I was supposed to use the train time between Hiroshima and Tokyo today to complete a set of short stories. However the events of today have overtaken this and the following story is the result.

Today the tourist gig was to visit the Hiroshima Peace Park, the guardian of foolish travelers and tourists was smiling as the day was gloriously leafy and sunny with a light breeze to cool the skin and bring the trees to life. It was poignant reminder to the total death and destruction unleashed at 8:15 6th August 1945.

I remember when I was at University there was course called Social on Moral Philosophy. (its was an excellent course by the way) one topic we covered was the morality of nuclear weapons. All the arguments furnished for the pro’s are rendered a pile of shit when you are face to face with old black and white pictures of the Nakamura family and see on the scrolling list of the dead that the entire branch of Nakamura’s is no more. Gone!

During our walk through the park we came across the children’s memorial which was inspired by leukemia victim Sadako.

“When Sadako developed leukemia at 10 years of age she decided to fold 1000 paper cranes “ – she died before reaching this goal, but to this day paper cranes from around the world are sent to the memorial and displayed in glass cabinets there. As were we passing a class of Japanese students had turned up to pay there respects to the memorial and present their paper cranes.

The stunning reality of this simple presentation was that you didn’t need to understand Japanese to know what was going on, and it appears that tears can easily cross the international language barrier. It was an incredibly moving experience and I hope the teacher understood my thanks of appreciation.