Fallout

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It was a bright, warm, sticky day in Washington, D.C. Summer wasn’t here yet, but it was less than two weeks away. President Harry Truman turned his swivel chair away from the desk in the Oval Office. For the moment, all the urgent papers demanding his attention could damn well shut up and wait. The green of the White House lawn seemed far more appealing.

Three or four robins hopped across the neatly mown grass. Every so often, one would pause and cock its head to one side, as if listening. Maybe the birds were doing just that. Pretty soon, one of them pecked at something. It straightened with a fat earthworm wrapped around its beak. The worm didn’t want to get eaten. It wiggled and clung. The robin swallowed it anyway, then went back to hunting.

“Go get ’em, boy,” Truman said softly. “Maybe you’ll catch Joe McCarthy next. I can hope, anyhow.”

The robins didn’t know when they were well off. Here in Washington, they didn’t need to worry-too much-about getting blown to hell and gone by an atom bomb. Lord only knew how many robins the Russians had just incinerated in Paris.

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