The survivors called it "Pika Don".. A name that combines 'bright flash', with a wordplay on the sound of a large gong.
The morning sun warmed my back as I walked from Hiroshima Station through vibrant, bustling streets toward the center of town, a smile here and there coming from those who noticed me. Crossing over a peaceful stone-lined river, so gentle and green now, I became overwhelmed with the awful truth of my surroundings. A fireball of immense, unholy fury had kissed the earth here 60 years ago, and vaporized all in it's sight. Thousands of blackened and charred bodies clogged the river below as the burned inhabitants hopelessly jumped into the water to escape their suffering.
No longer a dim memory from grainy old black and white films, the "atom-bomb building" now stood before me, a stark monument to the horror of these hellish devices and the human will to use them. I sat in the shade of the nearby trees and felt great sorrow wash over my heart. We have unleashed a power so immense and powerful, the entire world cannot hide from it. We have used it in anger. We have shamed our nature. We have hurt our brother man and ourselves.