Turning his head to face the left, Allan looked searchingly
into the gloomy fog, forty yards yonder. A puff of warm breath left his mouth
as he returned to his neutral gaze ahead of him, blankly taking in the adjacent
surroundings of the noiseless street life around him. Before dawn on an
especially chilly winter’s morning, Allan situated himself on the inside of a
frost covered bus shelter, waiting for the 094 bus transit, from Downtown to
Burbank. Only the leaves dancing from a breath of wind along the path in front
of him, accompanied the sharply dressed man as he peered into the nothingness,
silently waiting. Removing his wavering hand from his trench coat pocket, Allan
drew out the Los Angeles Times to
entertain his mind and associate himself into a world of ever evolving
troubles, rising anxiety and political vagueness. Just the solemn news he
needed to start his day.
Date - April 8, 1954. ‘The Far East Game’ blared the front
page news headline. “Inside - President Eisenhower sheds light on the ‘the
domino theory’ that explains the portentous events occurring in the Asian
region,” read the subtitle underneath. “Hmm, something new from the grand old
party,” Allan murmured as he skimmed through the text. Flicking through the
pages he looked up briefly again to see anything of note, but not a scrap of
movement. Lifting his knee onto his other, Allan stretched out the article directly
in front of him, immersing himself in another peripheral world of tension.
Robert
Richards - “Mr President, would you mind commenting on the strategic importance
of Indochina to the free world?” President Eisenhower – “Alongside other
importances such as the broad range of primary sources located in Vietnam and
the ever-increasing number of people under Communist rule which could prove
inimical, broader considerations that have arisen include what you can call the
‘falling domino’ principle. You have a row of dominos set up, you knock one
over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that
it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration
that would have the most profound influences. With a possible sequence of
events including the loss of Indochina, Burma, Thailand and Indonesia, causes
great concern. The geographical position achieved thereby does many things,
with a southward turn to threaten Australia and New Zealand. The possible
consequences of the loss are just incalculable to the free world.”
Slapping the newspaper shut with a hint of muffled distaste,
Allan smacked the paper down with temperance onto the seat beside him. “No,
that’s not true, it can’t be,” he whispered to himself, contemplating with the
challenging idea in his head. Turning his head and twitching his body
involuntarily, Allan struggled to contain his physical movements as the new
unsettling ideas now present in his head tormented his mind. Desperate to
regain control of himself, he subdued his writhing by leaning forward with his
elbows on his knees and placing his hands over his mouth. In-taking his breaths
at a slow and controlled state, he slowly regained control of himself while
stroking his fingers through his hair, under his wide-brimmed beige top hat.
Recollecting his previous thoughts in an organised manner, he persevered to
make a valid assumption of what he’d previously read. “Surely a totalitarian
rule will not pervade the entire South-East Asia and Pacific region. What is
being done to combat such a notion? The French forces are futile, while the
communist powers grow ever stronger,” Allan thought intently. “Oh well, nothing
to be done by me anyway,” he concluded. Looking from left to right again he
noted that the fog had begun to recede, with glimmers of vehicle lights now
observable in the distance. Allan then felt a fleeting moment of peace inside;
stemmed from the realisation of how blessed he was to live in country free of
societal conflict or oppression.
Just as his spirit had be rekindled, it was swept away to the
sound of an ambulances piercing siren. Identifiable over any distance in this
hour of the morning, its noise reverberated through the waking city as an
infrequent reminder of human fragility, whoever and wherever they may be. Allan
listened to the noise fill his mind, the siren, never ceasing. Looking up and
around, he saw the flickering of lights on in the apartments far above him,
they too absorbed by the shrilling noise. Like a heartbeat fading away, so did
the ambulance’s shriek diminish into the silent nothingness all around. Allan
continued to sit, distracting himself from the menial situation through the fickle
thoughts of his own minds making. Often of late, Allan had been thinking to
himself more regularly than normal, letting his thoughts carry him wherever, a
habit which more than once been unproductive. ‘For as he thinketh within
himself, so is he,’ he recalled from Sundays sermon; a constant reminder to
keep his thoughts away from immoral desires and foreboding political issues
around the world. As an enlightened individual, Allan was always keen to
decipher the essence of situations, whatever they may be, yet the societal and
political climate of late had caused him great distress and a troubled mind. Perhaps
the end times were coming. What it the return of Christ was imminent in the
ensuing decades, or what if humanity destroys itself first? Captivating
thoughts like this often crossed his mind and the ever-changing news of late,
like the Eisenhower ‘domino theory’, increased his appetite for attempting to
rationalise and predict the future. Time progressed as Allan envisaged his
thoughts relating to such matters. Alas, the bus driver that would have
normally picked up Allan was now in a better place, as of 6:45am that morning.
Unaware, Allan remained in the bus shelter, waiting in vain for a bus to carry
him off, away, away.
979 words
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