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Show house/ 443 food, as well. Plates had to be cleaned in our family. After dinner, my father rose slowly to his feet. He spoke about the new members of the group and the growth of theAflontana settlement. And then he began to speak of science. I was surprised, for he had taken to spurning 'worldly' discoveries as being 'of the Devil.' His way was usually to ignore such maters. I suspected he was broaching this topic for my sake,because I was attending the university. "Man has invented yet another weapon fcr his own destruction," he began, and described the plutonium bomb. "It could demolish our world eight times over - not that it would be necessary. Once is enough." He smiled tightly. He explained that the explosion occured when an entity was split by slow, deliberate nucei. I was impressed. Octa-apocalypse, I thought. "It is the fulfillment of prophecy," my father said. "We have been promised that the world would never again be destroyed by water, but by fire - the way is being opened for the word of the Lord." His voice rose and he seemed to lose all sense of our presences. "The Jews are returning to Zion. Israel The lost tribes ofAhave been gathered on a new continent. 11 It is only a matter of time - Years, a year, weeks, days. I imagined slow, deliberate fission and a great burning, the bodies of the wicked consumed in one enormous human bonfire. Holocaust. As he spoke, I felt the blood drain from my face and an old familiar desperation knotting in my chest. I was the old, Predictable fear that my life would end suddenly, without meaning °r mercy, beyond the redemption of children or loving deeds. |