Photo by Alice Castro from Pexels
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
– William Blake, Songs of Experience
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne’er hung there.
– Gerard Manley Hopkins, No worst, there is none
TIME AND PLACE
Present.
A park.
CHARACTERS
JACK DAWKINS, a child.
SIR, Jack’s father.
KAI, a story-teller.
SCENE – SUNDAY AFTERNOON
SIR and JACK are walking through a park together. They have just lost Diana (Sir’s wife and Jack’s mother), and are grieving together by walking and not talking about it.
JACK
Sir? What’s that bird? The one with green wings over there.
SIR
You know, this is the first time I’ve seen one like that here. It’s like ones in Japan I saw. Called … what?…. Koko, I believe. Or something like that.
They were painted a lot by a Japanese artist, who painted for the Emperor.
JACK
Who was that?
SIR
I can’t remember his name, offhand. Sorry, Son. He painted in Nagasaki during the war.
JACK
I had a dream about Nagasaki last night.
SIR
About Nagasaki? What makes you think that?
JACK
I believe it was. I was climbing up long, tall hills, up streets past Japanese houses.
Paper, and crowded close together, all the way to the top.
SIR
How do you know it was Nagasaki?
JACK
Isn’t that where the atomic bomb fell, over all those hills? I saw the flash.
SIR
You did?
JACK
I was looking for somebody, but I didn’t know who. To save them.
Maybe that painter, before the bomb dropped. What was he like?
SIR
I really don’t know anything about him, except that he died when the Bomb fell.
The two of them find an open park bench and sit down. KAI is sitting at the end of the same park bench, by himself.
JACK
Tell me more about Nagasaki. I love hearing you tell about places you’ve been.
SIR
Oh Jack, I never got to Nagasaki. It’s on a different island. Way south.
JACK
[beat] Anything?
SIR
No. Sorry.
KAI
Pardon me, may I?
SIR
I’m sorry. What?
KAI
I beg you to forgive me, but I heard you talking to your son.
And if it would not be an intrusion, I know Nagasaki quite well.
I lived there as a child.