Ash Butterflies

Ash Butterflies

1.

“Love you, have a good day,” Bulluck said to his daughter as she shut the door to their Ford Escape. She did not say anything in return, but that was the standard for her. She did smile back to her father, then turned and crossed over the old crumbling sidewalk onto the tar-covered parking lot of her school. A gentle rain was falling from the drab gray sky, just another 4th grader’s school day in West Seattle.

“Roxanne you don’t have to put on the light, those days are over you don’t have to sell your body to the night, Rox...” The Police song unexpectedly stopped as Bulluck changed the station to KUOW, the NPR station in Seattle. “The hostilities continue today in Ukraine,” the morning news report began, “with Russian tanks now positioned on the outskirts of Kiev, in preparation for what appears to be a continuance of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. The statement from NATO today is that they will be sending their forces to support the relatively unfocused, untrained Ukrainian Army. As NPR reported three months ago, Russian separatist aggression admitted to shooting down the Malaysian flight MH17 over the Ukraine as well as Putin admitting to downing the Malaysian flight over the Indian Ocean when it over flew a Russian Taskforce practicing naval exercises.” Bulluck looked at the radio and thought about turning it off, bringing an end to the depressing AM news report, but stopped when the light turned green.

“Shit, that sucks,” Bulluck said in reaction to hearing the news on the radio this morning as he turned onto 35th Avenue Southwest. His comment was reacting to a memory of a war movie he had seen as a kid, a film based on a Russian incursion into West Germany that led to a nuclear war with the United States. 31 years had passed since that time, the Soviet Union had since disbanded and other than 9-11, America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had ended and the US was again a relatively a safe place.

From 35th Avenue, Bulluck turned right onto Southwest Roxbury Street, taking the street through downtown White Center on his drive to work in the SODO District. His office was located cross the street in the shadows of Starbucks World Headquarters.

Bulluck half listened to the NPR morning news and thought about the state of the world at that moment. Not only was Eastern Europe on course to, what looked from his viewpoint, a conflict that could blossom into war, there was 10,000 miles away, China, Japan, the Koreas, Taiwan and the Philippines that, along with the US Navy, were performing a dance in the South China Sea that could lead to the same result: war. “Jesus people, we all need each other, for the love of money, if for nothing else,” Bulluck said boisterously to no one who was listening.

Traffic was, as always, tedious that morning on his commute. Southwest Roxbury Street had led to Olsen Place Southwest and then proceeded down the hill to the traffic light at the Myers Way South, where there was a great view of the city. On a clear day, you could see the beginnings of the Snoqualmie Mountain range past downtown, the city itself, Columbia Tower, Seahawk Stadium, Safeco Field and the port of Seattle. As Bulluck sat in his SUV at the traffic light at Myers Way South, he often wondered what a nuclear detonation would be like over Seattle. Would it be a bright light that would sear the clouds away, followed by a blast of heat and shock wave turning Elliot Bay and the Puget Sound into steam and scorched earth?

“This is the Emergency Broadcast Network, this is not a test,” the radio exclaimed from the radio speakers, ending the gruesome daydream and relative calm of the NPR broadcast that morning. “This is not a test,” it said again. Bulluck stared at the radio controls on his dash, oblivious to the horns beeping behind him signaling the light had turned green and that he was holding up traffic. “Fuck you,” he said to the driver in the car behind him through his mirror. As he snarled at them in the mirror, a piercing bright light of white appeared around it, creating a frame not unlike an eclipse would do.

Bulluck lurched then ducked under the dash to the floor of the passenger truck, eyes tightly fastened but burning just the same, bringing darkness. The initial brilliant flash of light produced by the nuclear detonation is when more light energy is received on the retina than can be tolerated, but hopefully less than is required for irreversible injury. The retina is particularly susceptible to visible and short wavelength infrared light, since this part of the electromagnetic spectrum is focused by the lens on the retina. The result is bleaching of the visual pigments and temporary blindness. “Oh man,” he yelled out as the blast wave reached his truck, followed in less than a second’s passing with a bellow like that of a jet engine on takeoff, flipping his vehicle over backwards. The shockwave’s force combined the sharp increase in over pressure was directly proportional to the density of the air in the wave causing all the window glass to explode at the very same moment. The super heated blast winds from the detonation over the city reached him at the speed of sound and it was blistering and reeked of industrial chemicals.

“KA-BAM,” his truck landed upside down 30 feet from where it had been. The crash was cushioned by trees and what was left of bushes lining the edge of Myers Way South. “Crack,” a lightning bolt struck the remaining power line pole next to the truck, followed by another, breaking a deep fissure into what remained of the street he was just sitting on.

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2.

Colors of sky blue, school bus yellow, stop sign red and vivid whites fill Bulluck’s eyes. He turns his head and the hotel Ritz comes into view, standing tall over Vanderbilt Beach, Naples Florida. The Gulf of Mexico is the color of marine green intermixed with frothy bubbles of white. The sky is filled with feathery wisps of white cotton clouds breaking the sun’s bright intense radiance of orange and yellow. A newspaper catches the sea’s breeze and blows away from under a beach umbrella. A child’s giggle turns into a shriek as her sister tosses the hot sand on her feet. Jackson caresses his girlfriend’s golden tan skin while seated in a Tommy Bahama beach chair. “I must be dead, this must be heaven,” Bulluck’s internal voice calls out.

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3.

Flash, crack, KA-BOOM a second explosion rings out and jars Bulluck back to consciousness. “Fuck I am alive and that must be the Kitsap – Bangor, the Trident base going up in smoke,” Bulluck said to himself while accessing his peculiar situation, hanging upside down tethered by a seatbelt. The truck was still in one piece, but unusable. The stench of the surrounding air was a putrid mix of chemicals and fetid matter. The second explosion was, indeed, the home of the US Pacific Fleet of nuclear-powered submarines called “Boomers.” Each was armed with 22 ballistic missiles that were kept stocked with nuclear warheads stored nearby in the 80+ grass-covered shelters. Whoever had done this to Seattle had destroyed the city first and then attacked the subbase, terrorism on a grand scale. The collateral damage from the second strike set aflame and demolished Poulsbo, Silverdale, and Port Orchard, over 100,000 men, women and children.

Blinded, eyes not yet open, Bulluck lie in his shattered truck now thinking of his own daughter, Trinity, who he had just dropped off at her school 15 minutes ago. How could all of this happen in just 15 minutes?

And with that reflection, a third explosion rang out to which was destruction of the Bremerton Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, home to five aircraft carriers and 12 hunter-killer submarines. The roar of the explosions was like having one’s head stuck into an amplifier at a rock concert. The one major difference though was the collective screams of human life coming to an end.

Who could do all this, bring about this form of destruction and death? The reality was that the assault came from a solitary Russian nuclear “boomer” submarine positioned just miles away from the Pacific Coast of Washington near Makah Bay. 120 miles from their spot in the ocean to reach Seattle, just four minutes travel time for a cruise missile. That type of weapon can skim the surface of the land and not be picked up by any form of radar that might be available. Intentional the attack was, not a rogue captain or a computer error lead to the death of one million people, no it was very premeditated and deliberate. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s orders no doubt, the Communist with no soul.

Another minute ticked by, “I’ve got to get moving, got to get to Trinity,” Bulluck said, eyes open and functioning, allowing him to kick and push the back door of the SUV open. As he crawled out of the vehicle, he thought of Trinity’s friend Sara and her family, for they lived on the hill above Olsen Place Southwest. He could go there first to see how they were and to seek help to reach the Arbor Heights Elementary School, where Trinity and Sara would be. As he gathered himself and looked westward to where Sara’s house would be, just halfway up the Olsen Hill, there was nothing left where there had just been trees, small-framed houses and a church. All was burning and the stench was now reaching him as he made his way up the road that had been Olsen Place Southwest.

Rain began to fall, the size of marbles, and black rain at that onto Bulluck. He did not know, but black rain is not unusual following large fires, and on this day carried with it nuclear weapon debris, fallout and black soot particles as a hallmark of incomplete combustion in the city firestorm.

“Jesus, why am I alive? How was I saved, but others were not?” Bulluck fell to his feet when he reached where Sara’s house had been. His cry for an answer rang out, but there was no one to bring remedy to his request.

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4.

From the position Bulluck sat in the middle of the street, looking north and east, he could see the Rainier Valley, the Seattle harbor, Boeing Field and the city. Or better yet, where it all had been. Everything below was now awash in flame, including Elliot Bay, due to the oil and gas tankers now sunk, but leaking. On the top of Beacon Hill there was once a VA Hospital, now reduced to red bricks and orange streaks of flame.

“Get up Jackson, get the fuck up, go get Trinity,” a voice reached out inside Bulluck’s head. “She is alive, go get her, NOW,” the voice continued. With that, he stood, turned and began to run back to Roxbury, the street that would take him to his daughter.

The black soot continued to fall but looked to Bulluck more like butterflies with black wings and white tips fluttering about, and they were everywhere. What the fuck, but these aren’t butterflies; they are ashes falling from the sky, not a bunch of spring aviators in their contest to remain airborne with the gravity of earth. These would be ashes from the detonation of number one. What remained was the odor of burning, not wet, but dry, Sahara Desert dry trees, no not trees, concrete, that is it. The smell of scorched earth and a city baked as dry as a bone. But there was no city below where Bulluck stands, just an expansive Elliot Bay, now filling in where Seattle just was 45 minutes ago. It fucking vanished, no buildings, stadiums, parks, universities or hospitals remained. All was Puget Sound waters surrounded by burning hills and now, for what was a mushroom cloud, had succumbed in its own majesty to be just another set of gray ass cloud drizzling ash butterflies.

“Fuck, I am going to get sick, this cannot be good, either find shelter from it or find at least a hat to cover my head,” Bulluck blurted out against the shower of cinder butterflies. His gray hair was now peppered black with ash. His white t-shirt, black cotton sweater and gray pants were covered in mud and soot from the fall at Sara’s house. As he crested the top of the street where Olsen Place Southwest becomes Roxbury Avenue, he could see the crossroads, and where the center traffic light of White Center had once been. The traffic light now sat in the bar on the corner, blown there by the first blast’s energy, most of which was contained to west Seattle, the Rainier Valley, Boeing Field and downtown. The surrounding hills’ wooden homes and buildings had been set afire. In a nutshell, everything had burned in one degree or another.

Now there were other people walking about like Bulluck, but no one was speaking. Some had been outside, and the detonation pressure wave was causing them to bleed from every orifice, a gruesome sight indeed, one straight out of a zombie movie. Some were already suffering radiation sickness, with vomiting, skin rashes, and an intense unquenchable thirst as their hair falls out in clumps. Their skin was beginning to peel off, all this because the internal molecular structure of the living cells within their bodies was breaking down, a result of the disruptive effects of the high radiation dose they received. Dazed and confused, dirty with fear and terror that had been set upon them. Stunned, they walked to nowhere without purpose, or so it seemed to him. “I have a purpose,” Bulluck said to himself, realizing as he did, he could just as well yell to his heart’s content, but still arrive with the same result of no one responding to his wailing.

Past White Center’s city center he walked. He tried to run, but the ingestion of the ash made in Seattle combined with a now bloody nose, was impairing his own ability to breathe and therefore the run was withdrawn. “No, just walk, it is only three miles to her school, she will be there, so just walk and make it to her.”

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5.

Bulluck methodically walked down and past the Roxbury Safeway, careful to not attract attention to him. He could see the Safeway was being robbed with the glass front doors broken through and people running in and out. Anarchy was occurring and social structure was breaking down around him. “Jesus Christ, that cannot be a rape… Fuck, STOP!” Bulluck yelled out to the man in jeans as he threw the woman to the ground. Bulluck, just 20 feet away from the man and woman between the parked cars in the Safeway lot, ran to them and leaped, knocking the man from the woman. Bulluck grabbed the stunned man’s head and began pounding it onto the asphalt and concrete lot. The man lost conscience with the first blow, but that did not stop Bulluck from continuing his mission to ruing this person’s life. Blood splattered from the rapist’s now cracked skull, a tangle of crimson, black and pink, his body shook with the last breath of his life. Bulluck stood up, looked at the shaken crying woman and wiped the blood from his hands onto his gray slacks. All Bulluck’s previous life pains, drained away from his own consciousness with taking the man’s life. “I have become death,” Bulluck stated.

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6.

The detonation above Bremerton was caused by a one-megaton blast, which reached nearly ten miles wide and equally as high. The hills and Lincoln Park’s beautiful timbers leading up from the Puget Sound were burning crisp since Bremerton was just about as many miles across the water. Visible pieces of fallout were beginning to appear on the ground, so many they were such as marble-sized chunks of radioactive debris and flea-sized dots of blackened particles, the ash butterflies were making themselves a new home. The exposure from the plume was as relentless as Bulluck saw while making his way up 35th Street. Cars parked along the way were either burning or sitting silently, motionless where their owners had abandoned them. The vehicles had suffered a quiet death of EMP. No one animal was now living, breathing or was saved, not a cat, dog, squirrel or raccoon, all home to West Seattle. A one-megaton nuclear bomb creates a firestorm that can cover 100 square miles. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were small cities, and by today's standards the bombs dropped on them were small.

Bulluck’s total dose was beginning to make him feel nauseous and produced a massive headache. He was almost to the turn off from 35th Avenue Southwest to where Arbor Heights Elementary School was located on Southwest 104th Street. “I am here, finally,” he said, as he reached the locked doors of the school.

The Beginning of the End

MH17

Over wheat fields of the Ukraine

Some will sleep, some will be awake

A missile flies, a child cry

Leaving in the blue sky

Not anything but, falling ash butterflies

For there is nothing more desperate, then misplaced aggression…

Author – Jason Rummer

58, born in Ohio in 1960, moved thirty-three times (NYC to Seattle to Dallas, Nashville and the Midwest) due to his father’s work commitments (8) and his own (25). A father of three daughters (37, 33 and 18) two married college graduates (one a cancer survivor) of The Ohio State University living in Louisiana. The youngest is with him living in Naples, Florida and attends FGCU. Five fiancés, three marriages, one leaving him as a widower. Twenty companies worked for under 33 positions with over ninety-nine, “life” times events.