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Hello and welcome to meters pod
episode 14. I'm your host D

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Mitas. Our story for this
episode comes to us from Chris

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Capps. Chris Capps is a
cognitive point of reference

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living in the American Midwest.
His work the cathedral appeared

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in massacre magazine, and he's
been posting short stories to

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his blog and editing for
hatchlings writers group online.

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He has a few books on Amazon
including the homespun horror

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novel, our war with Malini, fac,
and the Evan the waste series of

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post apocalyptic pulp books.
Without further ado, here's our

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story

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that sun never set on Pine falls
by Chris Capps.

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Matthew Wilcox is the one that
made the bomb stop exploding.

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And no one knew where it came
from or who dropped it. We

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didn't even really know what the
payload was, whether it was a

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full Makaton or 10 or splinter
from a cluster bomb. All we knew

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when everyone and pong balls
woke up at 336 and 15 seconds is

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that it was hanging in the sky,
just outside the city limits.

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And then the man named Matt
Wilcox had made it stop. Just

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ever had started to go off.
Everyone, every woman, every

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child knew that name. It
happened at 336 and 15 seconds

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and the town meeting happened a
little less than an hour later.

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I say it that way for a reason.
The town meeting happened it

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wasn't called. People woke up,
got out of their homes and just

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started walking towards town
hall to talk about it. There was

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a thick orange glow in the sky
just bright enough to trip the

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sensors and the automatic street
lamps and make baby bird start

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crying from the nest for early
worms. Some denied with a new

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denied knowing it claimed it was
just the morning sun. And they

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ignored that the lot was coming
from up north over by where the

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airfield was. A lot of the older
folks who lived through the Cold

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War figure that's probably what
the target was lots of silos on

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the ground by the airfield. And
pine Falls was just bullet holes

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with from an automat. The mayor
got on the phone called up

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Kalafatis where the Onassis
dairy plant was to see how they

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were doing. The phones just
whistled like electric wind

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through an old house. He said it
down and chewed his cheek for a

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while and then assembled a team
to head out into the world and

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check on 16 men we never heard
from again. Their truck just

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stopped on the highway as soon
as they reached the exit the

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town. Six people working in the
farm and fresh saw it they just

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stopped moving like their truck
had turned into a Polaroid. The

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first real question asked when
the strange meeting at town hall

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started wasn't about what had
just happened. It wasn't about

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the phones and it certainly
wasn't about the truck no one

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knew had already been sent.
First question when the room

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finally got quiet was from
Jessica, who was sitting at the

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head of the band Falls City
Council. No one had asked her to

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go up but Jessica was known for
her initiative and though young

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people the town tended listen
when she spoke. Jessica had a

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good heart the camera you could
just tell by listening. It was

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an odd questions he asked why
did we all know it was Matt

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Wilcox it stopped it and nobody
really had an answer. Matt

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wasn't much of a man to speak
of. He worked down to the auto

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shop but he didn't know much
about cars so he was low on the

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totem pole. He was married to a
woman the same 40 years named

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Janet. Janet MC Hagen's Wilcox
was a nice woman hard to hear

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and had no patience for
drinkers. She took the stage

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next and Jessica letter. I woke
up same as everyone else. And I

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knew Matt had done it. Somehow I
knew she Paul's shaking her head

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and pantomime and how her hand
had reached over to where her

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husband had been in bed. He
wasn't there though. I don't

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know where he went. He's up on
the hill. Jerry Bivins kid said

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Jerry Jr. was 17 sitting in the
town hall with his girl Tawny

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they didn't say much else. Most
folks were able to deduce which

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hill they meant The old quarry
lip where the high school kids

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like to go, if you understand
what I mean. Half the town went

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up there, then to that man on
the Hill drunk, stopping that

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spark from swallowing us all. He
had half a bottle of paint

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thinner whiskey in his hand and
a receipt from the SIR gas a lot

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where he had made the purchase a
few days prior, he was sitting

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on a stump with red eyes staring
as hard as he could into the

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burn in face of frozen nuclear
holocaust with pice naked down

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his trouser legs. Janet
ordinarily would have started

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dealing then, finding out that
Matt was drinking out in the

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world without telling her that
she wasn't mad. Then she just

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sort of looked at him with a
patient kind of love and then up

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at what he was looking at. He
was rocking a little and talking

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the words to an old Hank
Williams song.

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car headlights were pulling
around him, spilling on his back

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and then to the side as they
parked behind him and whole

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families got out to look up at
the sky. It took the better part

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of an hour to talk him down off
that hill. Someone brought him

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blanket and others asked him a
lot of questions. Eventually, he

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agreed to stop staring at the
thing in the sky. He explained

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later that he had thought the
thing would start moving again

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if he blinked too much or looked
away. But he had been wrong. And

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after everyone got him a fresh
set of clothes and enough coffee

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to sober up a little. He said
that he had the biggest headache

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of his life. And everyone let
him sleep. hours past many

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hours, the sun never rose, more
groups were assembling, thinking

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about leaving town and going out
into the world to see if

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explanations can be found there.
The television channels or

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showed a single frozen image on
every channel, constant streams

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of the same tone of sound. The
internet didn't work. Phones,

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reception was fine all over. But
no information came in or went

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out. The rest of the world at
least his pond Falls was

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concerned had simply stopped and
mid stroke. And so they could

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see the world wasn't offering
them anything in the way of

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answers. Without facts the
town's people shared words. At

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the end of the day, the mayor's
office got a wind of a second

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group, Robbie hicker and his
boys had set out to leave town

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on foot with raffles in hand for
anyone who tried to stop them.

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They were found in a field like
scarecrows standing still with

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their guns. I stayed like that.
For them. Time had stopped. No

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one went near them. Matthew got
a lot of visits that week. Work

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resumed in the farms. But that
first month we mostly stuck to

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the fields well inside the
perimeter of town. No one knew

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for sure how far existence went,
how far you could go without

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getting stuck. After that first
month, the grass kept growing

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and we use that to indicate
where we could and couldn't go.

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Signs went up around the edge of
town. Don't go in the short

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grass. Hard to say why the grass
kept growing. But Marge over the

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flower shop notice that all her
sunflowers reporting to the big

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orange thing in the sky like it
was the sun. There was no day or

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not just that no orange rain in
whatever light we could get

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down. And the plants loved it.
And sound Dr. Mackel from the

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university guests that Tom
hadn't stopped exactly as best

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as he could tell. There was
still some kind of transfer of

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energy happening just at a rate
so slow enough that the nuclear

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explosion was not harmful more
like a sunrise. When we ask what

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mount a call is something like
this, he shrugged angry. I don't

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know Judith, why don't you get a
PhD in thermal engineering and

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tell me the boys in the town
started up hobbyists digging

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arrows in the sky. After about a
month most of the birds have

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disappeared. Well, they didn't
disappear. There's a big black

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Halo ring around the perimeter
of town. funerals for men who

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stopped in the field never
happened. Dalton Fuller, a

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greasy spoon line cook who was
the first one to ask to be taken

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down after his heart attack.
With pong balls cut off in the

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hospital wasn't looking good. He
asked to be taken to the park

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the edge of town and that's
where we pushed his wheelchair

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down the hill until it stopped
and the short grass him with his

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arms up like he was riding a
roller coaster. Dalton fuller

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never died where we see it. A
year past lack that laugh in the

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town was simple, but in its own
way, we were still living

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through the end of the world
just not one we had pictured. We

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had to live on our own, make
what we needed. Matt stop work

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in the auto mechanic shop after
it closed and he started working

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in the soil and his property and
grow food for him and Janet

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Wilcox never had any kids. Never
the time for it. Gear started

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slipping past us and bit by bit
the old world faded from memory.

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Whenever exactly forgot about
it, but after a few years, it

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came up a lot less in
conversation. Matt Wilcox got

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older, old enough that his eyes
started turning yellow and his

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doctor told the rest of us his
liver was showing signs of

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giving up.

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He'd been drinking the whole
time quietly by himself. He

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never bothered anyone. So we
never really noticed. And so the

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second meeting in the history
upon Falls was called to discuss

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Matt Dennett didn't go to that
one. Matt Stein, Mayor Jessica

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said, older now. Doctor says it
could be next month or a year

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from now. Now ordinarily, I
wouldn't consider it our

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business but there's that fire
in the sky and I'd like to just

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talk to you and see what we all
have to say about it. What's

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gonna happen when he dies?
Someone said, and did matter who

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anybody could have said. We were
all thinking it. He doesn't have

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to die. Another said. The dine
relax statues. Immortal at the

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edge of town, where they stood
in the fields called mid stride

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as they backed away, wave and
inward. There was a circle of

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mall around us all dressed in
their Sunday finest. No one ever

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had to die. Believe it and Matt
go off and find that hill while

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everyone else in town figured
out what to do with him. He sat

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there yellow eyed staring at the
sun. What half a bottle of fine

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Scotch in his hand. When the
sheriff found him the first

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thing he did was feel the drunk
snack for a pulse. Matt Wilcox

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was dead by the sun, our new old
son never said never grew and

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swallow us up and just stood
burnin over us with a cool

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forever morning. Maybe someday
Tom will start again. But I

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don't know. And I don't know
what will happen when it does. I

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know the bomb will finish where
to started all those years ago.

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And whoever tries to find out
what happened upon falls will

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find a crater same as you'd
expect. I'd say they find more

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bodies than usual buried in the
cemetery. But no one's visited

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in years. And without new
deaths, there's no need for

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headstones. I'd still get a kick
out of some politician somewhere

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talking to America mourn in our
town publicly say in every life

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in our town was snuffed out in
an instant. Maybe he's right. Or

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maybe our towel just go on
forever in this doomed footprint

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the story reminded me of an
episode of The Twilight Zone

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called a little peace and quiet.
I recommend you check it out if

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you get the chance. If you'd
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00:13:48,120 --> 00:13:50,910
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00:13:50,910 --> 00:13:54,660
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Sprite. You can check out more
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All written works are a property
of their respective authors,

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00:14:02,490 --> 00:14:05,100
municipalities and mixed media
production all rights reserved

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00:14:05,130 --> 00:14:10,530
unless otherwise stated. Have a
good one, folks. We'll see you

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00:14:10,530 --> 00:14:11,190
next time.