I build the bomb. Among other things in my day, my busy day, I build the bomb. Wake up:

Late.

What can I do? I run for the bus, and run for the school, and when I get there I find no peace of mind. First class:

Mathematics. Blink:

"...and that is what is commonly known as the reflexive theory of equality, for... And the drone goes on. Why am I here? I am here in order that I not bother my parents, and at the same time, gain survival skills for this modern world, for which I

Build the bomb.

The day flies by, on slender feathered wings, of silver tint with tapered tip...leaving me:

Home. Trying:

To get all of my mind into the house when it wants most specifically to remain outside, free, where the deer and the antelope play with guns... I am called inside by my mother, for:

Homework. A pointless exercise, merely serving to prolong school past the hours when my brain is dysfunctional. As a diversion, I finish my math, and my history, an hour early, allowing me time

To build the bomb.

Downstairs, why do things like this always take place in a basement? Very well, Upstairs, to the attic, where no one ever goes unless it is winter, and there are leaks in the roof. In the middle of the floor, the brown powder from the supply house, the vacuum cleaner, the centrifuge (*that was the hard part wasn't it a thousand dollars gleaned over time from various small caches around the neighborhood a parking meter here a vending machine there a dropped wallet from this corner...*)

Chemicals. The stuff of the earth, here to do my bidding in this my world, apart from:

Parents. Who:

Call me downstairs to ensure that I have performed my two hours of scholastic servitude worshipping a book from which all traces of religion and emotion and interest have been carefully boiled away:

I build the bomb. Upstairs:

Placing the powder and the flourides into buckets, bubbling gas through the mixture, removing from the centrifuge:

Uranium.

Placing it in the mold, turning on the flame to soften it and using a mallet to get it into the salad bowl stolen from mother's kitchen two days past:

-Where are you going with that salad bowl?

-To my room.

-Don't sass me, you know very well what I mean! What are you going to do with it?

-It is to be the mold for the uranium core for my atomic bomb. I might also have a salad later this afternoon, if the sun remains purple.

-DON'T SPEAK BACK TO ME! (the smashing red pain of a cup hurled angrily across the room to impact and transmit its kinetic energy to:

My face. Bruised:

I scuttle from the kitchen clutching my prize as my mother descends with her broom, perhaps for the fragments of porcelain, perhaps for me.

I build the bomb. Governments must make sacrifices, so too must I. My face will heal; the human body is an excellent self- repairing mechanism when it comes to minor injuries.

Back to the safety (?) of the attic, to the vacuum cleaner case sitting empty and forlornly in the middle of the floor as I pound the silvery soft metal methodically into the salad bowls. I have two of them, stacked so that she would not notice when I left the kitchen...

I must sleep. I leave the two salad bowls with their softly shining contents in opposite corners of the room and descend into their world to sit with them at table to consume dinner:

In silence. Neither look at the almost-healed two-day old bruise on my cheek.

-May I be excused?

<silence>

-Father, may...

-I heard you. Yes, go to your room. Do the rest of your homework.

-Yes, father.

Pushing back the chair without meeting their eyes, as I ascend once more to a world of higher physics and vacuum cleaners and isotopes and salad bowls. Below:

Voices. Father:

-I don't know. perhaps we should send him to one of those, you know, those special schools, so we won't have to...

-Don't talk that way! You just don't think you can handle it. (Grimly.) I can handle it. We'll handle him our way, not the way some official tells us we must. You simply must maintain discipline with the child.

In my room, the voices begin in earnest...

Sounds:

like.

others with me, speaking, arguing, hating, why>

It's never been proven that/of course he's an anomaly, my god, IQ of two hundred and/at what age? NINE?/leading us to believe that the mutagens from your work environment was responsible for the/well, it looks like mutations in the sperm, but we don't want to jump/no, I believe he'll turn out fairly well adjusted, you should be able to care for him as you would any normal child... -

Morning: in time for

School. They said:

/his mind works slightly differently, it 'blinks' occasionally to change thought patterns/the 'associative' trail of thought doesn't always apply to him,he/shifts his entire mindset with no loss of data or coordination/

I hate meanderings. Clean:

Shift.

Much nicer.

I build the Bomb.

Up to the Attic where nature bends to my control I place the bowls in the vacuum cleaner at opposite ends and remove from the cabinet the block of rubbery substance that I

Stole. Earlier:

From a strip mine outside of mytown USA

Placing the chunks of C4 around the outside of the salad bowls, I attach wires and buttons and a keylock and close the top.

I have built the Bomb. Footsteps?

The door opening and they walk in confused, looking around at the byproducts and refuse of my endeavors, and at me standing in the middle with my hand on the Hoover casing.

-What have you done to this attic? You'll be the one who cleans it up, you little...Have you done your homework? HAVE YOU? (a stinging slap across the face, as my cheek crushes against my teeth, opening a small cut inside my mouth. The blood is sharp and metallic against my tongue-)

-Don't hit him, he hasn't really done anything/

-Hasn't done anything? Just LOOK at this attic! And...And my vacuum cleaner! What have you done to my vacuum cleaner? and what's that key there>

-Mother. Father. Be silent. I have built the bomb. I love you. School is for none, not such as me, I wonder why I am here? but I love you. The sun is no longer purple, I am, for this moment, as the Lord God was...

-Oh my god, he's gone insane, call that doctor-

-No. No doctor, I am sane, I am right while you are wrong. I am as the lord god, Behold the Bomb, I love you-

Let there be light

This one I wrote quite some time ago, on a typewriter...then I transferred it into WriteNow on a Macintosh...and then the floppy it was on ate itself, and after a frantic allnighter grabbing bits of text off the floppy, I had this reconstruction. Problem was, it had been four years since I wrote it, so I dunno if this in fact what I meant...

-The Custodian