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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “hello goodbye goodbye hello” Down in the Dirt (v132) (the October 2015 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

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Change of State

Dean Jones

    The skyline dominated with old factory chimneys of the proud working class town. Shifts started and ended, with black faces emerging from the depths of the industry that created the town we know today.
    People went about their business on a cold September morning, hoping for life to provide pleasant surprises and that the joy once embedded in the town would remain.
    It was Friday, and the pubs and clubs would be packed later in the day as a celebration of how good life could be when surrounded by friends and family, and not infected by the wealth and trivialities of the middle class. They were never welcome and would never fit in, with the population ready to fight to preserve their way of life.
    However, the middle and upper class attack came in an instant, with no time to react, creating thousands of cremations with no coffins. The class war had begun.
    A bright blinding light of a billion dollar red, white and blue capitalist program exploded above the town producing extreme heat and a blast wave of winds. At that very point individuals directly under the explosion were instantaneously vaporized. Those within a mile suffered a horrifying death as their skin was charred or peeled away from their bodies, their eyes melted, and all that was left was a burnt out shell. Those who didn’t die instantly would suffer agonizing pain and radiation poisoning which would could take a few hours to a few days to finally destroy the victim.
    The middle classes laughed from the shelters in suburbia at the pain they caused. Teasing the dying to fight back knowing that it would be impossible. They watched as people starved and couldn’t find water, as the leaches drank and ate to their hearts content.
    In one instance, they saw a survivor crawling through the wreckage the searing pain encompassed his entire body as he slowly died. He had lost his left leg, and tried to raise himself with a piece of wood lying in the ruins. But he didn’t have the strength to lift his body and him agonizingly onto the ground, gasping and crying in pain. All he could see was the desolation surrounding him; the town he knew and loved was gone and replaced with what he envisaged was hell.
    Buildings were either flattened by the initial shockwave or crumbling as fire burned out of control around the Town. There was no hope of rescue or an end the suffering of thousands of innocent victims. They are considered as innocent as they did not have a role in the war and had not been involved in the fighting between the armies of class.
    There were cries all around him, shouts for help mixed with sounds of endless fires, burning and spread by ferocious winds of the fire storm and buildings continuing to crumble after having been weakened from the initial explosion. He could not get his bearings as there was nothing familiar in the surrounding area.
    All he could remember was walking down towards his place of work in the south of the town and was aware of people looking up at a plane high up and an object falling from the sky. In second there was a blinding light with searing wave of heat which immediate burned the shirt from his back and the trousers from his legs. The following blast threw him several yards and he landed at the base of a small brick wall.
    It seemed like a lifetime before he was able to move and look up at what had happened. All he saw were fires raging all across the Town. The place he knew seemed to have been soaked in oil and a match tossed onto the Town, immediately turning into an inferno.
    His burns were unbelievably painful whenever he tried even the smallest movement. He felt death surrounding him and he couldn’t understand why innocent people were made to suffer in this inhumane manner. He knew the end was near and prayed that he would go to sleep and never wake up in this hell.
    The sky was dark and a thick black liquid fell onto the ground around him. However, this was just another cruel joke. Many of the living grabbed anything that could hold water and try to capture this black rain. The survivors drank it in as they gasped for water. They did not realize that the black rain fell from the mushroom cloud as radioactive. As they poured the liquid down their throats, the radiation slowly spread through their bodies, which would lead to a slow and painful death, if they didn’t already die from their current injuries.
    It was impossible to tell whether it was night or day. The burning fires continued and dark sky was like hell. He imagined for a moment laughing as if Lucifer was mocking mankind on their own destruction.
    Close by was the twisted wreckage of the district hospital. Half of the building had collapsed, but he hoped that in the remaining floors on the east side of the building would have some medical supplies so he could dress his wounds.
    His progress was slow and painful. It took him over an hour to reach the building. As he got closer it was obvious that there was nothing of any value in the remainder of the building. The gaps in the walls showed that the inside had been gutted by fire. Smoke was still drifting out of the lower floors.
    As he looked around, he felt helpless and he knew this was the end and that life would never be the same again. The voices around him began to fade into the background, as he the sound of the fires burning and building crumbling was all that could be heard.
    Without any warning, the wall of the hospital fell away and landed a short distance from where he lay. What he saw next made him ashamed to be a human being. The bodies of the hospitals patients hung from the crumbling masonry, many burned, other dismembered. He tried to look away but he was transfixed with this grisly scene.
    He felt he had cheated death, if only for a few hours. He was so filled with all consuming misery. He looked around to see how he could bring his suffering to end. As he laid on the ground, with all of his remaining strength he picked up a piece of fallen masonry above his head and let go. In a faction of a second he was gone.
    As the days passed and turned into weeks, his rotting body, like many others around him, remained uncollected or buried. The stench of rotting flesh and sewage was unbearable. Many of the survivors were in varying states of depression and withdrawal. The spread of diseases such as typhoid, cholera, dysentery were a direct result of the rotting bodies around the Town. The radiation was poisoning survivors who would soon die after slow and painful suffering before any help would arrive.
    In other parts of the Town survivors wandered the ruins with varying degrees of injury. They sought what food they could find, but it would be days before recovery services would enter the town. Until then the population would be left to suffer and die.
    Nuclear war is a weapon of the rich to spread fear and demand conformity and obedience. It is the working class who have to fight and it is the working class who die.

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