Nuclear King

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There used to be a tall obelisk at the centre of town, but it had toppled over long ago. The stone monument had cracked at the base 4 years after the evacuation; it was only a matter of time. Some of its remains lay in the empty concrete husk that used to be a lake. The King’s Lake they’d called it, back when it was filled to the brim with 50 square metres of clear, sparkling water, the obelisk in the centre like a finger pointing to heaven. But the finger was gone now, as was the Lake.

Other pieces of the obelisk were scattered across the old cobblestone roads of the town square. The furthest shard had crushed a parked car, rusty and antiquated even then. Broken stonework carpeted the streets around the lake; the stones had already been cracked by the vehicles that drove through every day until the disaster.

On the weekends families would park their cars next to the lake to have picnics on what little grass there was. Some even laid their towels upon the tarmac, such was their love for the Lake. They’d walk round the water, or visit the shops and stalls across the road. They would bask underneath the obelisk and make up names for it. Once they’d settled on calling it the King, the name of the lake followed soon after.

You could almost hear the babbling water, the eager voices and the boisterous sounds of joy and merriment. But they were all gone now, and in their place was crumbling silence. A decaying shell of dust and debris, dissolving into the timeless breeze.

One of the most famous shops in the town had been a bakery. It stood before the King’s Lake across the road. Hundreds of people would flock to the bakery every day; everyone wanted their delicious bread, their scrumptious croissants, their mouth-watering sausage rolls. They never got old. Before heading to work, the men would stop by to buy a bun before commuting to their offices, or the local school, or even the power station by the outskirts.

There had been a bright young man that would stand outside the bakery to lure in customers - the owner’s son. From dawn 'til dusk he’d stand at the shopfront, holding that flashy yellow “Come in!” sign in his arms and calling, “It’s a beautiful day for buns!”, “Freshly baked bread today with fresh flour from the mill!”, “Make your day more than run-of-the-mill!” and other fantastical phrases. Some supposed that he just loved to sing and shout. But he did his job and did it well; his constant pacing and jumping had worn away the spot he’d always stood, and seven years later you could still see the dent in the ground.

The bakery was a different story. The building’s roof had caved in, and the outdoor chairs and tables were overturned and rusty. The windows and doors were shards and pieces, but they paled in comparison to what lay within.

Lying on the grimy floor, sitting on the rusty chairs and leaning against the sooty walls were skeletons. Human skeletons, having a tea party for the dead. No one had wanted to touch them, for fear of catching whatever disease they had died of. Looking into the other decrepit shops and houses around the town square would display the same, horrifying, scene: the bones of civilians, as quiet as the wind, still lying in the same positions they had drawn their last breaths in.

After having a picnic by the King’s Lake, talking with strangers about the picture perfect weather, walking across the shiny cobblestone road to buy a sausage roll from the bakery and sitting down on a stool, you could finally relax and take a good look into the distance. There, in the background by the river, would stand the town’s nuclear power plant. He was the true King; the one who would refill the King’s Lake; who had given everyone their jobs; who had given the town all its power. He was the one who had made all that was possible in the city possible.

No one knew why the power station malfunctioned that day, but what national television could say with any certainty was that it had contaminated the river with toxic waste. There was nothing downstream, save for the mill. The mill that ground its fresh flour. The flour that provided the bakery with its wonderful food. The food that everyone in town ate, not knowing that the delicious bread, scrumptious baguettes and mouth-watering sausage rolls were all laced with the darkest of all poisons. They never got old.

The first death was the owner’s son. How could he not have been, with all the food he could eat for free? But no lunch is ever free. He smiled and sang that day, stifling his nausea and sweating off his headaches. Then all of a sudden he coughed twice and toppled over. That afternoon a third of the population, three thousand people, all died.

Evacuations had been staged to prevent further deaths, and now the town was empty. Almost a decade later, the town was forgotten. The King’s subjects fled their kingdom. The King’s streets and roads were abandoned. The King’s shops fell into disrepair. The King’s Lake dried up. The King himself, the obelisk, toppled over. But the true King, the nuclear plant that had cared for and nurtured thousands of people, gave one last thing: silence. Nothing in the town moved; not the squashed car nor the shards of the Obelisk nor the deceased men and women in the bakery. Not even the wind dared utter a word. For the King had spoken by poisoning the river, and none would speak against him. All things had an end, and when the end came, no matter how loud and lively that thing had been, the end would silence everything.

In the end, everything will be silent.

This is a revised version of a story I wrote for an English test paper in 2020.