When I was a lad I read Alas, Babylon, a novel by depressed Florida newspaperman Pat Frank, one envisioning much of the Northern Hemisphere crisped by nuclear fire.

In his book, Frank focuses on the before, during, and after, of the fire, as it effects the denizens of a small rural town. In the after, as they struggle to survive in a world suddenly pre-industrial, Frank's people come to refer to that day when came the fire—when, as the mad monk of Patmos did write, "Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come!"—simply as The Day.

As Frank writes:

Always before, important events and dates had been marked in memory with definite labels, not only such days as Thanksgiving, New Year's, and Lincoln's Birthday, but Pearl Harbor Day, D-Day, VE-Day, VJ-Day. This December Saturday, ever after, was known simply as The Day. That was sufficient. Everybody remembered exactly what they did and saw and said on The Day. People unconsciously were inclined to split time into two new periods, before The Day, and after The Day. Thus a man might say, "Before The Day I was an automobile dealer. Now I operate a trotline for catfish." Or a mother might boast, "Oh, yes, Oscar passed his college boards. Of course that was before The Day." Or a younger mother say, "Hope was born after The Day, I wonder about her teeth."

Last night, while in extended conversation with another fire person, I came awake to the fact that we were doing the same. Unconsciously dividing time. The only difference between us, and the people of Frank, was the division was not verbalized as The Day. But instead as The Fire.

As she and I discussed, this and that, in the annals of life, we would date, most each and every event, as occurring before The Fire, or after The Fire. Or, inevitably, what she, or I, or others, had been about, actually in The Fire.

After, rolling back through memory, I realized we had long been doing that. The burned. Wheeling all, around the axis, of The Fire. And understood, we probably always will.

So. I have been here before. It's just that, before, I just read about it. Now, I live it.

[video:https://youtu.be/GytDHQtVTXw]