Nuclear Flames

Here we are, a spring morning, a nuclear plant in Ukraine on fire (well, not exactly on fire, but not clearly out of danger either).  What year is it?  What decade?

Earlier this week, I made this Facebook post:  "Our COVID at home test kits came from the government. It seems so last year apocalypse. For 2022, I'd like some iodine tablets to protect our thyroids, some water purification tablets, a desk to crouch under, a textbook to protect my head and neck, the super expensive chocolate that I would only afford for myself in the end time."

As we drove to Ash Wednesday service, I asked my spouse if he was worried that Putin would use a nuclear weapon.  He said no.

I asked, "Are you not worried because you think he wouldn't do it or are you not worried because you think he would keep the nuclear strike small or are you not worried because you know we're far enough away not to be affected?"

We both snorted at that idea, and then we had a brief exchange about tactical nuclear strikes and the targets that Putin might choose.  My spouse focused on the kind of small, tactical nukes that one might carry in a backpack.  He thinks they've been used more during the past 60 years than we might think.

At one point, we both kept up with these sorts of nuclear developments.  At one point, I could have told you about the various ways that various types of detonations would harm us.  Now I rely on sites like this one, Nukemap.

I am just now realizing how luxurious the past 30 years have been, now that I'm realizing how much information has drained out of my brain.  I've worried about nuclear reactors, but more about hurricane hazards and sea level rise.  Now I'm thinking about them in the old ways again.

I am realizing, too, that not everyone came of age thinking about these issues.  One of my writer friends was surprised to hear about electromagnetic pulses and the fact that if a nuclear bomb detonated nearby, and if we survived, most cars wouldn't be able to operate anymore.  Of course, the nuclear war movies of the 1980's probably didn't stress the kind of tactical nuclear strike that we might see in coming days, so those kinds of details wouldn't have been stressed.

I think of those nuclear movies of my youth, and how dated the clothes, the interior design, the cars, the haircuts would seem to younger people watching them today.  I remember watching On the Beach, which I enjoyed much more when I read it than when I watched it.  As a book, it seemed like it could happen any moment.  As a movie, it seemed like something remote and far away, even though it was made in 1959.  I was watching it in the mid-80's, which means that college kids watching scary nuclear movies from my youth would be watching movies made 30 years ago, a similar time span.

So we've had a nuclear reactor in flames and the leader of Russia putting his military on the highest alert, all in the first week of this war between Ukraine and Russia, this cold war turning hot.  What will the next week bring?  One shudders to think.