Moisture fills my eyes as I think about the place I have to tell you about.  It is fitting that water flows down my face, for it was gray and rainy that day; even though I had a poncho and an umbrella, I couldn’t keep dry.
            It was a hot, muggy, July afternoon in Japan, but the rain and the surroundings made me shiver inside.  Where do I start when the story is so big that I have to shrink it down as small as I can and store it away in some part of my mind that I seldom venture?  As I think about it, I finally recognize the shape of my story.  It is an origami crane.  I fold it up and put it on a shelf inside me, but sometimes it flies out on its own, reminding me that I have a story to tell.  A story I promised to tell that hot rainy day in July.
            Hiroshima is a city of islands.  Even the name Hiroshima means “expanse of islands.”  The Ota-gawa flows between two ranges that confine it until it reaches the end of its journey, where it forms a triangular delta before it flows into the Inland Sea.  The Ota-gawa splits into two rivers as it enters the city of Hiroshima.  The Kyobashi flows to the east and splits again, forming an island featuring Hiji-yama, one of the few hills in this low-lying city spread across the islands of the delta.  The Ota-gawa itself flows to the west, splitting once and then again.  On that particular rainy day I was on a narrow island between the Ota-gawa and the Motoyasu River.
            At the northern end of this island, in the heart of the city, is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.  If you ever run into anyone who has been here, they will most likely say, “You should go there.  Everyone should go there.”  But they probably won’t say much more, because the experience is so profound that it embeds itself inside you, almost forming a secret pact with your soul.  What every traveler and resident of Hiroshima says is true, however.  The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park should be a pilgrimage that every citizen of the world ought to make.
            Five bridges lead into the Peace Park, welcoming visitors from every approach.  Peace Boulevard marks the southern border of the park, but this tree-lined road reaches east and west across two bridges and extends into the city as if to guide the unknowing to this shrine.  The Hiroshima Museum parallels the boulevard.  The museum is like a bridge itself, rising on piers above the throngs of people flowing into the park like water.  Perched up in the museum, the visitor has a bird’s eye view of the park.  The river of people flows first to the Cenotaph, an arched memorial to the victims of the atomic bomb.  The Cenotaph is like an island, with the people splitting into two smaller streams that continue past the memorial.  The flow of people converges again at the Eternal Flame then continues on its way to a statue of a young girl, Sadako, who is being carried away on the wings of a crane.  Below her, plexiglass buildings filled with row upon row of colorful origami cranes surround her shrine.  Fly with Sadako and the thousand cranes across the river and you will see an eerie sight:  the skeleton of a domed building, one of the few to survive the atomic blast.
            Several paths lead away from the main one and meander to numerous shrines nestled among the trees, providing out-of-the-way places to contemplate the rush of thoughts and feelings that enter from every direction.  Eventually my steps lead me back to the museum; I merge with the stream of people heading in the same direction.  The rain dripping down our faces joins the tears flowing from the depths of our being as we look at the displays and photographs.  The images envelop us with sorrow.  Pictures of people stripped of their clothes and skin by the atomic blast.  Expressions of pain beyond belief.  Street cars and tricycles, and their occupants, stopped dead in their tracks.  Vaporized.  A diorama of the city before and after.  A panoramic photo taken by someone who had to be in shock, but who knew they had to record this story before they passed from the scene.
            Tucked away in a corner of the museum is a tribute to Sadako, the girl who attempted to fold a thousand cranes so that she could have just one wish:  life.  She died in 1955 at age twelve after folding 644 cranes.  Paper was scarce after the war, so the cranes are very tiny; the largest crane only able to spread its little wings a span of one inch.
            You might think I’ve come to the end of my story, but this is only the setting to the real story, told to us on July 13, 2003 by a Hiroshima hibakusha, a survivor of the A-bomb.  Matsushima-san is a wonderful old man full of life, with a round, happy face and a good attitude.  I wish everyone could hear him speak, but here are his words as best as I can remember them:
Hajimemashite.  I am pleased to meet you.  My name is Matsushima Keijiro, you can call me Mr. Matsushima.  I am an old man now and I want to tell you what happened to me when I was a teenager in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped during World War II.  There are so few of us survivors, hibakusha, left and we are growing older.  I want you to know what an atomic bomb is really like.     
            I was 16 years old and hungry, very hungry, like everyone else during World War II.  My father had just died and my two older brothers were in the war.  My mother had been evacuated to the countryside so I was the only one of the family left in Hiroshima.  I had spent the long, hot summer working in a factory for the war effort, but now it was August and we were back in school.
            This is a map of Hiroshima, my hometown.  All the 7th graders were out building firebreaks, so that the whole city wouldn't burn down like had happened in Tokyo.  Our school and dorm were just behind this hill, Hiji-yama.  I grew up near this hill and so I love it.  And it ended up saving my life, as you shall later see.
School had just started and I had been in math class for only 15 minutes.  Class was boring so I was looking out the window on the south side of the room.  It was a hot summer day and the sky was as blue as could be.  Then I saw two B-29 bombers in the sky.  They were shiny, white and beautiful, like icicles.
            There were only two, so I wasn't worried.  I decided I had better start paying attention so I turned my gaze from the window to the teacher. 
            In that instant there was a bright flash and my eyes could only see red and orange and yellow.  I felt like I had been thrown in an oven it was so hot!  I covered my eyes and ears and jumped under my desk and heard a huge sound like hundreds of lightning bolts striking at once, "don!"  And then, everything was pitch black and very quiet--no sound at all.  I crawled around in the dark hell and for the first time in my life I prayed to Buddha and my Mommy.  I was scared to death and thought I was dying.  But like I told you before, I was very hungry, so I groped around in the dark for my lunch box before struggling to the door.  As I left the room I thought what an unlucky boy I was, to be the one directly hit by the firebomb. 
            When I got out in the school yard I could see I was bloody all over but it wasn't anything compared to what I saw outside.  Bodies were broken and bleeding and smoke hung over the whole city.  I couldn't understand--bombs are not that big.  I found my close friend and he was in bad shape so I helped him get to the hospital, which was near the school.  All the houses were broken and fires were everywhere.  The streetcar was a burnt skeleton.
Along the roads were lines of people burned far more terribly than even my friend.  Their clothes were singed to shreds and their skin was dripping off them.  They all held their hands outstretched in front of them and they walked like a procession of ghosts.  How could it be?  Later on I found out that it was an atomic bomb that hit us that day.  Almost all of the 7th graders of our city died because they were out in the city building fire breaks.  But our school was behind Hiji-yama, which protected us from the blast.  I was shocked and out of order seeing all the broken, dripping people.  And even though I was a thoughtless boy, I felt bad for all the dying people.  I even thought all of Hiroshima was dying, it was such a nightmare. 
By the time we got to the hospital we could see that others needed more help so we left.  A rescue truck picked up my friend and he was saved.  But whenever I crossed a bridge I could see burning people jumping in the river, men and women, boys and girls, they were so hot.  The river was full of dead and dying bodies.
            I decided to walk along the railroad track towards where my Mommy was staying.  I walked for hours, away from the dying city.  I guess I ate my lunch, but I don't remember.  I finally got to a station where the trains were running and sometime around midnight I got to my Mommy; she was overjoyed to see me.  She had seen the huge mushroom cloud over Hiroshima and had been hearing horrible stories and she thought she'd never see me again.
I was sick in bed with a high fever and diarrhea for over a week.  I guess my body was trying to get all of the poison out of me.  I don't know how I made it home, because after I was in bed, I couldn't move for days.  On August 15th we heard that the Emperor would speak to us on the radio.  I felt so ashamed because I had to listen to the Emperor while I was lying down.  That is not a polite way to listen to the Emperor, but I still couldn't even sit up in bed.  The Emperor told us that we had lost the war and that we must "endure the unendurable."  I felt that I understood what he meant.  I was sad and relieved at the same time.  This horrible war was over.
            Nowadays, many people ask me and other survivors, "What do you think of dropping the A-bomb to end the war?"  There are many opinions on this.  Some people think it was necessary because if the A-bomb was not dropped, the war might have continued, obviously.  And there were many citizens that wanted to keep on fighting.  However, some think the war would have ended soon even without the bomb.  I myself have no idea, but I say we must face to the future and stop a third bomb from striking anyone.  Even though the people of Hiroshima don't know the answer to that question we are asked, whether the atomic bomb was necessary, we all know that it must never be used again.  All agree on that in Hiroshima.  There are many ugly things that happened in the past but we must face to the future.  People must not be ignorant about the damage done by an atomic bomb.  Please, tell your people an old man in Hiroshima told you that we must not let this happen again.
            Matsushima-san looked around at his audience and smiled that crooked smile of his.  Then he added, “And if you have your own stupid ways that you behave, now is the time to fix them.”