Thunderclap on a Summer Day

Morning of 6h August 11:42 AM

It was a dark greyish morning, she could not tell if the sun will rise tomorrow or not. She just could not imagine another day after today, thinking unclearly and trying to wash what she saw from her mental vision, fighting her mind tirelessly she fell asleep like the 5 years old little girl she is, yet the look on her face seemed to be much older than usual on that day. Her name was Asahi*.

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Morning of 5h August 11:42 AM

Asahi was holding her icecream in the right hand, squeezing her father's hand in the other one. It was a warm summer day, the sky was clear and it was a nice day to go see the Seagles nearby the River.

"Da!" said Ashai. "Yes, darling?" answered Hakurei.

"When will you stop going away and stay with me and Ma?" asked Asahi. "I don't like to be away dear Ash but I have to go and help other people where I am working at".

Asahi: "help them? with what da?” He answered her quietly with his eyes gazing away from her cherry-red cheeks right into the far horizon of the sky: “We are protecting you and mommy from the bad people out there”.

Asahi: “But if you stay away from us how can you protect us?” He giggled quietly and sipped the last bit was left in his teacup.

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Morning of 6h August 6:18 AM

Asahi woke up earlier than usual, It was in the early sunrise time. She did not seem to have a sense of time or space around her. She was just thirsty, she woke up took up her little purple dinosaur cup, and went to the house garden to fill it up near the watermill. Only to her poor little eyes water seemed to be dark and full of dust and dirt. Asahi was half asleep she didn't pay attention to it, only the taste was really bad. She left the cup there on the first stair step and went back to catch her dream before she loses sleepiness.

While she was heading back to sleep near mommy, she stopped suddenly and decided to open her half-closed eyes. “Why there is a very big grey tree above our house?” she thought. It must be a bad dream or something. The walls of the house weren't all standing, The only wall she could see was the one with her father’s photo wearing his military suit back when he first graduated from the academy.

It is the same photo that has been hanging there for years, only now it has no colors, it was just grey and black and some few white spaces in-between.

She did not buy the whole scene. Her young poor mind was not ready for such visual sceneries. When she went back to sleep she was already on her mom's shoulder, Lai was running fast with her daughter on her shoulder trying to get away from all of that dusty grey place. The voices did not echo anymore. The screams were there to stay without the usual ending voice of the echo reaching far away.

Hakurei was a few miles away from them, taking his last few breaths, besides his younger dead fellow lieutenant. It was a mess. The kind of mess that does not find the right words to describe. On his last breath, Hakurei was thinking “She was right maybe, how can I protect them when I am here like this?” He smiled with a mouth full of blood. Yet he felt the warmth of his daughter’s hand in his right hand.

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*Asahi is a Japanese name that means: “Morning Sunshine”, only on that day it was all grey.

6th of August 1945, Hiroshima:

People on the ground reported a pika (ピカ)—a brilliant flash of light followed by a don (ドン)—a loud booming sound. Some 70,000–80,000 people, around 30% of the population of Hiroshima at the time, were killed by the blast and resultant firestorm, and another 70,000 were injured. It is estimated that as many as 20,000 Japanese military personnel were killed. U.S. surveys estimated that 4.7 square miles (12 km2) of the city were destroyed. Japanese officials determined that 69% of Hiroshima's buildings were destroyed and another 6–7% damaged.

~ Wikipedia