The Light

By David Martin

I was just waking up... The sun was shining brightly out of the window. It was one of those days that you could just sit and soak the sun up all day. You could just lay there and smile to yourself. You could just sit and imagine. You could just sit and wonder.
I thought to myself "hmmm. What to do today." As I thought to myself I heard the "all clear" siren ringing... "How could I have slept through the warning siren? Oh well, I was really tired." I glanced first at my alarm clock, which read exactly 8:00, and then at my calendar. I could not quite read it because something had been written on it excitedly. I wondered and walked over to it. There it said "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!". "What my birthday already???" How? How could I have skipped a whole week? Then it hit me. The excitement died. I still had a week to go. I mumbled to myself "It's only the 6th... One more week. It's just another average everyday Hiroshima day."
A little angry at myself for the early morning mix-up I decided to go and get some breakfast. As I ate my mother walked in and said "Only one more week. Your going to be how old?"
"15 mom. Come on do some quick math I was born in August 1930 and its 1945 now. 45 minus 30 is... Come one think with me... Good guess not 22 but 15."
"Well I guess somebody didn't get much sleep!" quipped my mom.
"Sorry I guess I'm just a little anxious to have my party." I said in a low volume not to give her complete victory. "I can't wait to see all my old friends from the U.S."
"Well you can thank me for that and your uncle" she said smartly "You just don't know how hard it is to arrange something like tha-"
FLASH! An intense flash just threw me. It threw me against the window and it shattered. I landed in the middle of the road. I just lay there paralyzed for almost and hour. I saw nobody. Heard nothing. Felt nothing. And soon I saw nothing at all.
I felt a poke. And a push. And a thump. I heard a scream. And a cry. And a screech. I felt a burning. A burning at my soul. A burning at the very center of myself. A burning through my heart and my entire being. Soon I saw. Not all at once but soon a grey... A small subtle change from the black. The depressing black. Not a normal black. A black that invites all pain and all suffering. A black that searches and seizes every ounce of hope. It makes you lonely. Even the thought of another person makes you almost wish for the end in this black depressing world. Soon white. And figures. And... pain. Every part of my body hurt. There was no end. I had a burn that reached from my face to my ankles. Soon colors. And eventually sight. I looked and saw a small note near my body.
It read "This small child used to be my son. His name was Brendan McNeil. He was my life. I must seek medical attention but if you find this note by Brendan please try to contact me. My name is Carla McNeil. Please take care of this being who was my son..." There was more but I could not read it. It had been partly scorched and the rest was unreadable.
All I could think about was my mother. She was all I had. I had no friends here. No Ancestors. I could not yet fluently speak the language. I again felt alone. I stood and assessed the situation. I had been severely burned by the blast and had cuts all over my body. I had been shielded by a small piece of wood from the flames of the explosion but the wood was now starting to burn. I quickly stood up and a picture fell from the envelope it was of my mother. I put it in my pocket and thought. For hours I thought. "Where? Where did she go? WHO? Who could have done such a thing? WHAT? What horrible invention created this utter desolation?" I looked every direction and saw no standing buildings in the business section but some back up the hill. I kept thinking "WHY? WHY? WHY?" This question kept coming up over and over and over. "WHY? Why so much suffering. All these innocent people." And selfishly I thought "Why to us? Millions of people to choose from and they chose us!" I finally just wept. I lay down and wept. I finally stood and without any thought I walked. Walked on and on. I ignored pain and hunger and thirst and any emotion. I just walked. On and on. Mile after mile. Hour after hour. Hours rolled into a day. Until I lost all track of time.
I suddenly felt close to my mother. I ran and ran. I felt instead of thought. I took a left, a right, a left, a left, a right. Then just sprinted. With all of the love for anything I had in my life I just sprinted. I heard rustling water and felt it again. The closeness. The love. I ran to the river bed and saw at least one hundred badly burned people.
They looked as if they had been through just as much as I had. I felt sorry for them. I felt bad because I thought that I had been through the worst possible. Right there was half living truth of how far from the truth that was. I saw death breathing down the backs of most people. Some had a constant battle with death. Some just gave up. Some wept for friends or family members of late while others wept for themselves. Some just wept. All happiness had been sucked from the town. So I wept with them. I searched and searched with a horrible lump in my throat. So many dead. I almost wanted to give up though I had no reason. I walked and searched through the stretch of death until my feelings caught up with me.
I felt hungry. I felt thirsty. I felt tired. I ran to the water and drank and drank. Then the tiredness caught up with me as well. I slept.
When I awoke I was lying in a small bit of water. The tide had started to come in when I realized that my senses had been wrong. My mother was not here. I left the river bed and walked for a while on the roads. After nearly an hour I felt thirsty again. I walked to the water and drank again.
I suddenly felt scared. My hair stood up all around me. Another flash. A brighter flash. A more destructive flash. Then I was thrown into the water.
I felt the black light closing in again but I fought it. I knew in my heart that I could fight it off. I knew that the suffering would end. I felt so scared. I felt all of the pain in the world. I felt all suffering and all sadness. I felt so alone. Then I knew… I was no longer scared, I was peaceful, I felt something drift from my pocket, I felt no pain, I felt no suffering or sadness, for a moment I thought to myself it must be my birthday, I felt no longer alone but as if everyone I knew was there with me, I saw my mother there in the water, then I saw the peaceful white light. I knew I would never be alone again.

In one moment, with the use of the right technology, you can cause millions pain suffering and death. Why do this. There are always other ways. What you have just read actually happened to thousands of innocent people in Hiroshima. Any course is better than war. There is always another way… Always…