The light of the train carriage vanished, replaced by the soft, sepia tones of memory.
We meet Haruki as a small boy, frequently tormented, his fragile spirit chipped away by the relentless cruelty of his peers. Then came Aiko, a little girl whose spirit burned with a quiet, fierce defiance. She intervened, shielding Haruki from the blows and the harsh words—a tiny, unwavering sentinel.
Thus began their inseparable bond. They spent their formative years tethered to one another, their days a tapestry of shared, gentle pleasures. Whenever the bullies descended upon Haruki, Aiko was his immediate, unflinching protector.
They committed small, cherished acts of mischief: stealing sweet watermelons from their neighbor's sprawling farm and consuming the pink flesh together under the generous shade of an old tree during the effervescent spring season. They once cared for a stray puppy, nurturing it until the inevitable day it succumbed to the wanderlust of nature and ran away. They amassed sweet memories—small, precious stones laid one upon the other, forging a life.
As time deepened their connection, Aiko, in a moment of decisive earnestness, proposed marriage to Haruki. In 1938, they were united in a traditional ceremony, their vows simple, their future luminous.
Married life was rich with affection and playful friction. Haruki would tease Aiko, perhaps drenching her with water during her chores in the crispness of winter, or hiding her tools in a lighthearted prank. Aiko, in turn, exacted revenge, subtly replacing the sugar with salt in their meals. Yet, these jests were merely the surface ripples; their love remained a profound, unwavering current. When Aiko fell gravely ill, Haruki refused to sleep, attending to her tirelessly until the fever finally broke.
After several years, they welcomed their son, Rin, into their world.
The passage of time continued its measured pace until Rin had grown old enough for schooling. One day, Haruki and Aiko placed their young son into a small cart, sending him toward the nearby village to stay with his grandparents—a necessity of life, a temporary separation.
Left alone in the afternoon quiet, they sat together, sharing a slice of watermelon, savoring the familiar sweetness.
"How swiftly time passes," Aiko observed softly, her gaze distant. "Our son is five years old now."
Haruki smiled gently. He lifted his hand and tenderly placed it upon Aiko's head, a gesture of deep, enduring love. He was about to speak, to offer some tender assurance, when his eyes snagged on an object in the sky.
It was a lone airplane, a metallic silhouette against the brilliant blue. Haruki watched as it discharged something—an object that was indistinct from that distance, a dark speck beginning its terrifying descent. It fell for an agonizing period, perhaps forty-three seconds, suspended in the endless sky before gravity claimed it.
Upon impact, there was not a sound, but a ferocious, blinding bright light. A moment of searing, absolute brilliance that consumed everything.
Then, immediate, profound darkness.
The intimate story of Haruki and Aiko breaks apart, dissolving into the terrifying scale of history:
The city of Hiroshima and Nagasaki claimed over 140,000 lives. The catastrophe of the Second World War claimed approximately 85 million. When combined with the staggering losses of the First World War, the total exceeds 100 million casualties.
But the crushing question remains: Why? Why this incomprehensible, cyclical slaughter across the ages? Was it the singular will of a few: Hitler? Oppenheimer? President Harry S. Truman? Was it merely greed—the base desire for land and resources?
Or was it, finally, simply us? The deep, corrosive human flaw—the inner impulse to declare oneself superior, to enforce dominance, to eradicate the perceived inferior. The true density of time is the history of our own
Malice.