It is hard for me to imagine some future day when that day 67 years past will cease to captivate human imagination.
To all of the human beings whose fates were altered that day; in other words, to all of us: wherever we go, whatever we do, let us go and do it seeking peace, with the understanding that sometimes the world must be wrested back from those who would hold it in ignorance and malice.
(...Louis opens his eyes and smiles at the audience, raising his arms out of the ice troughs like a prophet.)
SLOTIN: The time is come.
DREAMER A: It's June the 6th, 1944.
DREAMER B: I'm in an amphibious landing craft headed straight for Omaha Beach.
DREAMER A: Normandy.
SLOTIN: Time is come.
DREAMER A: As I look around at the other soldiers puking up their last rations--
DREAMER B: As the LC bounces across the channel's heavy chop.
SLOTIN: I realize a strange thing.
BLACK SOLDIER: I am a black man.
SLOTIN: I have always been black.
DREAMER A: From Arkansas maybe, or the Carolinas.
DREAMER B: I am the only Negro on this boat.
BLACK SOLDIER: Hell, I'm the only Negro in this entire invasion.
DREAMER A: And even with the shells lofting columns of sea and spray all around us.
DREAMER B: And even with the shore looming closer and closer, and the thrill and terror pumping so thick I can taste it.
DREAMER A: I have to laugh.
SLOTIN: Because I realize there's been some mistake:
BLACK SOLDIER: This ain't my war.
DREAMER A: The boat hits the beach.
DREAMER B: We can hear the bullets clanging on the other side of the steel landing ramp.
DREAMER A: And then down it drops.
DREAMER B: And we can see machine gun fire churning the water in front of us to a wall of froth.
BLACK SOLDIER: Ain't nobody stepping into that. But when I turn round, the Navy skipper's pointing his sidearm Colt at us. So what do we do but go? White boys falling all around me. Some cut to pieces by the guns, some just drowning under their gear. But I move forward. Kraut bullets just won't hit me. Ain't my war.
I got me a Browning automatic rifle and I start pumping her good into anything that moves up on them cliffs. And then I'm up the cliffs. I leave all them white boys behind dying and such down on the beach. Ain't got time for that. Ain't my war. Every lousy Kraut blue-eyed bastard I find, I just jerk back on my B.A.R. and pump some lead in his face.
"Damn, Fritz. Sorry now, ain't ya? Should a thought a that sooner, hunh? Now get down in hell where you belong.
DREAMER A: And then I'm running.
DREAMER B: Running ahead.
BLACK SOLDIER: I ain't got time for this. This ain't my war.
SLOTIN: I run past Paris.
BLACK SOLDIER: Sorry, Ladies. Much as I'd like, ain't no time for that now.
DREAMER A: I run forward.
SLOTIN: Past the Maginot line.
DREAMER B: Into Germany.
BLACK SOLDIER: And I kill Krauts when I see 'em, but ain't wasting no time neither.
DREAMER A: I'm running.
DREAMER B: Past Berlin.
SLOTIN: Past Hitler.
BLACK SOLDIER: Ain't got time for that lousy little shit-ass now. Let 'em eat his own lead.
DREAMER A: I'm running.
DREAMER B: I'm into Poland now.
DREAMER A: And then I'm there.
SLOTIN: Auschwitz.
BLACK SOLDIER: And damned if it don't look just like "Gone With The Wind". Big ol' plantation with big ol' pearly white columns. And who you think's sitting up on that porch, just a-sipping on a julep but the Doctor himself.
SLOTIN: Mengele.
DREAMER A: Kill him.
DREAMER B: Kill him now.
BLACK SOLDIER: Yeah. Now we got somebody worth killing. I stroll on up them front steps drop my BAR from my shoulder and get set to shoot, only the gun ain't a gun. Just a damned stick.
DREAMER A: A yardstick.
DREAMER B: A slide rule the size of a yardstick.
DREAMER A: It's hard to say.
DREAMER B: It’s all pretty hard to say.
SLOTIN: At any rate, Mengele smiles. He gets up, and from his vest pocket draws a very small knife.
DREAMER A: A scalpel--
BLACK SOLDIER: And cuts me open.
SLOTIN: To find the foolish Canadian Jew inside.
BLACK SOLDIER & SLOTIN (together): Louis.
BLACK SOLDIER: And right then and there it dawns on me--
DREAMER A & DREAMER B (together): We got trouble.
(Blackout.)
BLACK SOLDIER & SLOTIN (in darkness): Louis... we need to talk, Louis.
From Louis Slotin Sonata
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