"When The Nightmare Comes True"


Flash Fiction submission after September 11, 2001...
(submitted to Authonomy - FFF - October --, 2011)

I was born in 1952. Half a century has passed and a lot has happened. Dreams and nightmares do go hand in hand.

I remember a time when my family would gather around our radio and listen to not only music, but radio talk shows, a mystery theater, game shows and news. We didn’t have television until the early 1960’s. Then it was only black and white and only ten channels if you were lucky. Color didn’t come for a few more years. Now some forty years later, we can connect with events around the world as they happen. It is a dream for some, to have contact all over the world. A nightmare for others, to see the world for what it is.

It was a time when vaccines were new, administered to protect us from fatal diseases. Many children were vaccinated for smallpox, which left a large round, ugly scar. Fortunately, science found a way to eradicate this deadly germ in the 1970’s. The vaccine was no longer needed and children born after its demise didn’t need the unsightly scarring vaccination. Now, in the 21st century, with germ warfare a constant threat, the possibility for its return exists. For all those born in the last thirty years, who have not been vaccinated, it would be a nightmare on a catastrophic scale.

In the late 1950’s, the space program began. President John F. Kennedy foretold of our space dreams in his inaugural speech in 1961. With the Mercury flights at the helm, John Glenn was the first man to orbit the earth in February 1962. By July 1969, the first men had successfully flown to, landed on and returned safely from the moon. As the exploration grew, so did the equipment. In 1981, a new phase began with the introduction of the space shuttle. It was nothing like the other spacecraft. It had to be carried into space aboard immense rocket boosters. Once it reached orbit, it was on its own. Literally falling back to earth as a glider, this program was a success, until January 28, 1986 at 11:39 a.m. During liftoff, 80+ seconds into the flight, the space shuttle Challenger blew up as the world watched in disbelief. This couldn’t happen, we all thought, but it did. The dream of the seven aboard, their families, their friends and the world turned into a nightmare in an instant.

I grew up in a country that was never attacked from abroad. We knew of the dangers elsewhere, but they would never come here. We had oceans to protect us. We had fallout shelters with yellow and black signs hanging by the doors. The bells at school would ring, signaling our routine air raid drills. However, nothing ever happened. It couldn’t, not here. As we participated in conflicts all over the world, the news was brought back by the ever-present television cameras. We were lulled into a false sense of security … invincibility … until that late summer day when the oceans disappeared.

September 11, 2001 - We had been attacked on our own soil by those from another country. Unexpected, yes! Maybe we should have seen it coming. I know my life changed that day. Everything I was taught and had believed all my life had vanished. I didn’t know anyone that died that day, yet something inside me did. Everything I was brought up to believe was gone.

All I can hope for now, is that future generations are given the true picture. All the facts are put before them, so they are not walking a path with blinders on. Don’t believe it could never happen to you … it can!

Dreams are wonderful; nightmares are filled with horror. They are no doubt two sides of the same coin.


© 2003 Gretchen Steen