100 And Under
The Rubble
The fire that burned everything
Shinji Nakamura woke up with a throbbing pain in his head. The morning cold seeped into his old bones. He had tripped over the falling debris from the collapsing houses the night before. There was nowhere to go. His neighbors were running from the fire, out of the house and into the street. Only fire welcomed them. The whole world had gone up in flames. People had screamed with unending anguish as fire consumed them. The burning flesh of the entire city nauseated him. He couldn’t escape. In the 1945 bombing of Tokyo, nobody could.
Japan was in the middle of the war. The war had turned against them. Shinji was thinking about the war the night before. The islands will always be protected Shinji had thought. Nobody had ever successfully invaded the islands before. The Samurai spirit had always protected them. Shinji found comfort. Miso soup and some fish with sesame rice was a filling dinner; as good as things can get when carrying the pain from the war. His work at the factory was tiring. Years of practice had made him a shokunin, an artisan. Even though he worked with metal in an industrial factory, Shinji worked at it like an artist. He looked at his wife; twenty-four years they had been together. He smiled. It was not easy for them. Their son had been fighting in the war. Parents like to know where their son is but there had been no word for months. His fate was unknown to them. Sleep took him slowly. It was the same every night, the nightmare of the war kept his peace at bay.
The thunder woke him up but no rain came with it. An unending series of bombs came in the middle of the night. The explosions of the bombs gave way to the screams of his neighbors. Up until that night, the Americans had been bombing the factories during the day. There were a few casualties but the night was a welcome reprieve. At night they could eat and the neighbors slept. They lived. Now the war had come to them and fire was everywhere.
Shinji and his wife took a photo of their son and they ran outside. All the neighbors were running and trying to escape but there was nowhere to go. The fire was in the houses and in the streets; it had swallowed everything in the neighborhood. The fire had stuck to everything. It kept burning through the houses and now through his people. He could not wake up from this nightmare. He ran as far he could, desperate to find escape, but something struck him and he fell unconscious.
The pain kept Shinji down, the ash and the bodies around him burnt to their death had spared him. He had been trapped by the falling rubble and somehow it had protected him. He looked around for his wife. Through the thick smoke, all he could see was the leftovers from the hell from the night. He had to find his wife. He moved some rubble to get up. That’s all he could see. The smoke covered everything else. Where was everybody?
Shinji got up to find water. There was ash in everything, in the pots and pans, in the houses and on everything. There was ash even on the debris. He couldn’t hear anybody. His neighborhood was unrecognizable and he didn’t know where he was. He kept walking, looking for water, almost aimlessly. Then suddenly, his ears tuned in to a distant screaming. He walked towards it, with urgency in his steps. The corpses were still burning and the smell was intense. It could have been somebody he knew. The pain, the horror and the despair overcame him. He ran desperate to find anyone, yelled and screamed hoping to find something to hang on to, but to no avail. It was grey as far as the eye could see. He walked some more.
The dawn was rising and the wind cleared up the smoke. Out of nowhere, just when he had lost all hope, he heard someone call his name. He was not alone after all, maybe someone had survived, just like him. Maybe his wife was alive too. He ran and found his friend, Abe. Abe knew to go the far edge of town; it was spared by the fire. His heart swelled with hope. Maybe his wife was there, maybe she was alive. He tasted his dry mouth. He needed some water. Water will have to wait.
Shinji and Abe kept walking. The further they got, the less the devastation was. They found a few others, survivors, and helped others still in the rubble. Nobody knew where anything was anymore. As the day went on, fatigue overtook Shinji and broke him just like the devastation that had broken the city the night before. Tears overwhelmed him and he fell to his knees, face in his hands. The Samurai had forsaken him.
The happy memories of before were gone. When Shinji opened his eyes, he was in the rubble. Maybe it was the new rubble or maybe he had never left. Shinji closed his eyes; he will not open them again.
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