We Walk On Ash

By Pablo Zaragoza

Imagine witnessing the greatest devastation mankind had – at that time – ever known: America's atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. Now imagine, in the midst of such horrific firebombing with unspeakable disintegration and death, a father still mourning the loss of his wife and son under different circumstances, seeing the Shinto deity of fire, Kagutsuchi, laughing as hell spills onto the earth. Imagine once again the father, being tapped by Kagutsuchi's sister, Suijin, to become transformed and embark on a mission to destroy her brother's demons and save Japan.

 

In We Walk on Ash, we follow this unlikely human pair, under the direction of the Princess Blossom Of The Trees, to battle fire monsters bent on destruction and death. The father would become her samurai, his daughter would hone her bow and arrow skills, and together they would build their strength to confront Kagutsuchi and defeat him.

 

Through the transformation and for the duration of their mission, several questions plague them: Why had we been saved? How could we walk the path of faith when we didn't believe? Was this our version of the light at the end of a dark tunnel? Were we just carbonized remains in our garden like so many others in Hiroshima?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pablo Zaragoza
• Release date: Nov 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223068167

Book preview

WE WALK ON ASH

Pablo Zaragoza

Table of Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Epilogue

About The Author

Books By Pablo Zaragoza

Copyright

DEDICATION

To the person who is responsible for my words, that they be spelled and used correctly and that my punctuation is correct: my partner in crime Susan Giffin, my editor in chief. She makes sure that the plot flows and that I don’t change the names of characters mid-story, among myriad other things that make the books turn out right.

To my family who provide a constant source of material.

To the people who read my stories.

Thank you.

CHAPTER ONE

The sky was watercolor aqua as I opened my eyes to greet the day. I saw only a few wisps of white clouds as I looked out the window. Our city, Hiroshima, had not been devastated by Flying Fortresses.

Tokyo, our beloved capital, had suffered devastating firebombing, causing people’s shoji - wooden framed homes with paper panels - to burn easily. It didn’t take much to devastate the homes of the poor, the workers, the clerks, the soldiers working in the capital. The newspapers that once told of our victories over the West now tried to hide the truth that Americans dominated the seas, and with each day, they drew closer and closer to home.

The high-ranking important people were safe. Tojo had a bunker, a strong brick building to protect him, but the ordinary people didn’t. The planes targeted the factories, but bombing is never that precise, and there is always what military men call collateral damage.

That is a neutral way of saying people died because the bombs tore apart their homes. The man selling his fish on his bicycle was torn apart because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The family sleeping at home was burned to a crisp by firebombs, along with the little children curled in fetal positions in bed because of the heat generated from the phosphorus bombs.

I didn’t pretend that we didn’t do horrible, unforgiving things to the Chinese, Filipinos, Americans, and English because men are cruel, heartless creatures who thirst for blood.

The men in power didn’t want to say that we had lost, admit that the sacrifice, the pain, the lives lost were all in vain. The warrior code, Bushido, was still strong in these men, although it was an adulterated Bushido. They could not lose face. For them, what were a few more lives lost as long as those that remained didn’t lose face? Let them try to land on our shores. We will fight to the last man to defend Nihon, Japan. So what if a few million die as long they don’t lose face? Bushido talked about the obligation of loyalty and sacrifice. They played with that but forgot about humility and compassion.

The warm summer air was coming off the bay, and I could smell the salt in it as I stepped outside. I had a habit of working in my garden in the early morning. The war had made me a farmer to help me feed my family. Things had become scarce, and the fear of invasion was in every heart. I raised chickens, rabbits, and two pigs that were more trouble than they were worth, since Rin, my eldest daughter, didn’t want to eat them, thinking they were pets.

Rin was in the garden with me, and we were on our hands and knees pulling weeds, making sure that no insects were eating away at our Hakussai, a type of cabbage we use in our salads, or that the renkon and daikon had enough water to grow so that we’d have them ready for winter.

Soldiers had come around to ask if our garden would produce enough to give them some for their needs. The garrison in town was small, and most of our men were still in Manchuria, fighting the Chinese since 1931.

I was not bitter about what happened to my son. Many families had had to make sacrifices. We told them that we were a family of three, but we would share what we could with them. They bowed, thanking us for the generosity we had shown them throughout the war. They didn’t see me spit on the ground as they turned their backs and walked away because even if I hadn’t relented, they would have taken what they wanted.

My son had died in Manchuria, Manchukuo, according to the government. They gave few to no details as to how it happened. They told us that we should be proud of losing a son in defense of the empire. I didn’t feel proud at the time, only heartache that I wouldn’t see my son ever again. His unkempt hair, his asking questions about almost anything, his helping me in the garden; he wouldn’t be doing those things with me anymore.

The loss had devastated my wife, Akira. She cut her hair and wouldn’t eat for weeks. She had become this living corpse walking to the temple in dirty torn rags. She would drink green tea and go to the Buddhist temple in the early morning and not return until late in the afternoon. She wouldn’t bathe or groom herself in any way. When she was awake, she was on her knees, praying. The prayers went unanswered. My boy was dead, and there was no way that the deities she begged to would bring him back.

Rin cooked as best she could and tried keeping the house clean. My wife wasn’t in our world anymore. She walked in the spirit realm, talking to unseen spirits. She had become more spirit than human, saying that she detested all the cardinal pleasures, and that prayer and meditation was all that she needed to sustain herself. Her body had withered away, her retracted lips revealed yellow stained teeth from the unsweetened tea she drank. Her breath was foul, smelling like an open sewer filled with excrement and decay. This wasn’t the woman I had married twenty-five years ago. Her withered body started to develop bed sores. She struggled to stand and used a walking stick to hobble to the temple, until one day she couldn’t stand anymore. She was only forty-five years old.

I whispered in her ear when she could no longer move, Beloved, why do you torture yourself and me?

As my tears fell on her cheek, she smiled. I see what is to come, my brave Ronin, and you must be brave for the road is covered in ash.

At the time, I didn’t know what she meant. They were the ravings of a woman who had lost her mind due to malnutrition and grief over the loss of our son.

The government told us that they couldn’t bring him home for a proper burial. His body had been cremated in the field, so they gave us a small cardboard box with his ashes. I wasn’t sure that this plain five-by-four-inch box contained all of my son. I opened it to see if there were fragments of bone, but there were none. I wondered if they had given me some sand from the beach instead of my boy’s remains. I wouldn’t put it past these sons of bitches. They walked erect as if they had a broomstick up their ass and bowed to the point that their face touched the ground, all the while looking for ways to steal our food, our homes, our children.

I looked at this box and felt a tear roll down my cheek. I tried holding it back, but I couldn’t. I knelt beside her on her mat.

My wife, I am not a samurai without a master, but a simple teacher on the outskirts of the city. Please eat something because I’m afraid that you will dead if you don’t eat.

My tears at this point flowed like the Ishikari River with its ice-cold water landing on her face and chest.

She smiled at me and said, Fight on, beloved. Fight on, for I cannot fight anymore. She closed her eyes and fell into that deep sleep, traveling to that place where the spirit is at peace.

In tears, I went outside where my daughter was still tending the garden and told her that her mother had passed away. She put her arms around my neck, and the two of us cried like children, not letting go of each other, not knowing what we would do next.

The neighbors came out of their houses to ask what had happened. I told them that Akira was dead. They tried to comfort us, but Rin and I were inconsolable. We collapsed on the floor, and I beat the dark earth with my fist and cursed whatever gods cared to hear me. They had abandoned us, the very gods that she had dedicated her life to had turned their backs on her. Under my breath, I cursed them. Rin heard me and held me tight.

My neighbor, So, extended his hand and raised me up. Come, let us go inside the house.

I walked into his house with him. He brewed some tea for me and Rin, but I couldn’t drink the brew because it reminded me of Akira. My wife would perform the chanoyu, the tea ceremony, making sure that I was relaxed and in a state of harmony. She would make the hot tea in the morning with the clean porcelain pot, the proper bamboo ladle, and all the proper instruments to make the experience complete before I went to school. We had a small separate room which she maintained to provide a sense of well-being to offer me the green liquid, and she fussed over me as I sat down for breakfast.

It was too painful even to look at the green leaves floating in the water, giving off its green essence. I asked So to bring down the sake from the top shelf and pour me a drink. That bottle of sake was older than my nineteen-year-old daughter. I gulped down the first drink and felt it burn my throat. I asked So for another, and he poured it.

Rin was with So’s wife, Chinatsu, who lent her shoulder to my poor daughter who had had to live through the past year, seeing how her mother’s grief had destroyed me and the family. So and Chinatsu were good people who had tried to console my wife when we got the news of our son’s death. Chinatsu was older than Akira, telling her that she had lost two babies at birth, and the only one that had survived was in the Imperial Airforce. She had not heard from him in months.

Chinatsu was tall for a Japanese woman, towering over So, with long gray hair that almost touched the floor. So, although smaller in stature, was a square-shaped, muscular man who had worked at building ships, welding, and riveting bolts on the battleships.

Rin and Chinatsu washed my wife’s body and put scented oils on her slender corpse. They dressed her in a silk kimono and combed her hair that flowed over the pillow.

That night, I dressed in traditional black robes, and for the first time in more than twenty years, I polished the Samurai sword my father had given to me when I became of age. I knelt next to Akira’s body as people came through the house, carrying burnt incense and giving my daughter small amounts of money in the Buddhist tradition.

A monk in traditional orange and yellow robes of the temple said prayers for her. The following day, we took the body to the forest. Akria wanted to be left out there in the open, exposed to the predation of the animals to give nourishment back to the earth. How could she wish to be consumed by the creatures of the forest?

When I returned home, I felt all alone. The love of my life had been taken away.

My daughter tried to console the pain by telling me that she needed me to take care of the animals and the garden, that I should get my lazy ass out of bed. My head was pounding from drinking too much sake after the funeral.

As I stood, the room spun around, and I staggered to the wall to keep from falling. I took a deep breath to cleanse my body. I leaned against the wall for several minutes. I had to get the image of worms crawling over Akira’s body; of my beloved being torn open by animals, consumed by worms, and left out there in the open to rot for the next forty-nine days. Then I would collect her remains, cremate them, and scatter the ashes close to the pagoda in the Buddhist temple. I could only imagine the foul smell of decay and my beautiful bride’s body with her belly bursting with blowflies and maggots crawling out of her. Her remaining skin green with distended dark purple veins coursing what remained of her body. I couldn’t bear these thoughts.

I turned to the bottle of sake for comfort. I didn’t want to see what remained of her eyes after pecked out by the crows, her lips torn away by the other birds that had feasted on her. Why had she made me suffer by doing this? Why?

I went outside and saw Rin on her knees, pulling the weeds and crying, her tears watering our vegetables. I slowly walked toward her and smiled. She said, Come on, old man. Get down here and feel the earth between your fingers.

I knelt beside her, and she took my hand. I smiled, but I wasn’t really there. I was somewhere else, sitting quietly with Akira who was as beautiful as the day I had met her. She was also a teacher, just starting to teach at our rural school. She was the most graceful, beautiful creature I had ever met.

As I looked at my daughter, I saw Akira teaching her children about traditional Japanese literature, talking about the songs of the Kokiki or the Nihongi. These were her passions: talking about the tanka, the haiku, and the Noh to sleepy-eyed teenagers whose only thoughts were about touching some girl’s breast and masturbating in the boys’ lavatory.

I taught mathematics and science in the classroom next to hers. As I passed her room, I would slowly turn my head and catch a glimpse of her. As I did, I would see her smiling at me. She’d divert her eyes because she was embarrassed. At the time, it was not proper for a young Japanese woman to have feelings for a man, especially in the workplace.

It was still early in the morning around eight o’clock on a sunny August day. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I could smell the ocean that was close by and thought I should go fishing soon. and bring home a fresh catch. Akira loved fresh fish. I would clean them outside, and she would cook them on an open fire outside, so the house wouldn’t smell of them.

I caught myself thinking that my beloved was still with us, getting out of bed and making breakfast. The illusion faded, and I was back in this hell I was living without my son or my wife with me.

My hands were in the black rich soil, pulling weeds. I looked up and saw a single airplane hovering over us. That was strange. The city had never been bombed, and although some military industries were present in town, only the shipbuilding was of any significance, and that had almost come to a standstill due to a shortage in raw materials.

I heard the scream of a thousand women coming