Spinning the Atom By Joe Hakim

The wheel turns one way and the ball spins in the opposite direction, like hopes and intentions and the mess that follows and they watch it bounce bounce and they squeeze their eyes shut and think of their lucky numbers, waiting for the bomb to drop and then it lands somewhere, anywhere, 'Enola Gay,' I say, because I don't care I really don't it's only ten pounds but right now right here to them it means everything.

Doing something to them for them ten pounds of plutonium; a nuke going off in the back of their brains - giant ants in the desert, mutations, don't plant anything here for at least fifty years until the fallout clears - you can see it in their eyes as their grip tightens on the edge of the table but I've been standing here for three fucking hours and I'm on the edge of something different a mushroom cloud of my own.

The chavs in their highlight hair and pink shirts and the grannies in their highlight hair and pink blouses they sit, they stand make demands at God at me at their own fucking life, 'Why don't I ever win anything? Is it too much to ask for a bit of luck, just for once, before I die?' and then the blinding flash, the thunder clap.

I smile because I know there is no luck and it is too much to ask for anything other than the oxygen in our lungs and the bullshit in our heads that stops us from seeing things as they really are. But I spin the ball anyway watching them watching the wheel turn as the ball spins. I am become death, the destroyer of dreams

Copyright © Joe Hakim 2008

Comments System Prototype Version 1.0 by Mo

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