Seven Days

After being launched from their container ships in the Gulf of Mexico, the three specially calibrated nuclear warheads carried by Shahab-3 ICBM’s detonated in space at 10:58 AM, directly over Utah, Kansas and West Virginia.

For a fraction of a millisecond, the late morning October sky brightened, the event over with so quickly it was basically imperceptible from the ground.

With a loud “snap”, the century old chunk of oak Jethro “JT” Clarke was working on exploded as the hydraulic pressure of the wood splitter finally overcame the incredible tensile strength of the ancient log, sending a cloud of superfine dust from a termite nest into his face.

Walking away from the splitter, JT looked to the southern sky, wiping the fine dust from his nose and eyes with his ever present blue shop rag, when for just an instant, the sky appeared to brighten. “What-da-hell-was-that” he said to himself.

His vision blurry from the dust, JT looked at the rag in his hand. Then, smelling it, he immediately picked up the putrid scent of carburetor cleaner, quickly dismissing the event as being nothing more than him inadvertently getting a nose full of the harsh chemical cleaner.

Little did JT know, what he had witnessed would ultimately end up being anything but “nothing”.