Terminal Compromise, Winn Schwartau [sight word books txt] 📗

had left, Taki assumed, at

his father’s request, the patriarchal role in the immediate

family. The personal anguish had been excruciating. While

friends and family and officials praised Taki’s father and fami-

ly, inside Taki did not accept that a man could willingly leave

his family, his children, him . . .Taki, never to return. Didn’t

his father love him? Or his sister and brother? Or his mother?

Taki’s mother got a good job at one of the defense plants that

permeated Hiroshima, while Taki and his brother and sister con-

tinued their schooling. But the praise, the respect didn’t make

up for not having a father to talk to, to play with and to study

with. He loved his mother, but she wasn’t a father.

So Taki compensated and overcompensated and pretended that his

father’s sacrifice was just, and good, and for the better of

society, and the war effort and his family. Taki spoke as a

juvenile expert on the war and the good of Japan and the bad of

the United States and the filthy Americans with their unholy

practices and perverted ways of life, and how they tortured

Japanese prisoners. Taki was an eloquent and convincing orator

to his piers and instructors alike.

At 8:15 A.M., the Hiroshima radio station, NHK, rang its old

school bell. The bell was part of a warning system that an-

nounced impending attacks from the air, but it had been so over-

used that it was mostly ignored. The tolls from the bell were

barely noticed by the students or the teachers in the Honkawa

School. Taki though, looked out the window toward the Aioi

Bridge. His ears perked and his eyes scanned the clear skies over

downtown Hiroshima. He was sure he heard something . . .but

no . . .

The first sensation of motion in the steel reinforced building

came long seconds after the blinding light. Since the rolling

earth motions in 1923 devastated much of Tokyo, schoolchildren

and households nationwide practiced earthquake preparedness and

were reasonably expectant of another major tremor at any time.

But the combination of light from 10,000 suns and the deafening

roar gave those who survived the blast reason to wish they had-

n’t. Blindness was instant for those who saw the sky ignite.

The classroom was collapsing around them. In the air was the

noise of a thousand trains at once…even louder. In seconds the

schoolhouse was in rubble.

The United States of American had just dropped the Atomic Bomb

on Hiroshima, Japan. This infamous event would soon be known as

ayamachi – the Great Mistake.

Tuesday, August 7, 1945

Taki Homosoto opened his eyes. He knew he was laying on his

back, but all else was a clutter of confusion. He saw a dark

ceiling, to what he didn’t know and he hurt He turned his head

and saw he was on a cot, maybe a bed, in a long corridor with

many others around him. The room reeked of human waste and

death.

“Ah . . .you are awake. It has been much time.” The voice came

from behind him. He turned his head rapidly and realized he

shouldn’t have. The pain speared him from his neck to the base

of his spine. Taki grimaced and made a feeble attempt at whim-

pering. He said nothing as he examined the figure in the white

coat who spoke again. “You are a very lucky young man, not many

made it.”

What was he talking about . . .made it? Who? His brain wanted

to speak but his mouth couldn’t. A slight gurgling noise ushered

from his throat but nothing else. And the pain . . .it was

everywhere at once . . .all over . . .he wanted to cry for

help . . .but was unable. The pain overtook Taki Homosoto and

the vision of the doctor blackened until there was no more.

Much later, Taki reawoke. He assumed it was a long time later,

he been awake earlier . . .or had that been a dream. The

doctor…no he was in school and the earthquake . . .yes, the

earthquake . . .why don’t I remember? I was knocked out. Of

course. As his eyes adjusted to the room, he saw and remembered

that it wasn’t a dream. He saw the other cots, so many of them,

stretching in every direction amidst the cries of pain and sighs

of death.

Taki tried to cry out to a figure walking nearby but only a low

pitched moan ushered forth. Then he noticed something

odd . . .and odd smell. One he didn’t recognize. It was

foul . . .the stench of burned . . .burned what? The odor made

him sick and he tried to breathe through his mouth but the awful

odor still penetrated his glands. Taki knew that he was very

hurt and very sick and so were a lot of others. It took him some

time, and a lot of energy just to clear his thoughts. Thinking

hurt – it concentrated the aching in his head, but the effort

took away some of his other pain, or at least it successfully

distracted him focussing on it.

There were cries from all around. Many were incomprehensible

babblings, obviously in agony. Screams of “Eraiyo!”, (“the pain

is unbearable!”) were constant. Others begged to be put out of

their misery. Taki actually felt fortunate; he couldn’t have

screamed if he had wanted to, but out of guilt he no longer felt

the need to.

Finally, the same doctor, was it the same doctor? appeared over

his bed again. “I hope you’ll stay with us for a few minutes?”

The doctor smiled. Taki responded as best he could. With a

grunt and the raising and lowering his eyelids. “Let me just say

that you are in very good condition . . .much better than the

others,” the doctor gestured across the room. “I don’t mean to

sound cruel, but, we do need your bed, for those seriously hurt.”

The doctor sounded truly distraught. What had happened?

A terrified look crossed Taki’s face that ceded into a facial

plead. His look said, “I can’t speak so answer my

questions . . .you must know what they are. Where am I? What

happened? Where is my class?”

“I understand your name is Taki Homosoto?” the doctor asked.

“Your school identification papers . . .”

Taki blinked an affirmative as he tried to cough out a response.

“There is no easy way to tell this. We must all be brave. Ameri-

ca has used a terrible weapon upon the people of Japan. A spe-

cial new bomb so terrible that Hiroshima is no longer even a

shadow of itself. A weapon where the sky turns to fire and build-

ings and our people melt . . .where the water sickens the living

and those who seem well drop in their steps from an invisible

enemy. Almost half of the people of Hiroshima are dead or dying.

As I said, you are a lucky one.”

Taki helped over the next days at the Communications Hospital in

what was left of downtown Hiroshima. When he wasn’t tending to

the dying, he moved the dead to the exits so the bodies could be

cremated, the one way to insure eternal salvation. The city got

much of its light from pyres for weeks after the blasts.

He helped distribute the kanpan and cold rice balls to the very

few doctors and to survivors who were able to eat. He walked the

streets of Hiroshima looking for food, supplies, anything that

could help. Walking through the rubble of what once was Hiroshi-

ma fueled his hate and his loathing for Americans. They had

wrought this suffering by using their pikadon, or flash-boom

weapon, on civilians, women and children. He saw death, terrible,

ugly death, everywhere; from Hijiyama Hill to the bridges a cross

the wide Motoyas River.

The Aioi bridge spontaneously became an impromptu symbol for

vengeance against the Americans. Taki crossed the remnants of

the old stone bridge, which was to be the hypocenter of the blast

if the Enola Gay hadn’t missed its target by 800 feet. A tall

blond man in an American military uniform was tied to a stone

post. He was an American POW, one of 23 in Hiroshima. A few

dozen people, women in bloodstained kimonos and mompei and near

naked children were hurling rocks and insults at the lifeless

body. How appropriate thought Taki. He found himself mindlessly

joining in. He threw rocks at the head, the body, the legs. He

threw rocks and yelled. He threw rocks and yelled at the remains

of the dead serviceman until his arms and lungs