Dunken, New Mexico ... named for Oscar J. Dunken ... first settler and postmaster ... around 1904 .... it is listed as a ghost town ... not quite ... it has a church .... and it has a large highways maintenance shed ... and I mean large ...
Behind the shed is a substation ... and a microwave dish ... and you sit there and you wonder ... there is nothing for 10 - 15 miles in any direction ... a substation here ... but soon you figure out, that the substation is not a step down for local distribution ... it is feeding the maintenance shed directly .. what the hell is in the shed ... and what are they receiving on that dish ...
I walked around the shed ... no windows ... there was a large door ... the size of a garage door on the front ... but ... it wasn't a door .. I mean until you got up to it it looked like a large door ... and then you realized it was a carefully constructed facade to look like a door ... which .. wasn't a door ...
I walked back to the substation and then I walked all 4 sides of the fence that enclosed it ... I did this 4 or 5 times until I figured it out... the small trailer in there ... the door to the trailer ... that was the entrance ...
I was the only person around .... I pulled my truck up to the fence ... got on top of the truck and jumped over the fence and into the substation enclosure .... the door simply rotated on a central pivot ... I was inside in no time ... a set of dimly lit stairs led down towards to a concrete hallway ... at the end of the hallway another set of stairs leading up to an opening that had to be the inside of the shed ...
... I could only assume this facility is operated remotely ... no sooner did I have that thought when a large video display powered up ... it was simply filled with blue .... but the screen was split ... one was labelled 'NOW' ... the adjacent screen labelled 'THEN' ...
... all of a sudden, there was a loud klaxon sounding ... and then the cannon or gun began rotating and elevating at the same time ... it came to a sudden, metallic halt ... now all I could hear was that AC hum ...
On the 'NOW" side of the video screen was a large aircraft ... prop driven ... it was a B-29 ... it was in the process of taking off ... as it ran down the runway at ever increasing velocity ... it went by a familiar landmark ... the water tower at the former Walker Air Base ...
As it lifted off I could read the name on the nose of the aircraft, 'Enola Gay' ... it gained altitude and gently turned to the SW ... towards ... Dunken ... now cross hairs showed on the video screen ... the 'NOW' video screen split switched to another camera source ... the 'Enola Gay' was coming directly towards the screen ... it's bomb bay doors open ...
At that moment ... there is a large burst of energy in the shed ... suspended globes around the facility glow brightly ... an intense narrow beam of light is 'fired' by the cannon ... on the video screen the beam hits the 'Enola Gay' ... the aircraft shimmers and disappears ... the 'Enola Gay' appears on the screen split labeled 'THEN' .... a bomb is dropped ... and the 'Enola Gay' accelerates and climbs quickly ... the bomb bay doors close ... the camera swings down ... it is a warm hazy day ... there is a brilliant flash ... Hiroshima is consumed by a man made sun ...the video screen goes dead ....
... a hand reaches out and touches me on the shoulder ... I scream ... oh, how I scream ... the blackness of the horse is welcomed ...
(to be continued) ...
To quote from verse 1904 of the Krome Koan,
' ... to read is to voyage through time ... '
The Ale i.a.n. Hunter
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