Page 50 - 1962-63

48
Essay Contest
WINGS OF THE MORN
Sweat oozed from the tensed brow. An impatient palm unconsciously smeared the beads of moisture. Onward about the face of the clock crept the second hand. Furtive scrambllngs accented the forbidding quiet. Knowing hands seemingly detached from any body, twisted dials marked by technical lettering; skilled eyes scanned panels of meters, banks of multicoloured lights, and walls of humming machinery. Not a word was delivered from those strangely determined lips.
Human silence was punctuated by the whirr of air conditioning machinery as it cleansed the air of minute impurities. Steel rasped upon concrete as the outer door opened; well-lubricated hinges swung the seven-ton doors inward silently as a hunchbacked figure entered that retreat. A solitary word erupted from the depths of his throat and grated upon his dry lips. . ."Begin". . .
Men moved as part of a huge machine, obedient to the needs of the circuits before them. Check upon check readied the complex mechanism for duty. Tension electrified the air in that outpost, that beachhead of civilization. In the distant metropolis, each warm body, pulsing with the blood of life, was aware that from this concrete "pillbox" would come a decision which would shape their lives and might even end their existence. The group within the control room felt the weight of their coming decision.
Suddenly an electron-scanner blipped its ominous message! The choice was removed! No longer did these figures toil in anticipation of possible tragedy. On the scanner screen, from the depths of the universe, the first signs of attack were visible--the blastoff of a reconnaissance fleet. The men became automatons, powered by the force of sheer necessity. Final preparations occupied the space of forty-five minutes. Protective blocks were removed, switches closed. The moment approached. The hunch-backed man approached the gang of switches. His face was etched with lines of age and, perhaps, indecision. His eyes bore the hurt of a brother's discarded love. He ran a hand nervously over his bald skull, pausing at the few strands of hair, coursing the sides and back of his prominent head. Grim resolve forced his lips into a tight, white line. He turned to the row of contacts on his left; his arm stretched forward to brush over its surface. He touched a contact. A relay closed. Two panels at the surface of the planet slid apart and a lethal point began its slow ascent to surface level. The men in the bunker avoided each other's gaze.
Above the soil, the weapon assumed its tragic stance, nose straining towards the heavens, bowels braced with ultimate destruction. The weathered hand extended towards the farthest switch, a switch set off from the others and painted a dull crimson. Crimson like the blood it would liberate! The aged man faltered in his deadly gesture. A quavering voice questioned, "It is the only way" It seems so inhuman!" The weary form replied, "I wish there were an alternative••. You men know only from books the events in which I have taken part. I was part of the first Group! •••No, there is no other way." With those words he depressed that total switch. A relay closed. A valve opened. A rocket lived. A people died. A roar rent the air and, as the stunned observers looked on, the rocket leapt into space, seeking its appointed place to flare with the brilliance of a super-nova and then consume the planet before it. . • .The stooped figure seemed to bend a little more in leaving the control room. One thought pursued a ragged path through his distraught consciousness. One phrase beat upon the haggard man's sensibility.
The Mother Planet gone, no longer gracing the universe•.• Nemesis visited upon it•..He had destroyed the Earth.
David Brown XI A
Senior 1st