UXB is an UnExploded Bomb.

That’s a nightmare.

It’s also a TV series from way back. British. Probably Masterpiece Theatre. We saw it on PBS. It was good. It had famous actors. They were good. That’s why they’re cutting the funding.

The bomb squad came in like professionals and got everybody out of the way.

They were generally little known and underappreciated but not by the neighborhood who knew they were being saved.

They got out their tools and cut the wire. Every episode. They looked inside the bomb to figure it out.

Sometimes they had a bomb manual or a chart. Sometimes they only had a notion from bombs before or someone’s memory. Sometimes they only had a hunch.

That’s when the episode got really tense and strong. You started to sweat along with the actors and wanted to look away but couldn’t. Someone would yell, “Cut the wire!”

The series lasted for maybe two seasons, and then went away.

The audience was exhausted by then and they ran out of bombs to unexplode.

So I was surprised to find me in the middle of unexploding a bomb.

I’ve defused situations before. I taught school for years. Forty years.

This time it seemed like a nightmare, a bad dream, and so real it probably wasn’t. Wasn’t real. Was a bad dream.

Because people kept saying, “Cut the wire!”

I don’t know why I was the one holding the cutters because I never felt qualified. But so often I’d have to do it anyway because no one else would.

Then the bomb started ticking. There were wheels turning, timers timing, lots of wires.

The voices around me started to argue.

“Cut the red wire!”

“No, that’s too obvious! Cut the blue wire!”

“No! The people who made the bomb know we’re smarter and would dismiss the obvious red, so cut the red because they think they can outsmart us.”

I looked around. The bomb was big. I was in a house. The walls were white and closing in.

I cut the red wire.

Everything stopped. The ticking clock. My heart skipped a beat.

I decided I would try to wake up and figure out why I had this nightmare dream.

Obviously it was because of the world.

There were red wires all around, and the world was ready to explode.

The wire cutters were in my hand and I started cutting.

I decided to stay awake.

There’s so much work to do.