CHERRY BLOSSOMS FROM THE SKY.

HIROSHIMA...PRESENT DAY.

MUD.I was dreaming about mud, lulled to sleep by the rhythmic cadence of the trains steel wheels on the tracks. Mud, hot tropical clingy mud. Suddenly in my dream a thunderous drone, aircraft flying in formation, heading out to sea, Cherry Blossoms....Ships of war waiting like grey mountains in a shining ocean of early morning light. Big red circle. leather helmet.. a red scarf...a wave, a grain of humanity....A long drawn out scream....

With a start I awoke, just as the city of Hiroshima started to slide slowly away. With a shiver that was not quite from the cold I gazed out at this city with the world famous name. The blasted library roof gazed upward like a skeletal clenched fist, the only remnant of a man-made sun all those years ago. A far off drone getting louder, a peaceful fall, like a cherry blossom from the sky then a mile or so above the ground the atoms split....

He gazed at me steadily with an old mans searching gaze. My companion on this tedious railway journey. He was old and yet a profound sadness seemed to envelop him as he turned away from me then gazed out at history on the other side of the window . Taking a chance, not knowing how this could be interpreted I asked him "Were you there when it happened. This question hung in the air like a dry cloud. Suddenly he looked at my soul and said. No I was not, but in a way I was and due to my absence I guess I shall always be there. How do you mean I asked? He then sat back and with a soft oriental cadence started his story.

It was one of those glorious mornings, the sun beat down and the air fresh with flower scent, our fishing boat nodded at us happily as the wavelets slapped against her prow. My father and my older brother finished packing the fishing gear and looked at my Mum and younger sister standing on the quay. Slowly we smiled and waved as the anchor was roused from its sleep on the sea bed and stowed in the bow as our boat headed to sea. They receded into the distance like two diminishing dolls as the huge ocean welcomed us. The land fell away as the hours went by, it was a long way to our fishing grounds, a undersea mount with a strange name. Anyway about lunchtime we found the mount and set about lowering the lines. Distantly overhead I heard the low drone of an aircraft speeding along heading inland, it did not seem important though my stomach suddenly felt hollow. Turning back to the task in hand I gave it no further thought. The minutes ticked by, in time with the gentle rise and flow of the swells rolling by under the boat on their way to our distant shore.

Suddenly a loud clap of thunder sounded on the horizon. Strange, the sky was blue, no clouds yet that clap was loud, but strangely there was no after, grumble normally associated with a cloud-belch.

I looked over at my Dad and was shocked to see him the color of a sheet, blood had drained away from his face and the trembling lower lip showed his internal horror. Immediately under his orders we weighed anchor and turning the boat around headed back to the mainland. The hours ticked by and as we approached I was conscious of a strange smell, ozone, smashed atoms and burning. A ominous black and grey fog became visible, thick and visceral. We approached a port that was no longer there, a city no longer there, a family no longer existing and a world that had irrevocably changed.

The train whispered beneath us as his words slowly sank in.. Suddenly and with eyes that bored into my soul he said, you have been there too. Suddenly I felt the need to tell him everything that had been on my heart for all those years .In my head I heard the sound of aircraft, red circle on fuselage, mud and almost without me even being aware I started to speak.

Mud, yes tons of it, blood, yes buckets of it, the Banzai scream answered by the angry chatter of the machine gun. Foxhole with the spiritual dimensions of a cathedral. A tropical hell, a mixture of travel agency images and stained glass purgatory, and I was nineteen. Last nights attack was still smelling and bloating out on the perimeter and every nerve ending was frazzled. I gazed out to sea, past the splayed bodies to our huge grey battleships lying like huge deadly mountains out to sea. Gazed at my buddy a few feet away in his cathedral and was shocked to see how gaunt and emaciated he looked. I must have looked the same as he gazed back and grinned. Lack of sleep, combat fatigue, ears still ringing from the attack last night coupled with the bright morning made us look like ghosts I guess. Suddenly a low drone of aircraft behind us made us snap into scared mode. A strafing run perhaps or worse, a bombing run that made the earth convulse and roar. We were at the top of a hill so obviously the attack was going to hit the beach and jungle below us where most of the troops were. Comforted by that fact we sounded the early air warning.

Suddenly I saw a cluster of planes swooping low towards us, the big red oval on the sides. They were close, so close I saw inside the cockpit and the man inside wearing a red scarf under his leather helmet gave me a strange death head grin as he swooped low past. A grin I shall never forget. Then they were past, I noted with surprise that the attack was not going to be directed at the men below us but they were heading out to sea towards out ships, waiting with surprised delight. Crazy, I thought they would not even get close, would be shot to pieces without even getting close.

The lead plane suddenly climbed high into the sky, hung on its parabolica then dived, engine screaming. Suddenly I knew and a cold certainty crept over me. Banzai, bushido, seppuku, and death. Appalled I saw the ship open fire but this was a bomb hurtling towards them and as hard to stop. A bomb with its human cargo and tons of explosives. With a shattering roar the bomb/plane hit the ship and the explosion blasted half of it out of the water, immediately it began to sink, hundreds of lives extinguished in a second.

Suddenly I knew, Bushido, Seppuku, Hara Kiri, all the Japanese names for ritual suicide now enacted using grey technology and expansionist hate, not shining Katana swords with Cherry Blossom backgrounds. Like a swarm of death the other planes followed suit with distant shattering roars they plunged into the ships, some shot out of the sky before reaching target, others impacting with a painless direct hit. My foxhole seemed safe, at least I could get out and run, those poor men in those ships were as stuck as being in a tin can at a shooting range. Black smoke, flames, a ships prow pointing heavenward like an accusing finger as she began her last journey to the still, peaceful dark of the deep..

The train sounded like all trains sound as it announced its arrival into a station and I was jolted out of my reverie, my journey to the past rushing back to the present. Surprised I saw the old man was watching me intently with a glistening tear in his eye. Suddenly he got up, opened up his briefcase and slowly he withdrew a photograph. It was of a young man, a smiling yet haunted young man, a young man in a flying helmet, a young man who flew off into a Japanese sunset, never to return. He started to say something but the words failed him, instead he leant forward gave my shoulder a squeeze, looked deeply into my soul, turned around slowly as if in great pain then walked away.

My last abiding image is of him standing alone on the train platform, illuminated by the yellow ghostly glow of station lights, a figure of a old man, a link to a past and of a man who has lost yet also found some kind of redemption. Slowly his figure receded into the distance as the train slowly eased away and carried us apart, him alone in the past and me into the night.

Suddenly I remember that photograph he showed me.

The pilot was wearing a red scarf under his leather helmet......