Some scenes in ‘On The Beach’ especially haunt:

the Stanley Kramer black and white movie based

on Neville Shute’s novel of nuclear

apocalypse. The US and Russia –

by accident or design is unclear –

have depopulated each other

and the rest of the northern hemisphere,

except for continuous morse signals,

that make no sense, emanating from

a refinery in San Diego,

Southern California. Perhaps someone

somehow survived the radiation.

 

The nuclear submarine, USS

Sawfish, sequestered by chance in Melbourne

when the cataclysms occurred, leaves port

to find out. As the sub approaches

the West Coast, crew from ‘Frisco ask the captain

if they might view the city through the periscope.

He agrees. The street car rails, in an empty

Market Street, glint. One of the sailors absconds,

swimming ashore to the Ferry Terminal,

knowing he will die from radiation

in days. The vessel sails out of the Bay,

under the Golden Gate Bridge, and down the coast

five hundred miles to San Diego.

 

They find no one alive. The morse equipment,

powered by a hydraulic generator,

is in an abandoned office block.

The morse key has been attached to a half-full

bottle of Coke, which, in turn, is attached

to a drawn blind at an open window.

As the wind blows across the Pacific

so the blind trembles, the Coke bottle jerks,

and the key taps, taps – long, short, short short, long –

depending on the air, which will, in time,

irradiate the global south.