The person I used to be is smoldering under the charred ruins of a once pretty, yellow single wide mobile home.
 It had a nice carport with a small wooden deck. That deck was crude because I built it myself. I managed to do it 
even with my left side limbs messed up by a stroke seventeen years before. My carport collapsed after the blast wave
 hit our neighborhood. It all started with a boom close enough to startle us and everything shook. I had not yet 
comprehended it's origin, The mushroom cloud was not visible from here. Soon a bright light so intense it temporarily
blinded me. My efforts to cover my eyes were useless. Even in the trailer, I could not get away from it. Then, something
I believe is called a blast wave blew through our mobile home park community. It must have devastated everything for 
twenty miles around. It flattened my mobile home and eventually every mobile home in the park. It knocked me down, trapping 
me under my trailer, By just luck I found a way to crawl out. Luckily I was not crushed by the roof. Fetching Lily quick. 
I held on to her. She was alive cowering under a board. From the way she walked I could tell she was traumatized and unsure 
in her movements. It was obvious she was also blinded. I told her, "Stick with me cat. There's no where to run.”  She may 
have figured that out for herself as her usual private spot was destroyed.
     Dazed and confused, but physically still in one piece we sat on the roof peak of my home that was now at street level, 
The flying glass fragments and splintered wood that had flown at us from every direction, had stopped now. It left me cut superficially on my left cheek. I heard the shattered glass crunch beneath my feet. Holding on to Lilly, I told her, "Stick with me cat, there's no where to run.” She may have figured that out for herself. A nail pierced though the soul of my sneaker penetrating my already unreliable left foot. I was bleeding more now, leaving a crimson trail where I walked. I had no choice but to 
stay put until help arrived. 
     The air was thick with a fine floating dust. I could hear desperate last chance appeals for help from the few other survivors. Their frequency diminished as my neighbors slowly perished, pinned beneath the ruins of their homes. I could not help anyone. A few minutes later everyone's luck including mine, ran out. A roaring, searing sound filled my ears. and a unrelenting heat enveloped us. Soon after came a unimaginable tsunami of dark orange flames at least  one hundred feet high. It was rolling directly toward us. We could not escape. The gas lines made the homes in its path explode in big blasts, One, then the next, home after home on both sides of our road. I hugged my cat Lilly, I knew for the last time. As it 
got closer, the wall of flames stole our oxygen. Lilly and I just waited, then there was nothing.
 So many dead, but so few new spirits emerged. Many prayers for help went unanswered. The heat wave had turned 
my body into a charred mannequin, It was not unlike a tree in a forest fire. Anything metal like my collapsed carport, 
melted right down to the wind chimes. Now they were nothing but melted black tubes. Their musical tones just a memory 
now. No birds chirping, a few incinerated deer lay smoking in the black scorched field behind the house.
     Most of the over seven hundred trailer park residents died. Those few new spirits, like me, were left as unsettled 
souls that miss the warmth of their body. Oh yes, I never told my name because my name is not important. When they 
find me the toe tag I get will say, “Unidentifiable, due to radiation burns.” Maybe dental records will help if they are 
not destroyed too. The chances are my charred body will crumble and break as they try to fill a body bag with it. If there
 is someone left around here to do that job.
     The beginning of this day was a stark contrast to it's end. There was a great breeze with plenty of sunshine. The 
neighborhood kids  rode scooters outside. At least one of them always fell on their ass. My neighbor Sarah and I are both 
up in age, but we are good neighbors. It was Friday, trash day. Sarah was about seventy years old. She was a petite lady, 
always smiling. She was fair skinned, with long brown hair, that possessed the expected streaks of gray. We made a game of 
helping each other retrieve our emptied garbage cans, It's a thing we started during the winter bad weather days. It was nice 
to ease the others burden a bit.
     This day held promise with wind chimes gently singing as the breeze moved through its pieces. Lily my gray ten years 
old cat, was lounging on the lower level of her cat castle. She was waiting and meowing for her food. Keeping to our daily 
routine, we both ate breakfast. Not long after that. Lily and I would be dead and unrecognizable.
 My heart sank when I heard the explosion. Lilly, running into the into the bedroom is my last memory of her in the 
house.
     Our political leaders had been bickering over the Ukraine and Russian war that was now in its tenth or eleventh year. I 
can't keep track. But on a news report I remember  the Russian president, on television screaming like a crazy person. He 
chastised his leadership for being timid in their conduct of the war. The translated speech said, “We are not going to lose 
this war! Russian mother's that complain about their son's dyeing need not worry much longer this will come to an end 
soon. The Russian leader continued, “The west that supports Ukraine will soon know we mean to punish their suppliers. 
We will make the American people unwilling to continue. They will bury many of their own. A lesson in every grave.” At 
At that point our president was just beginning her second term. She was finally getting off the fence about a preemptive 
strike to end Russia's nuclear capability. In congress, the adversarial bickering blocked any progress being made.
     About a week before the missile hit, She pointed out to congress saying,” The United States policy of never striking 
first with a nuclear weapon, may leave us open to devastation.” It was a prophetic statement. The republicans fought to 
keep that restriction. In their thinking, it would help keep a democratic president from looking too decisive. Especially a 
female president. Hopefully now, they will listen .Fallout from the strike will reach Washington D. C. in a couple days