Lucky

For English Extension One, we have to write a creative piece. During the trial examinations a story came to me that was nothing like my pre-prepared one. Throwing caution to the winds I wrote it. There are segments which are probably inaccurate, or not polished, but there is still something about this story which is important. So I put it here, a place where hardly anyone will read it, and maybe one day I will do something more with it. If I'm lucky.


I was lucky. Lucky to be alive. Lucky to survive while my friend's were crushed to death, their houses burning. Lucky?

We lived on the outer reaches of Hiroshima, as far from what they now call the Atomic Dome as possible while still being a citizen of Hiroshima. That did not mean the bomb did not affect our area; on either side the houses of our neighbours collapsed inwards as though reaching out to one another in a dying attempt to console each other.

Perhaps it was this that prevented our house from doing the same thing. Perhaps the tremors dissipated before they managed to shatter the wooden supports. My husband built this house, perhaps it was his love, hope and strength that held our home together.

Or perhaps we were just lucky.

I stay here, living in this house. I am old now, and nearly dead. "It is not safe here" they told me. Using words like nuclear radiation, hibakusha, as if I knew. Or cared.

I feel as though if I stay here, watching the city rebuild itself from the ashes and blood of our people, one day I will understand why. I walk through Peace Park once a week. I walk down to the museum where tourists and citizens alike join to search for the truth. I stare at those glass doors and sometimes wonder whether I'd learn anything new, whether one day I'll have the strength to face what may or may not be what I need to know. What may or may not be the truth.

Instead I turn and walk the few metres to where the tree stands. I love this tree. Split down the middle when the bomb dropped, it still stands, bound by cloth that keeps it standing, supported by sticks carved from the flesh of it's brothers.

I too am bound by cloth, the very clothes I wear are the fibres that stitch me together. I too am supported by my brethren-the human kind. Every week when I sit here and watch the people walk through this beautiful park, I leech happiness from them, gaining strength from their curiosity and empathy.

The Peace Bell tolls, again and again. The Peace Bell tolls. It is interesting, I find as I watch. The children run gleefully to the bell, using the rope to ring it as they enjoy the sound it produces. The adults watch, and sometimes when they think nobody is watching they reach out as though to touch it, but they hesitate. I have never seen an adult ring the bell that promotes peace.

Down by the Centigraph where the flame burns eternally for Peace, I squint to see the fire in the sunshine. Barely there, it flickers low and blue, the eternal flame of peace seems as doubtful as the adults.

Walking on to the statue of Sasaki, the girl who thought a thousand paper cranes might heal her, I watch people taking photographs. Next to this memorial are glass cases filled with paper cranes from children all over the world.

I read their names, see photographs of school children everywhere leaning of the bombs that dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and wonder whether they have found the truth I am still searching for.

Soon it will be my turn to move on, leaving this world to the children that seem so eager to forgive, but never forget the misdeeds and mistakes of our generation, to join my husband in the home I know he will have built for us in the next life. One just as strong as the one in this world, only next time he will be in it when the bomb drops.

I walk slowly, like the old woman that I am, back to the Atomic Dome near the entrance of the park. Circling it I feel tempted, as always, to climb over the short fence surrounding it and search for the truth amongst the skeleton the war left behind.

Once on the streetcar home, I readjust my kimono, ignoring the stares of tourists and Japanese alike. As I leave the epicenter behind, my attention refocuses, intent only on getting home.

My worst fear is dying in between the two places I call home. On public transport in the middle of nowhere, surround by only questions and no answers.

I feel at my neck for the fine chain that carries a lock of my daughter's and my husband's hair. One of the hibakusha girls, she left for America for an operation that would better her life, but instead ended it. Just another event in my life that has left me wondering, why me? Why am I so lucky?

In my eyes she is getting clearer every day, waiting with her father in our new home for the day I finally die. No longer does she appear to me as the deformed young woman who I last saw being herded onto a plane for America. Now she appears to me as my own sweet little girl with the abnormally wavy hair that tumbled around her small face.

I see her as she was, when life made sense and I had no questions. I see her as she was before life decided to make me lucky.