Nagasaki
by Jack

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The man sat by himself on the floor zazen style. More than half his body was burned and his vision was blurry from a half glance at the point where the sun had touched the earth. Before him was a painting of his ancestor framed in old cherry wood. Incense burned and its smoke and smell wafted up into the dark black and grey sky.

It had rained black yesterday and though he could barely see it, he knew his house was covered with a paint that would take years to remove.

He wondered to himself if he should wish and die or hold out for a different sort of miracle. A miracle that the German priest promised could be had and held.

Thoughts flitted through his head like some drunken butterfly without any errand. He pictured his sister, then his mother and his father and he wondered if they still lived. He saw his wife and tears came to his near sightless eyes. He looked down at the dinner table she had set just seventeen days ago, where all three of the others had sat enjoying the meal he had worked so hard to earn. And he focused his near sightless eyes on his wife, her head low as in fashion and his heart swelled in his heart for his love of her. His eyes became even more blurry as the tears over ran his lids.

His wife had always wanted children but she was dead now from the sickness that seemed to have infected him as well. Only three days after the sun touched down on the world, she had died, fully blind while losing her hair, her teeth loose and partially out of her mind from looking at the splendor on the earth.

His tears fell to the tops of his thighs.

He focused his thoughts and he knew what children would have meant and brought to her. But he had held back, thinking the two of them could go it alone, that they could be for each other and that if necessary, they could adopt one of the many war time orphans from Korea or China. She could not bear children without dieing during the birth, the best doctors had said. But she would have died by her own will just to give him a child and hopefully a son. He loved her and so he had withheld his second wish for a son to spare her and their unborn the death of two parents. Because he knew once the boy was born, he’d gladly grant a third wish of a long and fruitful life and when he did; he would die leaving the child alone.

He had wasted his first wish on money and a life he did not want. He had declared before the image of his long dead ancestor he would not do such a thing again with his last.

But now he sat alone in the burnt out frame of his house looking at the blurred image of his ancestor, himself partially blind and his wife dead. His ancestor was a samurai named Morigami who had died in battle fighting in a war. His ancestor was a true man who had never feared to make a decision and who had never wavered in his duty to his family or his lord.

Narito was ashamed of himself for his fear. He knew that he could wish his fear away, he could wish for his wife back and for children to make her happy, but he held onto his fear and the little voice inside his head was a mixture of cowardice and a hope at a better future than the one he now had. He thought and hoped, could the German priest be right? Could the Christ come down and save him and his family? He lowered his head, no longer able to meet the eyes of his noble ancestor’s portrait. Could the Christ bring his wife back so that they would once again hold hands under the cherry trees and look into each other’s eyes? His tears fell.

Nagasaki was a wasteland only seven days old and he had been told that he should not, could not drink the water. He was very thirsty now kneeling inside his burnt out home while looking down at the floor and away from the picture of his proud ancestor. Tears dropped from his eyes and fell steadily to his lap and blackened wood floor he knelt on.

“I am dead,” Narito said aloud. He felt even more shame at his real word admission. He lowered his head and bodily fell fully in a bow of acceptance and his tears dripped wetting the black floor only centimeters from his face. The tears no longer touched his pants in his new prostrate form.

He raised his head and eyes to the wise and ancient portrait of Morigami, his most noble of ancestors. He raised his face up a bit higher and looked at the samurai’s picture and he felt such shame while he met his ancestor’s eyes, for his fear and love for one who had always been stronger than him made him hate himself.

“I am sorry I am so weak ancestor,” he said to the painting, “I wish I could have been like you. Strong and willful and not filled with this fear.”

Narito felt a new wash of shame, but he kept his eyes on the portrait and he did not let his tears interfere with his sun-blurred vision, he would stay strong in his death resolve.

The demon stood well behind the prostrate Narito watching, waiting on a breath that was baited with hope that this new, now dying, child of the wish granted family of Ohkuni-nushi would also fail. Fail as some many of his lesser before him had failed. She greedily wanted his soul as she had taken and loved so many others of this once proud clan.

‘To think they all die and become mine because of a thirteen-year-old boys prayer years ago, when the Samurai were created and Nippon was still fighting for itself,’ she thought. When a scion of Yoritomo would damn his family line for pride. The last true Minamoto’s were cursed well before the Tokugawa ever claimed to be a member of the dead clan.

All due to a small boy’s prayer so long ago to protect his family and clan before the God Ohkuni-nushi in his central shrine with all the correct sacrifices and rights, the demon laughed and laughed.

Her eyes flashed silver light and she turned and smiled at the other who also watched. The other, who held a staff with three rings, would not meet her deadly smiling face. The other’s face was filled with hope and concern and the demon snickered and made sure her laughter was not unheard yet again. The Minamoto clan, so proud that it has surpassed the Emperor himself, was now to forever pay for it’s transgression.

Slowly Narito started to speak and the sickness inside him seemed to twitch and drive him into a pain he had never known before as he spoke, “I wish . . .”

He stopped due to the pain’s sharp sudden spike in him. It was like a sword splitting his belly open and a cross cut to finish the ordeal before his head landed on the floor. He fought the pain and looked back up at the picture of his ancestor, the pain was so intense within him that he wanted nothing else but to die.

“I wish you would tell me what to do,” he managed to stammer and his heartbeat hard in his chest with the sound of a death beat drum. He was tired and sick and his mind butterflied with visions of his own and other’s past as he closed his eyes. He saw himself living and reliving lives. He had lived many lives before he reopened his eyes and looked back at the image of his ancestor and his sickness abated as the light dimmed more toward black. But he was resolute in his decision and he beckoned toward his ancestor and wished his wish.

A thin mist filled the area and it ignored the nuclear after dry of the world. Narito looked into the distance, barely aware of his surroundings. The mist surrounded him and the figure of his ancestor took form in it to his left.

“You are dying,” the fully armored samurai said looking down at his fifth generation son. His ancestor held a spear and the two swords stuck out from his belt as a symbol of confidence and strength. Narito lowered himself and subjected himself to the will of his dead ancestor. Morigami continued, “Death is beautiful, dying is not. You will die now. You want to know what to do?”

Narito nodded. He knew in his heart that he was going to die, that the sun-on-earth had affected him and the sickness that had killed the fish seller neighbor and taken his wife would take him as well. He did not care.

Already his hair was falling out and his teeth were loose in his mouth. He raised his head back up and looked at his strong ancestor. He did not know at that time, that the demon was controlling the once strong samurai. He would learn that later.

“Tell me what to do,” he said, his hands in his lap limp and his eyes still wet with tears. He thought of his wife and her love and he wanted little more than to see her again.

The ghost smiled and looked down at his future. “Wish that you had a third child of a third child. Our line will continue with this that you will do. Make it a male so I can continue our blood.” Narito nodded and said his final wish. “I wish for a third of a third son to be born and live without the sickness.”

He fell dead on the mat and his samurai ancestor faded back into the world of the mist. The demon laughed and clamored over Morigami with a renewed lust he could not ever fight or deny now that he was damned. In the corner of the burned room a child cried and waited for the Americans to pick it up and save it another five days later.

The white doctors marveled that the child could have lived for so long in a house so close to the bomb center. The young boy was eventually adopted at age three by a couple that had lost all their children in a school that was too close to the dropped bomb. They were named Takeo and they loved the child they had taken in with all their heart.

Himitsu looked at the boy child born of a wish while holding her three ringed staff and took her place in her world watching and waiting for him to say the words. She felt despair that they would all follow the demon and never let go the curse of the wishes three.

The demon laughed as it played with Narito and made him cry some more. Morigami watched and though he wanted, he could do nothing to help his descendant