In a Daze I Began Walking Toward Toward The Mountains Calling
Shizuko Kubo (8 years old then)
My little sister and I were in the air raid shelter. It was just after my mother had gone to the field to get some cucumbers.
Flash! A terrible light flashed!
After that, I heard a huge roaring sound outside of the shelter. I lay down on the ground and made myself as small as I could. But soon I was so anxious about my mother that I crawled fearfully out the shelter and peeped outside. Fire was blazing from every window of every building of the university! I looked around in amazement, and
found that everything had changed from only a little while before. I wondered if I had strayed out into another world. I began to cry with fear and lonesomeness. In a daze I began walking toward the mountains calling, "Mama, mama." I met a neighbor woman I knew very well. She comforted me and took me to her home. Even then I kept having the feeling that from somewhere my mother was calling me, "Shizuko." But I was afraid to go out alone to find her. Finally I could no longer bear it and asked the woman to go with me and we went to the cucumber field together. I still had a feeling that I could hear my mother's voice faintly calling me, "Shizuko." At the side of the narrow path which led to the field there was a big stone. We saw someone lying beside it. I recognized the pattern of her pants. I ran to her calling, "Mama." But mother did not call my name. There was blood all around and in it we found my mother's completely changed face. Standing beside my mother's corpse, I stared vacantly down at it. So greatly shocked was I that tears did not come and I could not feel any sorrow.
My mother was probably hurled through the air and hit her head on the stone. Father died from I must have radiation poisoning ten days later.
I must have been completely numbed at that time. I never cried at all. Then I was taken by my grandfather and my little sister was taken by our uncle. Now both of us live happily. These days I often remember Father and mother and every time I do, I feel sad and I cry. If I had cried when they died, might they have come back to life? I have the feeling that they would have.