Hands grab them in mid-air. Eyes read them, workers, merchants, students, girls old people and children from outlying villages a throng of residents representing all of Hiroshima for whom August 6th is the anniversary of a death. The entrance to the department store becomes a grim checkpoint. Still handbills fall, gently, gently. Handbills catch on the canopy.
Hands appear holding a broom, sweep every last on off.
They dance their way down one by one, like living things, like voiceless shouts, lightly, lightly. All gatherings are banned. The smoke of rocket launcers rises from newsreel screens. From back streets resound the shouts of those children who, who signed petitions against the bomb. It sounds absurd, but doves nest in the ruins of the Nevada Nuclear Test Site.