MAD

Here I lie, thirteen expecting the World to end at any moment. Light from the hallway sharing my concern. Parent’s voices filter through the hallway, muffled. A new awareness forms as I catch bits and pieces of adult conversations.

New words like missiles, Cuba, blockade, deterrence, annihilation, Kennedy, MAD, and other unfamiliar words only parents and newscasters spoke. Months later, I leaned MAD meant Mutually Assured Destruction.

My grandparent’s neighbor has a bomb shelter. In elementary school, we did duck-and-cover drills.

Tonight, 1962, under my pillow, my transistor radio warned of a dangerous confrontation.

Static… silence… Russia turned back.

2022