Black (standard:other, 334 words)
Author: Mehul	Added: Jan 20 2002	Views/Reads: 3117/1	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A little boy and a nuclear missile

BLACK 

It stands glistening black, the light reflecting off the shiny metallic
surface. An expression of ambivalence covers its face; as if it is 
confused. So is the boy, though he doesn’t know it. He wanders by, when 
suddenly he jumps, as though struck by lightning. “Cool!”, he shouts. 
He runs closer to it, as far as the yellow barrier will let him go. 
Craning his neck to see, to quench his thirst to know, he devours the 
object with his eyes. The sunlight streaming in from the skylight 
glints off the cylindrical pyramid of doom. The boy stands impassively 
staring upwards, gawking at it. The object looks all around the hall, 
it’s radius of superiority sweeping over the inferior others, 
conveniently overlooking the childish insignificance. The boy’s mind 
churns with wonder and amazement as he walks around it with glee. With 
the swagger of a self-proclaimed expert, he reads out the attributes, 
written on a smart blue board. Others standing around stare at first, 
then smile dismissively and carry on. His mind wanders, wild and free. 
He is flying now, sitting on the metallic surface. He sees his house, 
his mom and dad waving, his favourite ice-cream parlour. He lets out a 
whoop of joy and grabs at the birds he flies past. They scatter in 
fright, and he zooms out of the melee. The pictures build up in his 
mind an atmosphere of delight, as he imagines the black missile streak 
through the sky, probably released by a giant battleship or supersonic 
fighter. What it doesn’t see are the people it lands on, the people it 
kills. The blood it spills, the moms and dads it takes, even young boys 
like him. So his childish innocence lives on, till it is shattered by 
the hammer of society; today’s despicable society. And so he comes to 
accept, like all of us, the inhumanity of man. “A real live tomahawk 
missile!”, he wonders out aloud. “Range: 3000 
kilometres......man......Payload: 2.2 tonnes......hmmm......Radius of 
damage: 2 kilometres...


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