Angel of Okinawa; Chapter 11

 

Angel of Okinawa; Chapter 11

© 2024 by Amber Wright

I didn’t know how or when I got there but the next thing I knew I was bending over the sandy beach, crossed legged, clutching my forehead.

My heart was racing.

My mind was blank.

I sat there in total numbness.

A strange sobbing reached my ears, a terrific whining sounded somewhere in the distance, and the familiar waves of happy times rollicked in my dulled senses.

I looked up.

There spread the beautiful East China Sea before me—blue, crashing and wonderful. How I had missed it these past few weeks!

But the invaders had come and it was no longer safe to go there, Meema had said.

But, I suddenly blinked, why am I here now if it is so unsafe?

A loud crash sounded not too far away. I was jerked out of my numbness and I stared across the choppy blue waters of my familiar sea.

A little ways off I could see a battleship being pitched sideways into the death of the sea.

(Right then, precisely, the greatest and best battleship of the Japanese fleet Yamato was sinking too, I would later know.)

A voice screamed really close to me…until I realized my lips were frozen wide open.

Then it all came to me why I was there.

I tried to shut my mouth.

Phanny, poor little Phanny had been blown up by a grenade, Meema had told me as she covered the little grotesque face back up with the sheet. She had been so adorable, almost as pretty as my little Dai.

I closed my stiff mouth, but the sob was still there. I could still see those two brown eyeballs staring up at me, as if asking me to wake her up again. No, I wanted to say, I can’t do that. You’re dead.

I closed my eyes and tried to tear away the image from my mind, but shock had not given way to forgetfulness just yet.

I lay on the beach in a balled up position and my body just shook, a thing I could not withhold from myself.

Pain had wrecked a large sense out of me, and I wasn’t able to recuperate right then.

Terror had left its mark.

In my dulled senses I felt somebody shaking my shoulder. But I couldn’t respond.

I was too numb.

I found myself staring up into a blur of tan camo. I blinked and struggled to sit up but my strength was gone.

My tears weren’t over yet.

More blur of tan camo.

Sounds echoed into my ears but I heard no words…that is, none reached my ears.

I felt my face being slapped firmly, and it was then I began to wake up. I looked around slowly.

“You hurt?” a voice asked in broken Japanese. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

I shook my head.

Hurt? Not outside, but inside I was still one big heap of pain. Stop it all! I wanted to scream but my tongue remained motionless.

“Drink.” The word was spoken firmly.

I found my stiff lips slowly tightening over a soldier’s canteen. The water was warm and tasted gross but it revived me somewhat. At least it made my frozen brain thaw out some.

I wiped at my wet eyes and reached my hand out. One of the soldiers pulled me up, and I stood up dizzily.

“Thank you.” I said in English. “Can you take me home?”

“Of course,” the voice sounded stunned. “Where do you live?”

I blinked, thinking hard, and yawned widely to get some oxygen into my brain. Had I always lived on this island to forget my own home just now?

No, Angel—think!

The road that went past my home was the only real road that led from Onna to the Kita Airfield. That's where my home was.

“I’ll show you,” I told them slowly. “A short ways away. Your men are there, too. Wounded. We fix them up.”

The one who had spoken smiled and took me by the arm to steady me as I began to lead the way very slowly.

After a moment, I grew more alert and looked up at him. His light blond hair looked familiar, like one of those few photos my parents had brought with them in their suitcases that I still had at home.

He caught me staring up at him and smiled with a slight nod. Boy, he must think I’m really crazy because he treats me like a china doll! I thought, on the verge of a frown. Why doesn’t he just say “hello” or something?

“You look familiar.” I startled him with my blunt observation.

He looked at me with a wild look to his eye.

“I’m not crazy. You do look familiar!”

“I haven’t met you before,” the guy shrugged. “You do live here, don’t you?”

“All my life.” I nodded in affirmation, blankly.

“Then, how?” he looked even more startled.

“I don’t know,” I turned my eyes elsewhere, on the road before me as we stepped onto it. “You just do.”

“Maybe you’re the prince of her dreams,” a guy behind us laughed. “You know, the kind a girl has an image of and just thinks he’s really real and when she meets the guy—you know the rest!”

I looked over at the guy beside me holding my arm, and frowned.

That guy certainly wasn’t “the prince of my dreams”, the image I have had since age 4.

I do admit though that the guy beside me was nice looking but he wasn’t my type. But I’d keep my mouth shut. It wouldn’t do to be rude to the guy who was helping me get home.

“Say, Wrigley, whatcha dreaming about?” the guy behind us teased.

Wrigley took a deep breath to speak.

I quickly saved the moment by declaring in a strained voice, “Please, none of this. I’ve just lost my 3 year-old cousin to a grenade!”

The guy behind us shut his mouth and didn’t say another word. I could hear the crunching of his boots, nothing more.

The silence that followed was deafening to me so I started up a silly subject to keep the image of little Phanny from popping up in my mind. My words didn’t make any sense, I could tell, so I shut up.

My home came into view and I sighed loudly, a deep aching sadness piercing into me. Why did it have to be this way?

Phanny was so little, so innocent.

Why does the innocent have to die! I cried to myself silently. Why?

Birds chirped somewhere in the blue skies.

Why does the guilty ones get off scot-free and leave us their punishment? God, why! I stopped my questioning.

I couldn’t let hate enter into me.

The only hate I would allow in was the hate of war, and the hate of hate itself.