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It seemed lovely the time you spent creating them, putting
blessings of your soul out into the world, as you were slowly being
torn from it. It also gave you something to do. You found pleasure
in finding myriads of paper you could use to create the paper cranes
– lolly wrappers, sheet music, magazines. You reached your goal of
1,000 cranes and made a wish. But nothing changed. Even when
your hope and innocence was shattered you continued to try. Time
is a terrible guest, he leaves as briefly as he arrives. You were
completely anaemic and our parents determinedly insisted you
were to eat. You ordered tea on rice, the kind mum used to make at
home when we had bad days. Whilst your body seemed to have
slowly weakened, your eyes remained a vibrant hazel a defiance to
the death that was forced into your body all those years ago when
the sun fell. Your final words “its tasty” still ring in my head, your
memories soars within my heart and your cranes resonate all
around the world.
It feels bizarre writing about you even though you’re long gone.
You’ll never read the words I’ve strung together, a series of echoing
syllables which you evoked in my head. It feels strange talking about
you in past tense. You’ll never feel the pain, answer the questions,
learn my thoughts, understand what I wish I could say to you. To
the carefree smile I could’ve sworn you gave me just yesterday. To
the spot where I thought you were lying just a minute ago, but now
all that remains is a gust of wind that’s filled with dust to remind me
how long you were actually gone for. That’s the thing about leaving,
a space remains. On that lamentable day that made our lives swerve
over 80,000 people left this world with only space to remain and
we were transformed into an empty country, yet even then that
wasn’t the end to our losses. You’ll never know how many times I
have spoken out to remind the world of what you died for, to
attempt to revive that day of terror so others can understand what
it is you and I went through, and the ineffable courage that you bore
it all with, and most importantly why it can never happen again.
I want you to know I remember you. I remember your pain, your
smiles, your love, your hopes, your wishes, your cranes and beyond,
I remember you in your entirety,
I miss you my dearest sister,
I miss you Sadako Sasaki
‘
The Flight Of
A Porcelain
Puppet
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