dead and dying everywhere. Occasionally he passed a man or woman staggering in the street, odd pieces of skin clinging desperately to them. Itoro knew what that meant and shuddered at every iteration. Did they even know who they were anymore?
He finally lost his breath only a half-mile from home. He'd have to walk the rest of the way. His legs ached almost as badly as his arms and back. His cheek throbbed. Drawing a hand to it, he realized for the first time that it would leave a scar. How horrible would it look? Would his face scare his son? What of his wife? He'd never been the handsomest man in Hiroshima, but he was delighted that Katsumi seemed to think so. Would she still love him with such a scar as this would leave?
The sound of a song caught him, bringing memories of his youth past the horrible clarity of the present. It was a warabe-uta known as Tōryanse, a children's song he'd sung as a young boy. More than a song, it was also a game. He and a friend would hold their arms together and sing the song while others walked between them. The person who walked through at the song's end was caught.
The words came crystal clear in the ruined air.
Tōryanse, tōryanse
Koko wa doko no hosomichi ja?
Tenjin-sama no hosomichi ja
Chotto tōshite kudashanse
Goyō no nai mono tōshasenu
He followed the sound through the smoke and destruction until he spied a woman standing in the middle of Miyuki Bridge. From a distance she looked like a courtesan pausing to gaze at the carp before continuing across to the other side. She held a red paper umbrella to keep the rain from wetting her coifed hair. Her body hugged her kimono. Cranes dipped and swooped through the pattern of the material.
The water of Miyuki River was black with soot. Bodies bobbed along like flotsam. One turned in the water, the face coming into view. He knew this one. She'd sold him fish on Thursdays. She'd always had a sweet smile, all the more sweeter for her youth. The image should have shocked, but the song soothed him as the woman sung it over and over. She started it again.
His mother had sung it to him as a child. His wife had sung it to his son. He'd sung it as a child, the meaning wrapped in the mortality and the achievements of life. But why was this strange ephemeral woman singing this song? What did it mean? Itoro had read and heard about phantom visitations since he was a child. Could this be one of them? Perhaps it was Amaterasu, the beautiful goddess of the sun, come to the darkness of Hiroshima to bear witness and see the devastation before she'd once again shine her healing rays upon the city. Perhaps she'd appeal to her brothers, Susanowa and Tsuki-yomi, who shared the power of governing the universe and ask them if they'd avenge the murder of Hiroshima.
Itoro quickened his step and hurried towards the bridge. But the closer he got, the more different she looked. What he'd taken for a crane pattern kimono seemed strangely misshapen, her body completely filling out the fabric. Tears dripped from her eyes as she stared at the bodies. Black rain sluiced off her umbrella. Her bare feet were mangled and broken. And then he saw it and realized why her kimono looked so strange as it undulated, an edge folding against her skin, tighter, becoming her.
It never was a kimono. The cranes had the quality of line art created by a master tattoo artist. They indeed swooped and dived, each carrying a spark of life from their creator. But they hadn't been drawn on fabric, but on skin, and what was wrapped around the woman had never belonged to her. Instead, it had probably belonged to a yakuza or some gambler whose largess had always been destined to become the garb for this phantom goddess at the end of the world.
Knowing the nature of the skins, Itoro could only guess that she hadn't been fast enough to outrun it.
And her tears?
Were they falling because of what she gazed upon or was it because she'd lost herself, becoming someone she'd never even known existed before? Even now she was stuck in the loop of the song, singing the verse over and over; more the tragic, her haunting voice filled him with its beauty.
Then he noticed a power line that had somehow survived the devastation