1275psi
Posts: 7979
Joined: 4/17/2005 Status: offline
|
18 October A small village, 30 miles east of Hiroshima. It is half an hour before dawn, chilly, the waters calm, the air silent. As it is happening in millions of homes across japan, people are stirring, the smell of cooking fires will soon fill the air. The fishing boats, just dots of lights now, are moving across Hiroshima bay. It is another beautiful day promised in a small house, almost indistinguishable from all the others in the village (other than this one has a small garage/workshop attached to it) three people are rising, preparing for the day. they are no different to any one else we know, i would think, good, decent people, trying as best they can, to make their way in a difficult world The first to leave the front door is a tall, almost elderly gentleman, he moves down the door, with a groan of old timbers, it reluctantly opens. He pauses for a few minutes to watch a column of army trucks pass, there have been so many of these lately, divisions of men, he wonders, moving east. he waits for them, crosses the road, clambers down the rocky sea wall, and checks the pots. Nothing today, maybe tomorrow........ They pass, he glances across Hiroshima bay, empty now of warships. As ever he thinks of two men, thanks the gods that there has been no telegraph , and enters his workshop. he has no real work to do, has not had anything for weeks, but, well, there are projects he can tinker with... The two young women leave together as the sun rises. Miori (Okano's wife) and Mioko, the new wife of Hirate will walk the half mile to the railway line, then take the commute of 30 minutes into Hiroshima Here Miori will take a tram , and spend her day packing explosives into 25 mm shells. Mioko has a new job, she works as a typist in the bowels of Imperial Fleet HQ. The days pass as so many, dull, long. Almost, they would say, fruitlessly. It is only when they both get home, almost at dusk, that the real day begins. The house is on the edge of the village, the road seperating them from the rockwall, the bay. It has a garden, and they tend every millimetre of it. Mioko is young, and knows little of the world. But she knows this, Japan needs ships to feed herself. And every day, she types out the names of ships lost. And even she knows that there is no endless suppply of them. So every day, they fish, they garden. They chat, as we do, about everything. But there is one topic never to be mentioned. Two men, husbands, somewhere south, somewhere in this endless war.
|