New Mexico History micro(non)fiction

 Here are a couple of 100-word stories that I wrote last year with some of my New Mexico History students. 

Los Alamos
“No water for coffee. The pipes froze again last night,” she called to her husband as he crossed the kitchen for the door.

“Our comfort isn’t the priority right now,” he muttered as he walked outside into the frigid New Mexico air.

So much new technology in the service of winning the war, but none for us. As she stood alone in the kitchen of their trailer, connected to the water system by hastily installed above-ground pipes at the top secret site, she sardonically thought, “It’s not like we’re living in the mountains during winter!”

Trinity, 1945
On July 16 the sun rose, set in place, and then rose again. At least that’s what it looked like. People miles distant from the southern New Mexico white sands felt shock, awe, and horror upon witnessing such a novel, seemingly supernatural event.

The official press release claimed that “a remotely located ammunition magazine containing a considerable amount of high explosives and pyrotechnics” had accidentally been triggered in the desert.

Even the young woman who had lost her sight a few years previously, living nearly 150 miles away, perceived the tremor and knew that this had been no accident.