Schoolmaster's Talk
"A Beautiful Morning" 
"I" in this story identifies our schoolmaster.It occurred on the morning of August 6th, when it was a hot , sunny morning with the blue sky. I went to school with my big sister who was a 3rd grader. We were in summer holiday, so we had a summer lesson in a neighbor's big house where some teachers would come to teach us. As usual, our mother saw us off till we turned on the corner of the street. At 8:15, when we were doing our routine of cleaning the school. Each pupil was on each role, squeezing the rag and wiping the floor, and brooming the floor. I was also working with my sister. As the water in the bucket got dirty, we talked wild about which of us should go to the sink to get fresh water. My sweet sister offered to go into the well cottage to get and fetch fresh water. I was continuing to clean the gate.
Then c
Somewhat white,or yellow like millions of lightening flashed from heaven . It was like hundreds of strobe flash bulbs had gone off at one time.
"Calmness and ..." 
I was lost in mind for a while. Silent air lasted.
It was pitch dark around me and I don't remember anything.
The dirt around me got soothed.
I found myself surrounded by the pillars and the walls which were crashed down.
After the dirt having been soothed, I could see the sky above me.
"Ah, I am alive. I have survived. I can escape.." I thought.
I tried to move my hands and I could. "If I crawled and reached there,
I could escape."
I was fighting and never ceased to survive, though I was just a first grader.
In those days at school we had been learning how to survive. On hearing the term g Evacuation ! " We used to practice to lie down on our bellies on the ground with our ears covered with our thumbs and with our eyes covered with our fingers. This was an important training.
"I must run away" 
Though waiting for and crying for someone, no one came to help me.
I decided to escape by myself.
I had had walls and roofs fallen over me. The old Japanese walls were
made of dried clay, so I scratched the dried clay with my fingers and
broke knots of thatched and knitted strings with my teeth and hands.
At last I could exit out of the hole I broke.
On exitting outside, I was frightened. All the houses in the neighbor were entirely crashed. Then I came across a lot of people who were burned or injured with clothes ripped from their bodies and left naked... They walked in a long row quietly in the same direction. Everybody was trekking to the hillside, most of whom were walking with limps. I caught up with them in a row and began to walk side by side toward the hillside. I didn't know where we were going. Everyone was heavily wounded . I thought,gI must run away, I must run away" and hurried toward the hillside.
"The river with the people gulped and floating"
The location where I was wrapped up in a disaster of Atomic Bomb was near
Hiroshima Railroad Station.
On my way to run to the hillside, I caught a sight like this :
Walking ahead near the Nigitsu Shrine, our run-away row came across the river bank. On catching the sight of the river from the bank, I raised a cry, "Oh, my God!" Many peole were drowned and flown down the river. The wounded, the burned wanted some water because their throats were burning dried, so went near the riverwside and jumped into the river and lost their lives. Hundreds of people floated in and out down the river.
If I saw this now ... but at that time I had no thoughts. I had confronted the death and so had the people around me. I just had been murmuring in a faint feeling,"The corpses are just floating." 'The corpses are going downstream.'
Passing through the Nigitsu Shrine, the fire broke out from the house right beside me. "The house has got fire!" I managed to pass safely.
Now we have the ceremony named 'Floating Lantern' on the eve of August 6th. Hundreds of, thousands of people lost their lives not only in this river but all around the city. We have that event on account of soothing their souls by lighting the lanterns and floating them on the river. As thousands of and hundreds of lanterns ran down the river, so did the lost lives .
"Townscape of Hiroshima burning red"
We escaped to the Ushita Hill. Crawling up to the middle of the hillside,
I looked back downtown Hiroshima. All around Hiroshima from east to west,
the city caught fire and the inferno swirled higher and higher up to heaven.
If I had run away too late, I would have burned to death.
Coming back to my mind, I found myself surrounded by strangers. I didn't know where my father, mother, and sister would have been straying. No neighbors and teachers could I find around me. The people who escaped from the fire, went into the air-raid shelters in the middle of the hillside. I followed them. "Aah, are you all right, boy ? You would be hurt and scraped." One stranger called me up. "Hang on, boy. Never get to die !" Then he applied me mercurochrome to the hurt.
I was watching all the Hiroshima City burning and roaring up like a rose red sun for hours and hours. Hiroshima burned to ashes with a big fire pillar roaring up into the sky.
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