the bus ride back home from choir rehearsal today was reflective and in some ways, very sad...
and this explains why.


'... I washed my hands at the ornamental spring, but even rubbing at the marks with soap wouldn't get them off. They were stuck fast on the skin. It was most odd. I showed them to Uncle Shigematsu, who said, "It could be oil from an oil bomb, after all. I wonder if it was an oil bomb they dropped, then?" Then he looked at my face and said, "Or it might be poison gas -- some sort of substance like mud, but more clinging. Perhaps they dropped a poison gas bomb." He looked again, and said, "Or it may not be poison gas, but something that sprayed out of a Japanese ammunition dump that blew up. Perhaps a spy or someone set fire to an ammunition dump. There may have been an arsenal for storing the army's secret weapons. I was at Yokogawa Station when it happened, then I walked back along the tracks, but I didn't see any black rain. I expect you've been splashed with oil."

If it's really poison gas, I thought, then this is the end. I felt horrified, then awfully sad. However many times I went to the ornamental spring to wash myself, the stains from the black rain wouldn't come off. As a dye, I thought, it would be an unqualified success.'



'... The boy's face was swollen up like a football, and was much the same color; his hair and eyebrows had disappeared. He might have been anybody.

"Ichiro, it's me. Me, your brother!"

He looked up into the young man's face, but the young man made a wry expression as though unwilling to recognize him.

"Come on, tell me your name then," he said roughly. "Tell me the name of your school."

"Kyuzo Sukune, first grade, second class, Hiroshima Prefecture First Middle School."

The young man drew back, suddenly on his guard.

"I see, but Kyuzo -- yes, Kyuzo's wearing puttees. And he's got a shirt made from a cotton kimono, with dark blue spots all over."

"But the puttees got blown off. And the spots have all gone into holes. It all happened when the bomb flashed. Ichiro, you must know who I am!"

The shirt was indeed covered with holes, but the young man still seemed wary.

"But... yes, of course -- I could tell Kyuzo by his belt!"

"You mean this one, Ichiro?"

Swiftly, with raw, burned hands, he pulled out his belt and showed it to the young man. It must have been made for him from the leather strap used for fastening a wicker hamper, and it had a crude ring of the same color encircling it by the brown metal buckle.

"It is!" The young man's voice choked. "Oh, Kyuzo..." '

- Black Rain, by Masuji Ibuse,
translated by John Bester