Naoki rolled the blinds up and opened the window of his bedroom. A waft of crisp air rushed in from outside, bearing with it the scent of dew spiked with freshly blossoming flowers. He inhaled deeply and grinned. It was so wonderful to live on the edge of a park: when you woke up – at least in summer – the first things you saw were trees, green leaves and grass. The days always began with the wistful songs, or the merry chirping, of the birds. That was sweet, and it seemed to him that there would never be enough sweetness in this world.

He turned around, picked up his cane, which had fallen onto the floor, and, leaning on it, limped to the kitchen, wincing. His wound was slow to heal. The shrapnel that had butchered his right leg had broken the bones in several places and lacerated the flesh. It was a miracle that the surgeon had been able to mend and stitch all the shreds together, and that no bacteria had chosen to feast on his bruised tissues. His two other companions had not had the same fortune: the first one’s skull had been crushed, and he had died on the spot; the other one had had one arm severed and his belly ripped open. He had lived his last minutes twitching in agonising pain before the eyes of his powerless comrades.

Naoki yelped and almost dropped his bowl of steamed rice. It was hotter than he had thought. He grabbed a dishcloth in which he wrapped the bowl, a masterpiece made of delicate china. Could it be a piece of booty? He didn’t know, but it was precious to him. He delicately carried it to his table, hopping all the way – he could not hold it with both his hands and use his cane. He put it amid the dishes he had already prepared for his breakfast, miso soup and tamagoyaki, sat and considered his chopsticks.

The silence was almost total, but in his head the din always raged, even in the stillest hours of the night: explosions, screams, orders brayed, the crackle of the machine-guns, the panting of the solders under the sweltering heat. It was ingrained in him now, and no scalpel would ever be able to excise that.

---

Naoki closed the front door and walked along the street to the entrance of the park. The weather was perfect, the sky blue and cloudless.

The war was lost, of course. The Emperor would never admit it, but it was inevitable now. His thoughts soared over uncountable miles to the remote archipelagos of the Pacific where the Japanese soldiers, his brothers in arms, were holding an ultime barrage against the American juggernaut. A whole generation sacrificed on the altar of madness in the name of a lost cause. Japan, the invincible country. How could it not be? We were the ruler race. But mercifully the mother soil had remained unspoiled. In the midst of hate and death, there was still a home, a place where to seek peace of mind, away from the carnage.

Naoki meandered along the paths to his preferred spot: a glade where boulders and mossy rocks had been stacked up into a miniature mountain. Slinking through the cracks, a perky cascade sang. At the foot of the lowest stone, the water traipsed into a pool where three or four red carps wallowed, oblivious to their surroundings. Around the pool, benches had been installed, tucked away from the wrath of the sun by the leaves of the paulownias. It was Naoki’s private little paradise, where he often mused for hours, gazing at the fish, listening to the babbling of the cascade, the buzzing of insects, or, sometimes, bantering with a passer-by.

But that morning, Naoki had a task to complete: write to his sister. He rummaged in his bag and pulled out an inkwell, a quill and a postcard. Dunking the tip of the quill into the inkwell, he wrote:

Beloved sister,

He stopped. His ears had registered an unusual sound, like the bumbling of a hornet. He looked around, then lifted his head and made out, high above, a plane.

Turning back to his postcard, he realised that he had forgotten to write the date. So, he hastily scribbled at the top of the card:

Hiroshima, August 6th, 1945