Twilight Zone

People laughed on their balconies in the heart of Prypiat

As the sweet April breeze shook the birch trees and pines

A model Soviet city in the shadows of a power plant

With parks, malls and swimming halls, roses and vines

An experiment failed and all control rods were dropped

But the runaway chain reaction could not be stopped

Two explosions, dying light, and hissing blue steam

Radiation spewed into the night sky like a laser beam

When the lurid light of dawn fell on reactor block four

Deep in the rubble they found the burning graphite core

The heroes of the hour put out the flames and cleared the roof

But their wounds never healed and today they lie alone

Sealed in zinc-lined coffins under moss-covered stones

In the silence of the TWILIGHT ZONE

Crackling loudspeakers blared at unsuspecting villagers

As the crumbling empire veiled its secrets and taboos

Hooded soldiers ordered families to line up for the buses

Evil winds carried fallout through Ukraine and Belarus

Puddles tinged yellow-green from the radioactive rains

As rumors spread through Kiev children surged to the trains

Behind the ruined reactor the trees glowed crimson red

They were bulldozed and buried in the land of the dead

The markets were flooded with contaminated goods

Tainted mushrooms and berries from Polysian woods

Helicopters circled and dosimeters went off-scale

Gates of hell had been opened, evil seeds had been sown

Behind barbed wire, barricades, and emergency cones

In the chaos of the TWILIGHT ZONE

Time has stood still in the ring around Chernobyl

While symbols and slogans were laid to rest

As promises rang hollow and people questioned the past

They drew the curtain and opened the window to the west

And lived every day like it was their last

Deadly dust and molten lava filled the steel-frame sarcophagus

Ghostly lights gleamed like demon eyes from skeleton towers

Transformers and cranes loomed in the haze of pollutants

Gutted trucks and tanks rusted in fields of wild flowers

Hotels, squares and stadiums filled with saplings and weeds

Submerged barges lined the river among hyacinths and reeds

Heard the stories and legends legends of grotesque mutations

Pale birds, translucent butterflies, and unnatural vegetation

The melancholy highways were strewn with dolomite sand

Age-old farmers on tractors plowed their grandfather's land

The devil's wheel turned in the abandoned park

Old re-settlers reaped the harvest in a world of their own

Collecting cesium in their flesh, and strontium in their bones

In the half-life of the TWILIGHT ZONE