..September 2008 On the train staring out the window..
Somewhere on Kyushu Island. 7 hours from Tokyo. 2 hours from Nagasaki.
It’s a slow ride once in Kyushu. A local train snakes through hills and around a narrow rocky coast line. I’m a million thoughts away from the neon signs and brazen electricity of Tokyo.
Farms, lush green pastures, windmills, and old buildings line the country side. Could be a scene from The Sound of Music. Monet would have painted these landscapes. Green water colors and blue-ish sky smirred with white clouds.
I imagine life to be simple here. Slow, no urgency to get from one place to another.
How could the peaceful scenery I now look at, be the background for history’s darkest moment. It is here, in the middle of a tranquil nowhere, the eyes of the world looked upon. This peaceful sunshine was swallowed whole by a mushroom cloud. How could it have shined on such a dark time.
The colors and light I’m staring at don’t mix with war, death, destruction, xenophobia, genocide, and rains of fire. Smoke must have billowed from these hills, smothered the blue sky with choking gray.
Tags: Bullet train to Nagasaki, From Above, Hibakusha, Nagasaki