Fallout Shelter

April 18, 2011

In the back alley of First Lutheran Church on 615 Grant St. was this fallout shelter sign. The color contrast and symbolism of it all is what caught my attention. Rustic blue and yellow contrasting so well against the church-brick reds that would make it easy to spot amongst the panic of some atomic blast detonating in Pittsburgh or Allegheny County.

A commuter on their lunch break at one of the office spaces in Pittsburgh hear the sirens. Caught up in panic and chaos running towards anything resembling safety someone would find themselves in a house of God. Hopefully safe (I haven’t heard of any abuses from this church) as atomic fire rains from the heavens. The screams and fears of those unlucky enough to reach shelter are silenced by the boom, the shockwave, heat and radiation from such an explosion. An attack.

Alone, afraid and surrounded in a sea of death and destruction our person(s) in the fallout shelter would hear the collapse of this church as this shelter would be their ark for a future. Hoping and praying that the worst would be over and that God would provide for them, nevermind the millions of dead in Allegheny proper. Their thoughts and hopes would become about survival of their selves and hopefully hope for what is next.

What happened to my family?

Where else was attacked?

Are the rations enough?

How long until it is safe to go outside?

What do we do when we open the shelter door?

Who else is in here with me?

Who did this?

How do I survive?

Who will help me?

Days pass as our commuter waits in this shelter like so many hundreds of thousands around the world who barely escaped this holocaust. Who started and who ended it losses meaning as the functions and strings of society have been erased. Within these shelters new communities and governments are formed with those too destined to fail and die as radiation and fallout consumes the world and the surviving pockets of humanity die. Leaving nature to heal and Earth to continue until its own end.

We eventually become dust in space adrift in time.