Your apathy is our disease; your apathy, a plague…
We dwell beyond sorrow. You close your mouths. We dwell beyond pain. You close your eyes. Beyond grief, beyond despair. You close your ears, for you do not hear us, for you do not listen to us …
And we are tired, we are so tired, so very tired –
But still we dwell, between these two places –
Beyond dereliction, we lie. Drunk, you harangue us. Beyond oblivion, we wait. Sober, you ignore us. Forgotten and untended, buried or burnt, haunted and restless, under the earth and above the sky, without dreams and without sleep. You are Mind to our suffering. We are so tired, so very tired. You are deaf to our supplications. We weep without tears, we scream without sound,
yet still we wait, and still
we watch –
Between the Occupied City and the Dead City, between the Perplexed City and the Posthumous City we wait, we watch and we struggle. Here in this grey place, here where we are waiting,
watching and struggling:
Cursed be you who cast us into this place! Cursed be you who keep us here! Fickle you are, so very fickle –
Fickle are you, fickle the living…
Forgotten are we, forgotten and denied –
Lives forgotten and deaths denied –
For you deny us our deaths …
Deny us and trap us …
In the Perplexed City, the Posthumous City, beyond the Occupied City, before the Dead City, here we are trapped, trapped in the greyness, trapped in this city. In this city that is no city,
this place that is no place –
Here we shuffle, we shuffle around, around in circles, with our boxes. Did you hear our footsteps in your heart? Our own ashes, around our necks, our own bones, in these boxes. Did you feel our fingertips within your flesh? We raise our shoulders, we raise our faces, we raise our eyes. Have you come to lead us back, back towards the light? Back towards the light, we begin to shuffle. Back to the Occupied City? In the Occupied City, we shuffle around, around these twelve candles, we gather around, around and around –
Back in the Occupied City, here we are the victims again –
Here, never the witnesses; always, already the victims –
So we are weeping. Always, already the weeping –
Here, we who were once the living –
Now weeping all the time, here –
Here tonight, weeping –
In the Occupied City, where the weeping seek the living. But the living are not here, not here tonight before these candles –
Here tonight, there are only the weeping –
Here tonight, only us:
And so again tonight we are Takeuchi Sutejiro, Watanabe Yoshiyasu, Nishimura Hidehiko, Shirai Shoichi, Akiyama Miyako, Uchida Hideko, Sawada Yoshio, Kato Teruko, Takizawa Tatsuo, Takizawa Ryu, Takizawa Takako and Takizawa Yoshihiro –
But we are still weeping. Always,
already the weeping,
always, already the weeping again in the Occupied City:
In the Occupied City it is 26 January 1948 again –
Here it is always, already 26 January 1948 –
This date always, already our wound –
Our wound which will never heal –
Here, here where it is always, already that date, that time; always, already, the last time:
For the last time. In the morning, we wake in our beds. In our beds that are no longer our beds. For the last time. In our homes, we dress. In our homes that are no longer our homes, our clothes that are no longer our clothes. For the last time. We eat white rice. Now we eat only the black rice, the black rice that empties our stomachs. For the last time. We drink clear water. Here we drink only the dark water, the dark water that empties our mouths. For the last time. In our genkans, we say goodbye to our mothers and our fathers, our sisters and our brothers, our wives and our sons, our husbands and our daughters. Our mothers and our fathers, our sisters and our brothers, our wives and our sons, our husbands and our daughters who are no longer our mothers and our fathers, no longer our sisters and our brothers, no longer our wives and our sons, no longer our husbands and our daughters. For the last time. In the snow, we leave for work. For our work that is no longer our work. For the last time. Among the crowds, we catch our trains and our buses. Our trains and our buses that are no longer our trains