Naya Chopra

Clang! The sound of the pale blue metal drawer closing echoed through the empty room. I sat there gazing at the opened page in front of me from the washed, brown leather journal. My jaw gaped. I could not believe what I was looking at. 

****

July 17, 1945 (one day after the Trinity test)

It had been 24 hours and I was still awestruck. At precisely 5:30 am yesterday, on the final test of all our efforts, the black asphalt that once surrounded the base of its tower vaporized into light green sand. “It” being “The Gadget”, the name of the world’s first ever atomic bomb. Yesterday marked the dawn of the nuclear age and mankind was never going to be the same again. 

I brushed my hands across my simple blue cotton dress, attempting to get any wrinkles out before stepping out of the quaint hut. Most people had already left the Trinity site the previous day, but I opted to stay till the morning as I wanted more time to pack up my things. 

As I stepped out, a brisk breeze wafted through my hair, but it no longer felt the same as it did the days prior. The air used to be light here, fresh and brisk, but now it was heavy and I could not help but think that was because of yesterday’s events. We had been working toward this day for 27 months; countless sleepless nights, hours of tireless work, and it all led to this one singular moment. 

I continued to walk across the site, my black suitcase in hand. The once bustling Los Alamos Laboratory campus now seemed eerily deserted. I was one of about 20 scientists left. I stepped into the main building and dropped my suitcase at the front desk, planning to pick it up later before my flight. This building was by far the most modern on the entire site. It consisted of clinical gray flooring with glass sliding doors. The front portion of the building was always lit with natural light from the sun, but it was also the only part of the lab with windows. The other portion of the building was where I spent most of my time, the laboratory. It was the biggest lab I had ever been in, filled with silver metal tables and armless rolling chairs. 

The same heavy wind blew past me for a second time as I stepped out of the main building, once again reminding me of yesterday’s events. From the beginning, we were already forced to deviate away from the plan. The launch of “The Gadget” was originally set for 4:00 am, but due to rain, it was decided that its launch would be pushed back to 5:30. At 5:00, we were told to go to our assigned shelter. We, the team, had taken every precaution possible to make sure each and every one of us was safe during the bomb’s detonation. The closest stationed shelters were over 10,000 yards out in each direction. 

It was almost as if I blacked out during the bomb’s launch. All I could remember was hearing the countdown over the loudspeaker in the shelter: “5…4…3…2…1”, and then seeing the orange and yellow fireball explode over the monitors. It stretched up toward the sky and spread like a disease, expanding into a mushroom shape. The huge cloud of red and gray smoke filled the air, engulfing everything in its path. Hot ash and dust were flying everywhere. It was an image no mind could ever forget. An image of pure man-made destruction. 

My mind eventually drifted away from the bomb and focused on walking forward. But then, suddenly, I heard a voice coming from behind me. 

“Anna! Anna!” I turned around to look at the person calling out my name and was met by a short-haired blonde. 

“Donna! How are you?” I asked her, trying to make conversation. Donna had been working with me and Robert since day one. She was our project manager, so all the work we did had to pass through her before it was sent to anyone superior. Speaking of Robert: I should find out from her where he is, I thought to myself. When I woke up this morning, he was not in the hut and I had not seen him last night. I assumed that he had decided to spend some time alone, as he sometimes did, and had taken the earlier flight. But still, I just wanted to make sure I was right. “Oh, also, I meant to ask you. Have you seen Robert at all today?” As soon as the question left my mouth, her once beaming smile disappeared completely, replacing it instead was a soft frown. 

“Oh uh um-” she stuttered. Why was she acting like this? Did something happen to him last night? 

“I don’t know how to say this,” she offered, “but he was let go.”

“Let go?” I questioned, “What do you mean he was let go?”

“I had been noticing he wasn’t staying on task and kept writing in that journal of his, so I had a talk with the rest of the project managers and we decided to send him home early.”

My heart sank. Why had he not cared to tell me? He had just left without saying a word. We had been working together for over two years now and not even a simple goodbye. How could he? 

“Oh, I understand,” I said with a strained voice, still unable to comprehend how he could leave so abruptly like that. “Anyways, I’ll see you later, Donna.”

“See you on the flight, Anna,” she responded as she turned around and headed in the direction of the main building. I, too, turned around, but started walking in the opposite direction back toward our hut, or my hut, I should say. 

Once I reached the building, I walked up the creaky wooden stairs and unlocked the door. Despite having already dropped off my suitcase, I still wanted to do one last once-over before leaving, knowing me there was definitely something I had forgotten to pack. 

I checked my room first. I opened each drawer in my dresser, sticking my hand into each one, rubbing the smooth surface to make sure it was empty. I then checked the nightstand, my desk, my closet, and then lastly, the bathroom. So far so good, everything was empty. I had not brought much with me to Los Alamos. It was not like anyone was looking at the way I was dressed, and anyway, most of the time I was wearing a lab coat. Also, with the war, everything was so heavily rationed and there were very few options to choose from so I brought only simple, basic, comfortable clothing. 

The bus that was to take the remaining people left on-site to the airport was coming in about 15 minutes, so I still had some time to kill. I looked around the hut, my eyes scanning the dark, wooden walls with absolutely nothing on them. I do not know why I never decided to decorate the walls like some of the other scientists did. My eyes looked over the door to my room and then the door to his. I should go in, I impulsively thought to myself before immediately shuddering the idea away. 

Robert was always the type to stick to himself. Despite working with him for so long, I still felt like I knew so little about him. In fact, I had never even been inside his room. I stood there, in the middle of the hut, for a few minutes debating with myself if I should. 

“Why not?” I finally said out loud to myself before walking straight to Robert’s door, twisting the small brass doorknob, and finally seeing his room for the first time. 

I do not know what else I was expecting but when I opened the door, in front of me stood a completely empty room, almost identical to what mine looked like now. I guess he must have packed up before he left. Just like my room, there was a small blue metal desk in the back right corner, a dresser on the left, and a small window sitting above the desk. I sat down in his desk chair, the coldness of the metal shocked my uncovered skin from my sleeveless dress. 

I stared out his window, seeing nothing but other huts and dull-colored grass. The sky was a pale shade of blue and there were a few clouds scattered here and there. I reached up, easing out of my seat, and popped open the window, the crisp smell of the air was refreshing and exactly what I needed. 

As I sat back down in the chair, a half-opened drawer in the desk caught my attention. My curiosity getting the best of me, I fully opened the drawer and was shocked to see its contents. It was Robert’s journal. The thing he carried with him at all times, I could not recall a single moment that I saw him without it. He just forgot it? I thought to myself. That seems so unlike him. 

I ran my hands along the spine of the journal, touching each individual seam that was stitched so perfectly in the smooth, brown leather. As I admired the journal, I noticed a bookmark that was attached to the spine. It was marked on a page right near the end of the journal. I shouldn’t look, it’s his personal property. If he ever found out that I opened his journal he would kill me. These thoughts were furiously flooding my brain. But he writes everything in here. Maybe I can finally find out something about him. Maybe I can figure out why he had been behaving so strangely these past few weeks. 

Just as it had previously, my curiosity got the best of me and I opened the journal to the bookmarked page. Robert’s messy handwriting was written all over in rich blue ink. I squinted my eyes to attempt to understand his words and diagrams, and once I did, some of his past conversations began to make sense. It was not until we were a few months into the project that Robert started drifting away from the work. It was almost as if the closer we got to the finish line, the more distant he seemed to get. Anytime we talked about having reached a milestone, he got pensive and did not seem to share in our excitement. 

As I flipped through the pages of his journal, my jaw dropped completely. I was in pure shock, complete disbelief, and was utterly confused. How could this be possible? How could Robert, the quiet, introverted Robert that I had lived with for the past two years, have figured out a way to neutralize an atomic bomb? There was absolutely no way. 

****

Two hours later, on the flight back to Boston. 

On the bus ride to the airport, sitting outside my gate, boarding the plane, every moment since I discovered his journal, my mind was racing trying to figure out exactly what I had just read. I did not know what to think. On the one hand, I regretted opening it. I wished that in that moment, for once, I had chosen not to be nosy and not let my curiosity get the best of me. However, on the other hand, there was a part of me that was almost relieved to have seen it, even if I still could not wrap my head around as to why. Why would I be relieved to have found something that goes against everything we had been striving toward? But then again, this could change the course of everything. If what Robert had discovered was true and it actually worked, we would not have to live under the shadow of the atomic bomb. We would not have to fear the mass destruction of the world. But what if it didn’t work?

I adjusted myself in the narrow aircraft seat, trying to position my body in a way that I could get some sleep. I stared outside at the sunset, one of the perks of sitting in the window seat, and admired the orange hues of the setting sun. I tried to silence the abundance of questions that were flooding my brain and instead began to focus on the shining streak of gold that was cutting straight through the sky. It was coupled with stripes of pink, purple, and blue, all combining beautifully to make the perfect image to fall asleep to. 

My eyes slowly closed and my mind drifted back to Robert. The person who had been with me every day for the past two years. The person who, despite not knowing anything about, I felt like I knew everything about. Now that I knew his secret, everything about him made sense: his guard, his silence, his independence. I understood everything, but I wished he could just know that I understood. 

Right at that moment, as I tried to sleep, I thought back to the words Robert would often say, that none of us at the lab took very seriously. You can never defeat evil with violence. Only love is the answer. I woke up startled and turned to Robert sitting next to me, wanting to tell him I finally understood. 

But he wasn’t there. 

–

Naya Chopra lives in New Jersey and is about to begin her Junior year of high school. She finds joy in dance, participating on a competitive team, and cherishes moments with her friends. She is one of two siblings, having an older brother, and is excited to put her writing out into the world.