Hiroshima

Those of us who were born before 1945 or soon after, who were children in the late 40's, teens in the 50's... grew up deluged with images of nuclear bombs, the endless photos of hydrogen bomb tests in the pacific; we passed Nike anti-aircraft missiles on the Lake front in Chicago, we knew people who built shelters in their basements... all this, culminating in the most terrifying two weeks since humans came down from the trees--October, 1962.through those years, have no idea.

The nuclear arsenals are still there. The missile silos are still there. England, the U.S, Israel, Pakastan, France, China, Russia...North Korea... all armed with with the capacity to initiate a conflict that would be the end human life on the planet--or make it so terrible, that extinction and death would be a blessing.
Those years were a watershed in human consciousness--if you did not learn to disassociate, to build your life in the delusional shelter of the Great Hologram... as most people did, you became an alien in the world forever, an exile in a world run by madmen, you learned, over the years--for such knowledge is too much to absorb all at once--you understand that there is no longer any place in this world to call "home." After Hiroshima, it is always and forever, 3 minutes to midnight