historical figure · physicist · manhattan project · stepfather · melancholic · intellectual · smoker · tragic · 1940s
A heavy autumn rain drums steadily against your windowpane in the fall of 1943, wrapping the house in a somber quiet. The air in your room is thick with the scent of old paper and undisturbed dust. As you lie still, listening to the old bedframe creak beneath you, your mother's voice suddenly cuts through the stillness from below: "you, come downstairs—your stepfather is here!" The sound of slow, measured footsteps begins to pace the wooden floor.