sound gets louder. I look out the window, and I can see that there's an orange glare coming off the horizon, I can make it out over the roof of the house across the street. The rumbling comes again adn there's a flash of light and I realise it's finally happened. I notice the low droning overhead, and the sky is full of planes. What happens next? I don't know. It's different every time. If it's simple, the next thing I see is usually a mushroom cloud. Sometimes I get to the top of hill and just watch as the cars stream past me and just watch as the fires close in. It's so surreally vivid. Sometimes it's zombies if my preconscious feels like messing with me. Sometimes I get to watch the city's skyline burn from the top of the exact same hill. It's a good vantage point.
Of course, the city has no strategic value. Relatively. Sure we're a hell of a lot closer to Asia than the rest of the country but that's irrelevant. We've got maybe one strategic target, two if you're lucky. They'd still have to step on us first though. I don't even know who they are. I do know that no matter what I'm doing, whenever I hear that noise, I stop and listen, just to make sure it's not coming closer.
I worry too much. Maybe it's Korea that's got me on edge at the moment, even though I know they're too smart to actually do something so stupid as lash out. Or maybe it's the sound of fireworks. I really hate that sound.
If it's any comfort, I've been following North Korea's situation very closely as of late [especially after they started making direct nuclear threats against my place of residence, Washington DC] and from what I've read strategic experts unanimously agree that it's impossible for NK's current rocket technology to reach either of us. That and well, their nuclear capacity is roughly 7kT, which is hardly a candle held to the devices in possession by the US, Russia, and China, the technology of which could hypothetically yield up to 200mT. Thankfully those countries have learned that nuclear warfare is so pointlessly destructive that they have not, and most likely will not, use hydrogen bombs in any real warfare scenario.
Nuclear paranoia is nothing to be ashamed of, in my opinion. I see it as a heightened awareness to something very real that the general public seems to have become desensitized to. I won't go as far as to say I'm proud to have a case of it myself, but I certainly would not see it as a bad thing.
At least not most of the time. I mean, look at the badly-photoshopped cover I made for the first book I ever wrote back in 2006. Eheheh.
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The strange thing is I know that North Korea's technology isn't up to a straight up fight, and I know the regime's just acting up to keep the populace happy with the situation.
Maybe I'm missing something obvious that my preconscious is trying to get through in metaphor.