UNCERTAIN
 
“Blue skies smiling on me 
Nothing but blue skies 
Do I see...”  
 
AUGUST 6th 1945 – HIROSHIMA, JAPAN – 8.16am
 
When Mr Sakaguchi noticed the flash in the sky, his brain
interpreted it as lightning. In the few tenths of a second he had left
to live, there was no time to analyse it any further. Of course, he
never saw the mushroom cloud. Never really felt the heat.  Being
vaporised turned out to be quite painless. 

Mrs Tanamoto wasn’t so lucky. She was feeding her fish
when it happened and although she was within a mile of ground
zero, it took a few hours to finish her off. The fish pond bubbled to a
plastic crust, and parts of living creature melded into jellified water,
as her garden was replaced by charred black under a red and yellow
sky. That all happened in a second or two. Her clothes disappeared
and her skin seemed to peel off.  As she lost consciousness, she
wondered if her son would ever come home from the Front, and if
he did what would he make of his town now. 

Across town, the school building murmured with excitement
at the droning of an American aircraft flying high above. Shingi
Shimamoto watched the tiny mosquito floating harmlessly in the
blue skies, tracking the bomber with his eyes whilst half turning to
tell his friends not to worry.  

“Do not be a fool,” he exclaimed to his best friend Shuko,
whose eyes were wide with fear, “...this is nothing to worry about.
The B-29 comes over every day. Look, see we can wave.” 

Shingi jumped on the desk, pointing through the window
and waving, giggling at the fear on his friend’s face. He knew the
Americans flew over now and then. One bomber was not a threat.
The plane glided through the summer morning sky – a sky so blue it
resembled a deep peaceful ocean. The sun glinted off the metal
frame of the aircraft as Shingi imagined looking down on the world
from thirty thousand feet.

His surprise at the flash of lightning that engulfed the deep
blue vista was matched only by the force of the blast, a millisecond
later, which sent him flying under the desk as the entire school
house collapsed in a wailing cacophony of crushed brick and
stressed wood. 

                                                     * * *  
 
“Blue Skies high up above 
I wish I had blue skies 
For my Love...”  
 
AUGUST 6th 1945 - TINIAN ISLAND, PACIFIC OCEAN - 7.33am
 
Jack Fleischmann was in the Ops room, on the tiny island of
Tinian, six hours away from mainland Japan, listening for signs that
the Enola Gay and her companions were returning from their secret
mission. Waiting and hoping.  

Hoping the Japs had discovered what it means to fuck with
America. He tugged hard on his cigarette, enjoying the sensation of
smoke filling his lungs. Jagged uncertainty pressed at the back of
his head. Jack was uncertain about many things. 

Uncertain the Enola Gay and her two companions would
ever return.  Uncertain whether they hit Hiroshima or carried on.
Blue skies were needed for the operation to be a success. It seemed
blue where he was, but Jack was feeling a little uncertain about the
skies over Japan.  

He was uncertain about deeper things too. Since the Japs
killed Tommy, his younger brother, he was uncertain how he could
forgive life, let alone the Japs. The more he thought about it, the
more he hated them all. He imagined the bomb going off and
leaving nothing but sea behind. Blue skies over blue seas.  
He was even uncertain about what the bomb would actually
do, when there was a city full of living people below it. Jack sighed
hard, dragged harder.  

He was uncertain whether the Japs were even people. He
was uncertain about what the folk back home in Youngstown, Ohio
would make of it, nor the rest of the world. Everyone, from the
grunts to the top brass up to Truman was uncertain on that, and on
what the world would do, when they discovered what the United
States had done. Major Greenwood poked his head through door. 
“Any news, Fleischmann?” 
“No, sir...” Fleischmann dragged on the cigarette, as if that
helped to form a coherent sentence, “...either the boys are in the
sea, or the Japs are testing out the new bomb. It’s a bit uncertain,
I’m afraid, sir,” he finished. Greenwood sighed. 
“Well, any news let me know Captain,” 
 “Sir,” Fleishmann answered, stubbing the cigarette out in
the ashtray. 
Static buzzing on his radio. Blue skies above. Uncertainties
hanging in the air like a noxious poison gas.  
 
                                      * * *
 
RETRIBUTION 
 
“Never saw a sky looking so blue 
High up above,  
What can you do?” 
 
Enola Gay and her two companion planes, Great Artiste and
#91, moved gracefully through the sky. Angels of Death with a
strict timetable.   

Aboard plane #91, Gunner Bierman took a snap with his
camera, swallowing what felt like a lump of rock in his throat. 
“This is it, boys,” Captain Marquardt’s voice crackled across
the microphone, reverberating above the churning of the engines
and fighting for attention in his ears. 

Below them, Hiroshima was lain out like an intricate
matchstick model, proudly left on the Earth by God for anyone high
above to admire.  Under blue skies, Hiroshima waited.  

Bierman thought back to the briefing earlier that day, as the
starlight twinkled above the thin blue white of the rising morning.  
 
                                            ***
 
“Gentlemen, today you will save the world. Warfare is
about to be ended, once and for all. When the Japs see what we can
do, they will be rethinking their Imperialist ambitions faster than
you boys can say Hear-Ra-Sheema...” said the General, scanning
up and down the line of squatting and crouching airmen, all flat hats
and khaki shorts, stripped to the waist and looking intently back. 
“That’s easy for you to say, Sir...” Gunner Bierman said,
trying to get some laughs.
“Serious? I thought it said High-Ro-Shim-Er, hell these Japs
can’t even spell...” said Bob Branning, one of the navigators on the
crew, taking away Beirman’s glory with a flashing grin. 
“Shut up Bob, you damn clown...” interjected Colonel
Tibbets, the lead pilot. The General attempted to hide a smirk
behind a grimace, before continuing. 
“Okay boys, listen up now. What you are carrying is top
secret. You have been selected for your exceptional bravery and
standards shown so far in the Pacific theatre, don’t let me down. If
we achieve this, we win the war, you go home to see Maisy and
Daisy and when you do, make sure you tell them it was YOU who
delivered retribution. For Pearl, for the men who died on Iwo Jima
and Guadalcanal, all those who are dying of jungle fever and having
their heads swiped off with them big old Jap swords...” 
“You know they're compensating for something, Sir? With
them swords I mean?” said young Jimmy Corrigan, lapping up the
guffaws and chuckles at his comment. 
“Very good, Corrigan, very good. And you’re right, they are
some pissed off motherfuckers, but what they did wrong was they
pissed off much bigger motherfuckers. Now, may God be with you,”
said the General. 
                                            
                                                   ***  
 
Bierman held up his camera, looking out at the scene
below. A thin white haze spread across the otherwise cloudless sky
and Hiroshima sat there peacefully. He could see the shape of the
streets and the buildings, an alien architecture, as if #91 was a
space ship passing by in secrecy above.  

There were familiar signs of humanity, busy activity from
the docks on the coastline to the left, and moving across the bridge
into the main town over on the right. Some kind of domed clock
tower, standing proudly against the river, caught his eye. He held
up his camera, taking in the image through the viewfinder. 
Outside, at thirty-one thousand feet, the huge glinting steel
frame of the Enola broke to the right, swerving into a steep dive,
dropping away from her two companions.  
“This is Enola Gay making final approach. About to make a
change here, guys. Here’s to retribution...” Colonel Tibbets’ voice
crackled, as Bierman focussed on the dome through the viewfinder. 
“And in three...” 
Through the eyehole of the camera, the Enola swiftly
passed over the docks. 
“...two...” 
Enola straightened as the centre of town approached. 
“...one...” 
A strange light glinted off Enola’s right wing, flashing into
Bierman’s gun pod and momentarily engulfing #91. It was the heat
from the glaring sun, dripping out through the sweat on Bierman’s
face as they turned sharply. 
“Little Boy is on his way. I repeat Little Boy is on his way...”   
Enola violently jerked to the left and climbed. Tibbets’ voice
sounded odd, metallic and strained.  
“Little Boy is on his way...” he said again, his voice
resonating with an inhuman tinny tone in Bierman’s ear. The young
gunner put it down to static, and the forces working against Enola
as she climbed. Outside, to the left of #91, the Great Artiste
followed the same trajectory, while the Enola on the right wing
remained just below them both. Bierman looked down, trying to see
Little Boy through the camera. 

The world was a movie. It could only be a movie, he
thought, as #91 shuddered and jerked, then dipped violently in the
air, as if caught in a huge wind. Through the viewfinder, Bierman
focussed on the Dome thousands of feet below. 

The flash encompassed everything. 

Holding his hand to his eyes in front of the viewfinder, he
could see the bones in his fingers.  For a second, he thought he was
dead, nothing more than a skeleton. For a brief second, he thought
they’d blown up the entire world. 

It was like a dream. The tower of flame grew and grew,
until it seemed to be flying higher than Enola herself. The titanic
column flecked with the brightest yellows, a blood red core spitting
out around a most dazzling orange. Flickering and climbing, the
colossal tower of smoke bubbled with purple-gray, covering the city
below. A huge, unnatural cloud with a top like a mushroom, just as
they’d said in the briefing. 
 
                                          * * *
 
“...now boys, when the bomb goes off, you need to not be
concerned with rubbernecking your way to Hell, ‘cos if you don’t get
far enough away, we been led to believe this thing might just take
you with it,” the General said. 
“Ain’t it like no other explosion, sir? I mean call me dumb
ass but I don’t see how any one explosion is gonna be that big a
deal?” Bierman asked. 
“Dumb ass,” offered Corrigan. Some of the men laughed,
but the General seemed to think this was a reasonable question.
“No, son, it ain’t. This thing is bigger than anything you
ever saw. The boys at the Project call it a mushroom cloud. You’ll
see why. But all you need to concern yourself with is getting the
hell out of there once Little Boy’s gone, understood?” 
“Yes, sir,” 
 
                                                             * * * 
  
“Never saw the sun  
Shining so bright 
Never saw things going so right...” 
 
Enola Gay motored forever upwards, coming almost level as
#91 shuddered violently. Bierman wanted to shut his eyes, but was
compelled to watch through the camera.   
 
                                                            ***
 
Click click click goes the shutter, sculpting the lens to see
moments of humanity captured in time forever. A thin barrier
against the brutal power of this new God, whose skeletal fingers
flex and stretch out for the Enola Gay, striving to pluck her, at the
same time reaching for The Great Artiste over to the right.  Click,
whirr, whistle goes plane #91, as she makes a desperate bid to free
herself from the obscene back draft generated by Little Boy.
Instruments cry in mechanical distress. Metal creaks and clanks and
shudders. He tastes the lead, the bitter fission leaking into his blood
through his nose and his mouth. The Earth below feels the power,
knowing the betrayal of humanity, and weeps into the air with pure
and utter fury. 
 
                                                            ***
 
As she shuddered, it felt as if #91 was about to break apart
in mid-air, but the three planes rode through the unholy storm
together. She, The Great Artiste and Enola Gay somehow emerged
from the incredible force and fled into the blue skies above. Below,
retribution swallowed up one hundred thousand souls.  
 
                                                           ***
 
 REGENERATION 
 
“Blue days, all of them gone 
Nothing but blue skies 
From now on...”  
 
AUGUST 6th 1995 - HIROSHIMA, JAPAN – 4.17pm  
 
Inside the stadium, Taiki Shimamoto sized up the pitcher.
He’d seen this chump way too many times. He just needed to
concentrate, freeze the moment and hit the ball out of the stadium. 
Around him the splattering of a few hundred spectators started to
buzz with anticipation. They knew, like his coach, and his father,
and all his friends that Taiki Shimamoto is going places. Now all the
anxious waiting of the past week was over, and the moment had
arrived. He just wanted to play ball. 

Three thousand miles away in Youngstown, Ohio, Jody
Fleischmann drew his body back, his left leg leaving the ground and
following through as he swung his torso.  His right hand flung the
ball with force and swerve. It dipped through the air, taking an
unnatural trajectory away from the swinging bat. The batsman
tipped the ball into the awaiting gloves of Jimmy Parsons, who
immediately leapt from his feet. 
“Whooo-hoooo,” he screamed. 
“Strrriiiiiike,” warbled the Umpire. 
 
                                                              ***  
 
A single neutron penetrated the nucleus of the first uranium
atom, forcing it to split and create an instantaneous chain reaction,
releasing an unholy ball of energy 1,968 ft above Alioi Bridge, with
a temperature several million degrees hotter than the surface of the
Sun. Hiroshima, as the world had known it, disappeared. 
Shingi felt it strange that, although the school house had
collapsed on top of him and his thirty class mates, he was still
standing on the desk pointing up at the now dark red and black sky. 
Beyond the classroom, he could see the other children outside,
being led out of the schoolyard by his teacher and towards an
illuminated entrance to what he thought must be some kind of Army
outpost. The school had disappeared, the yard was just upturned
rubble and limbs and strange burning charred bits of stuff Shingi
couldn’t identify. 
“No! This B-29 is not here to bomb us!” he shouted through
what was left of the window,  now only a crumbling frame on a
small section of jagged wall.  
“I can tell. I see them every day. I am an expert and so I
am NEVER afraid! Father will tell me I’m right you will all see!” 
The kids ignored him. Mrs Yamamura ignored him.  
“Miss! Miss! Wait for me. Tell me I am right!” Shingi
shouted. His teacher didn’t respond, so Shingi leapt from the table,
scrambling across the rubble, almost falling over himself to run
towards his classmates. Something grabbed his ankle. Looking
down he thought it might be Mr Yamakawa, the caretaker, but there
were no eyes, hardly a face, and the arm felt and looked like a
skeleton. Shaking his ankle free and carrying on, Shingi tried his
hardest but the rubble seemed to get more and more and higher
and higher.
“No, this is not right. Curse the rocks and this playground.
Miss! Miss! Why won’t you wait?” 
Shingi mustered all his energy and jumped up the rubble
piles, and he couldn’t be sure how, but in a few leaps he was back
on the trail of his classmates. 
“Shuko! Please, my greatest friend, wait for poor Shingi!” 
Shuko stopped. Shingi knew it was his greatest friend,
despite him just being a black silhouette in the orangey red and
black sky. 
“Shuko, thank heavens! I think the B-29 has done
something but I...” 
He stopped as Shuko turned. His best friend had no face,
just a black shadow with two piercing bright white eyes. There were
beams of light coming from them, looking through and past Shingi. 
“Shuko? My friend?” he stuttered.  
Shuko pointed, but his black hand was a dripping shadow,
as if it were melting. He pointed across to the stadium, and the
clock tower Dome beyond it. Shingi followed his friend’s fingers and
looked. The town was gone. Just rubble, dead trees, skeletal
remains of buildings. The Dome was still standing proud on dead
land. A vile wind whipped up and around the playground, the old
schoolhouse, echoing around the city. The wind screamed, howling
so hard Shingi covered his ears. He cried out, bursting into tears as
the howls became screams. A low moaning took over, and all
around he could see shadowy shapes lifting themselves from the
rubble. As one, they pointed. Across town, over to the bridge
leading to the Dome. Shingi cried, and put his hands over his ears.
He cried for his Mother, and his Father. Then he ran, as fast as he
could go. The road was just a pile of limbs and bodies. He climbed
over them, scrambling across like a spider.  
 
                                                       ***  
 
Taiki swung instinctively, and watched the white ball soar
into the blue sky. It carried on going as he ran. As he rounded third
base the ground broke into cheers and applause as the ball went
over the stadium wall and into the Dome beyond, landing on the
floor. 
“He has done it again!” 
“This boy, he really hits! 
“It has gone to the Dome! Would you ever believe that?” 
 
                                                      *** 
 
“Nothing but blue skies,  
From now on...”  
 
How he got here, Shingi couldn’t be sure. How come he
came to be sitting in the Dome, surveying the scene around him, he
just couldn’t work out. He didn’t much feel like eating, or sleeping,
only talking. He talked and talked, calling out and asking for
someone, anyone to come. He could see figures hunched up,
making their way around, searching the rubble and ash which
encompassed everything. There were no days, or weeks, or even
years. Just moments, flashes of inspiration and brilliant vision. 
Sometimes the dark skies would clear slightly, a bright white light
breaking through, and the lost souls moaning as they made their
way across the city gradually disappeared. He heard laughter and
joy, just for brief moments.  All the while he sat in the Dome,
waiting for Mother and Father.  

Then one day it happened. One day the sky began to clear.

The white light began to shimmer. The city looked brilliant. Stealing
his breath, bringing tears to his eyes.  Shingi laughed with joy as he
watched the baseball game three hundred yards away. The city
breathed again. Shingi cried, tears rolling down his cheeks as the
black sky pulled back above him and a bright azure started to
replace it. 
“Shingi, my lost love!” 
He turned, let out a cry of joy and ran towards Mother as
she smiled back. Father was there too, and both his beloved parents
beamed with joy as he ran to them.
“Mother! Mother I am here!” 
“My son, at last...” 
 
                                                              ***  
 
“Striiiiiiiiiike Three...you’re a-outta here!” 
In Youngstown, Ohio, Jody allowed himself a smile as
another batsman fell victim and the crowd erupted in applause. 
“This boy’s goin’ Pro for sure!” 
“That’s it, son. Got an arm like a missile!” 
Three thousand miles away, Taiki slowed his run and
waved. The sun was bright in the brilliant sky, and blinded him
momentarily, so he just waved out to anyone who was interested.
Sunlight flashed off a passing passenger jet above, as girls cheered
his name. He smiled, looking up and seeing the coach nodding with
approval. It couldn’t be denied. The future was looking bright.