Enola Gay

The first nuclear bomb in all the world was named after the pilot's mother, Enola Gay. No one knew what she would do, except perhaps the few men huddled around the plans in a secure room shrouded in secrecy and, perhaps, tobacco smoke. I can't keep my mind off the idea of clouds of exhaled cigarette fumes hovering above the men, hovering above the plans that would tell unsuspecting engineers how to build a creation that be flown over a tiny island before annhilating forty thousand men, women and children in one, split second. I can see that hazy ceiling, smell the stench, and I feel like holding my breath. They say nicotine's a drug. And power. And money. And war. There's power in those pages of facts and figures. There's money, too, and I fear they, too, are a drug. We didn't lose our taste for her once we saw what she did. No, we dropped her twin, killing another forty thousand innocent souls, and then we built so many, many more. Those plans had a life of their own, traveling across borders and into other smoke-filled secret rooms. What does it feel like, Enola Gay, having your name painted across that thing that kills like the devil with his eyes ablaze with addicted lust?