Third World Writer

The Sixth of August is a sleepy Day.

His alarm goes off at 5:30 in the morning, but he switches it off for a few more minutes of shut-eye, and ends up sleeping for an hour and a half. By the time he finally gets up, he has to wait in line for a bathroom he now shares with five other Days. It isn’t a long wait, but if he had gotten up just a little bit later, it would have been. He takes a mental note to wake up earlier tomorrow. And next year.

It takes him two hours to get to the office, and for the first time in a long while he is forty minutes late. He takes his seat, turns on his computer and does his job.

Suddenly, it is 1881, and a boy is born. The Sixth of August watches him, weighs him, and decides his destiny. The boy is named Alexander Flemming, and as a result of sheer chance and carelessness, he will discover penicillin, revolutionalize the world of medicine, and save millions of lives by accident.

The Sixth of August checks his watch. It is 1890. Convicted murderer William Kemmler is sitting on a chair, his arms and legs strapped, his face covered. An audience is gathered before him. A generator is charged. “Do it properly,” Kemmler says. “I’m in no hurry.” The switch is thrown. Kemmler is the first man to be executed by electric chair. It takes two shocks of up to two thousand volts to kill him, and even then it takes him eight minutes to die.

With a tap of his keyboard, the Sixth of August is back in his office, staring at a computer screen. A birth and a death. That’s enough for one morning. Time for lunch.

He eats lunch with some friends near the office, talking about nothing in particular, anything to distract him for what needed to be done later that afternoon. He had the terrible task of cutting a deep wound into the conscience of humanity, a task he would very much not rather have.

Back in the office, the Sixth of August takes a deep breath, and taps a command on his keyboard. It is 1945. He finds himself in Hiroshima, Japan. An air-raid warning is issued as American formation of planes was sighted overhead. Civilians run to shelters, but because the American force was small, no fighters engaged them, and the air-raid alert was lifted. Fifteen minutes later, the Americans drop “Little Boy”, and 600 meters directly above Shima Surgical Clinic, it detonates. 70,000 people are killed instantly. Those who survive the explosion awake to a decimated city, dead or dying loved ones, and an entire world destroyed. Ultimately, more than 140,000 people die, the overwhelming majority of them civilians.

The Sixth of August shakes his head. There is a second bomb, a second city, a second reaping of innocent souls. It is scheduled for three days later, in Nagasaki, where a number of Hiroshima’s survivors have fled.

Click click. Close. That’s enough killing for today. Let some other Day handle the rest.

Before the end of the day, the Sixth of August liberates a few countries, creates the Internet, cuts down the world’s oldest tree, warns US President Bush about al Qaeda’s plans to attack the country, and continues the daily cycle of life and death. By 6:40, it is time to go home.

Stopping briefly for two Jumbo Burger Machine burgers (barbecue sauce, no ketchup, no mayo), he waits in line for the train. It is an uncharacteristically long queue (the longest he’s seen, no kidding), so he reads a few chapters of Murakami’s After Dark while waiting. Gaiman’s Fragile Things is too heavy to hold in one hand, so that one he leaves for home. For later.

He totally forgets that he should be studying for his Sun Certification for Java Programmer exam tomorrow.

It is now seven minutes past midnight. The Sixth of August’s day has ended.

Goodnight.

—-

[p.s. This is what happens when all you do at the office is browse Wikipedia all day.]
[p.p.s. Thanks for the books, zee and Red!]
[p.p.p.s. I should really study now, hehe.]