Thrilled that 'A Thousand Cranes', my entry into this year's I Must Be Off Travel Writing Competition, has reached the final 18. The winner and runner-up will be announced in the next couple of weeks. As well as the prizes awarded by the judge, Paola Fornari, there is an additional readers' prize. If you'd like to leave a comment on the I Must Be Off website, you can find it here
A Thousand Cranes by Mandy Huggins
We
left the station and headed towards the river, and as we reached the A-bomb
Dome a hesitant sun appeared above the skeletal roof, showcasing stark metal
against blue skies. The building partly survived the 1945 atomic blast because
of its position directly beneath the epicentre, and now the poignant ruin is
frozen in time amidst high rise blocks. We stared in silence, listening to the
chime of the peace bell across the water.
At
the park we were greeted by a flock of origami cranes. The strings of birds
flew across the path in a gust of brisk autumnal wind, landing at our feet in a
slalom of colour. I reached down and pocketed one that had broken free – tiny,
bright and fragile, like an iridescent hummingbird.
A
group of schoolboys snatched up the strings and solemnly placed them around the
Children’s Memorial, before politely cornering visitors to help with their
school assignments. A serious-looking boy with a glossy fringe greeted us
in English before holding up his question, carefully handwritten in neat, rounded
letters. He wanted us to suggest what the world could do to achieve lasting
peace. Thrown by his unwavering gaze, I scribbled a quick answer, knowing that
whatever words I offered they would not be adequate.
In
front of us, a young girl and her mother arranged their own paper cranes around
the memorial to Sadako Sasaki. Sadako was just two years old when the atom bomb
fell, and died from leukaemia ten years later. She was attempting the challenge
of folding a thousand cranes, the number needed according to Japanese lore to
ensure that a wish comes true. Since then countless birds have been folded by
children all across Japan and sent here as a constant symbol of hope for world
peace.
I
glimpsed a man watching us as he hung his cranes alongside the others. They
were different to the birds folded from traditional origami paper; these were
crafted from some kind of information leaflet, and when I saw them I realised
it was the man from the station. As we turned towards the museum, I was aware
that he was watching us as we went inside.
As
we walked from room to room, it was the simple personal objects and haunting
snapshots that resonated the most. There was no doubt that these scattered
fragments of ordinary lives spoke the loudest about what happened on 6th August
1945. There was a watch that had stopped at the moment the bomb fell, a twisted
tricycle, the tattered remnants of children’s clothes, a wall streaked with
black rain, a charred lunch tin, a bottle that had melted in the intense heat.
And the dark shadow of a man, burnt onto the steps of the bank, where he had
been sitting, waiting for it to open.
When
we stepped back outside, we blinked in the bright sunlight. The man was stood
at the door, bowing to departing visitors as he handed out his leaflets. As
soon as he saw us, he indicated a bench nearby and asked us to sit with him,
finally introducing himself. Hitoshi was a local school English teacher, and a
man with his own story to tell about Hiroshima; one that he wanted as many
people as possible to hear. He explained that his mother, Mitsuko, was
hibakusha -- a survivor of the bomb -- and consequently she suffered
discrimination throughout her life, often finding it difficult to get
work. A small child when the bomb fell,
she lost her father and brother, and her mother and aunt suffered from severe
radiation sickness and subsequent illnesses. After the war, misunderstanding
was widespread, and survivors were thought to be bad luck and even contagious.
Hitoshi recalled the hostility from neighbours and the consequent need for them
to move home several times. He remembered his childhood as a time of
insecurity. He told us that he handed out leaflets to Japanese visitors and
students in the hope they would understand their own history better through a personal
story.
As
we said goodbye to him and left the park, we once again passed by the tangled
strings of paper cranes around Sadako’s memorial. My hand closed around the
tiny green bird in my pocket, and I paused for a moment to place my own hope
for peace alongside the others.
______________________________________________
Mandy Huggins’s travel writing and short fiction has appeared in anthologies, newspapers and magazines. She
has won numerous writing competitions and been shortlisted in many
others, including those run by Bare Fiction, Fish, Ink Tears, English
Pen, and Bradt Travel Guides. She won the BGTW New Travel Writer Award
2014.
Judge's Comment: Delicately folded paper cranes: what could contrast more starkly with the horror of Hiroshima? A bag of leaflets scattered on the ground brings our writer into contact with Hitoshi, who relates the story of how his family was affected by the bomb. His message is one of peace, echoed by the writer in the final sentence. '..I paused for a moment to place my own hope for peace alongside the others.'
Judge's Comment: Delicately folded paper cranes: what could contrast more starkly with the horror of Hiroshima? A bag of leaflets scattered on the ground brings our writer into contact with Hitoshi, who relates the story of how his family was affected by the bomb. His message is one of peace, echoed by the writer in the final sentence. '..I paused for a moment to place my own hope for peace alongside the others.'
COMMENTS:
- This is one of my favourite entries so far.Anonymous
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