Get under your desks, children. 09.07.03

He awoke from a nightmare that was characteristically absurd. Standing at the top of the steps of Paris Opera House, he was alone but for a few flocks of Asian tourists looking out across the plaza to the deep storm clouds that encompassed the city to the horizon. A flash like lightning without a bolt so bright it made everything difficult to interpret like some divine camera flash that whited out the world. He could hear a nearby voice, a computer sounding voice, in a sterile counting down in seconds from 11. Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six, Five, Four, blast in One Second, and a wash of singing hot air cast him sliding back across the marble until he was pushed up to the wall.
He curled into a ball while the blast charred his skin and clothing and melted his hair into his skin. He held his breath while the wind cooked him alive, knowing now it was atomic and the radiation was inescapable; the blast roared on for most of a minute, followed by the undertow of a vacuum of so much explosive air.
He woke up in Paris with a hangover.