Nagasaki

 

One thousand origami cranes made by local primary school kids hang in Abista library. Below: Pictures from the exhibition.

We popped down to the library yesterday after a visit to the lake with the kids, mainly to grab an ice cream from their nice cafe and cool down in the air conditioning when we happened upon an exhibition to mark the anniversary of the A-bombs - today is 63 years since Nagasaki. I was nonplussed by the pictures of the mushroom clouds that I have seen on many a History Channel documentary. What was arresting to me were the pictures of ordinary folk bewildered by what had just happened, but carrying on as best they could. I'm sure I have seen pictures like these before, but in my youth they were of a people who lived on the other side of the world, in another era. Now, I see these pictures and I see my neighbours, their parents and their grandparents.