Children of the Ashes

“The bridge was half destroyed, and hung in flames into the river. So I ran to the iron railway bridge, a hundred yards downstream. The wooden sleepers were burning here too, but I ran along the red-hot metal rails. On the far side crowds of maddened people were running like demented lemmings, trying to get across the river. They were screaming, and it sounded like one enormous voice. In the middle of the bridge lay four or five bodies, unrecognizable as human beings, but still moving. Then- skin hung from them like strands of dark seaweed! Instead of noses, holes! Their ears and hands were so swollen as to be shapeless. One of them falls off the bridge! Now another! And then one after the other they tumble into the river, helplessly exhausted. They drowned, and made no attempt to save themselves. But there were still fifty or sixty clinging to the red-hot rails. In their terror of dying they clawed their way over one another, their eyes hanging from their sockets, pushing one another into the river, and screaming all the time.

Somehow I got across the railway bridge, but on the far bank there were mountains of corpses blocking the way forward. These people must have been chased by die roaring tongues of flame that caught them here. They were still burning. I thought that they were all dead, but now they began to whimper. A woman was calling for her husband. A mother for her child. And the flames sprang to life again andgripped them pitilessly. My own eyebrows were singed, my hands and my face burning. My only thought was that I must get out of here, somehow, anyhow. I must fight my way through the corpses. I pushed them aside, pulling on a head to clear a passage. "Zuru, zuru" .., This contact with my hands was loathsome. The skin on the face stuck to my palms. Beneath the skin was something yellowish. I was trembling all over, and I dropped the dead man's head, tried to push his hand aside in order that I might get through ... and that hand was nothing but bones beneath charred flesh, and the skin off his face still stuck to me.

I climbed on top of a pile of corpses. Layer upon layer of them. Some were still moving, still alive. I had to get over them. I had to climb over. There was no way of getting through. I can still hear the cracking of their bones. At last the mountain of the dead lay behind me. One of my feet was aching horribly. Only now did I notice that I had lost a shoe. My bare sole had been cut by glass splinters and was bleeding. An open water tank, against air raids. I buried my face in it. The water was boiling hot. I began to feel faint. And thirst, such a thirst. There was no drop of sweat on my desiccated body, but it was covered in blood and bits of strangers' skin. I reeled and wanted to vomit. I took hold of myself and automatically picked out the little stones that had got into the wounds on my feet. Now the wounds began to bleed again from horrible, black gashes. And the little stones were in them again. There was no sense in taking them out. Up to then I had at least been able to breathe and moan and shout. But now my throat was so parched that I could scarcely utter a sound. When I tried to shout it was as though my throat was pierced by a thousand needles being driven into an open wound. I mustn't think about the pain! I must run, run, run, that was all - run for my life.”

From the ‘Diary and Recollections of Kazuo M.’ as published in ‘Children of the Ashes: The People of Hiroshima After The Bomb’ By Robert Jungk (1985)

Fabpants Recommends: Pivot's debut album 'O Soundtrack My Heart'. It has now sound tracked the words of 'Kazuo M' and his recollections of Hiroshima just after the bomb. For me, the words and music worked well together. The tragedy of a flattened city, where civilians fought for their lives and failed to do so in their thousands, is hard to comprehend. The music helped me to visualise it like an archived film. It helped to bring home the horror. It is hard to think of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as anything but stories. We have to remember that they were real and we have to remember that they were awful.

Download MP3: Pivot - Fool In Rain (courtesy of porkpiesuperman.com)




What follows is a series of excellent podcasts by Pivot:

Download MP3: Pivot - O Download My Heart - Ep1 - Cosmic Gods of Synth



01. Van Halen - 1984 [1984]
02. Vangelis - Main Titles [OST: Blade Runner]
03. Jean Michel Jarre - Oxygene IV [Oxygene]
04. Tonto's Expanding Headband - Ferryboat
05. David Bowie - Warszawa [Low]
06. Pink Floyd - On The Run [Dark Side Of The Moon]
07. Klaus Schulze - Floating [Moondawn]
08. Kitaro - Flight [The Best of Ten Years 1976-1986]
09. Vangelis - Spiral [Spiral]
10. Kitaro - Mororism [Oasis]
11. John Carpenter - Main Titles [Assault On Precinct 13]
12. Brian Eno - 2/2 [Ambient 1: Music For Airports]

Yes, this is a retro ambient selection, and happily for me, it excludes 'Aphex Twin'.


Download MP3: O Download My Heart - Ep2 - Australian Music



01. The Drones - Shark Fin Blues [Wait Long By The River and Watch The Bodies of Your Enemies Float By]
02. Grinderman - No Pussy Blues [Grinderman]
03. Augie March - Cold Acre [Moo, You Bloody Choir]
04. Qua - On Clouds [Painting Monsters On Clouds]
05. The Necks - He Led Them Into the World [The Boys]
06. Jack Ladder - Once In A Lifetime [Not Worth Waiting For (Single)]
07. Phil Slater - The Chance [Strobe Coma Virgo]
08. Snowman - We Are The Plague [The Horse, The Rat and The Swan]
09. Matt Rosner - Dissolve [Morning Tones]

Nick Cave lives a stone's throw from me, quite literally, but it seems that the Aussies still class Grinderman as a band of their own. Good for them. But he's my neighbour and not theirs!


Download MP3: O Download My Heart - Ep3 - 13 Autobahn Favourites



01. Cluster - Hollywood [Zuckerzeit]
02. Neu! - Hallogallo [Neu 1]
03. Flanger - Studio Tan [Templates]
04. Roedelius - Veilchenwurzeln [Wenn Der Sudwind Weht]
05. Andrew Pekler - Rockslide [Cue]
06. Farben - Live at the Saraha Tahoe 1973 [Textstar]
07. Kraftwerk - The Model [Man Machine]
08. Moebius - Transport [Tonspuren]
09. Oval - Textuell [Systemisch]
10. Isolee - Rest [Rest]
11. Moebius/Plank - Tolkuhn [Material]
12. Can - Mushroom [Tago Mago]
13. Tangerine Dream - Mysterious Semblance At The Strand Of Nightmares [Phaedra]

Oddly enough, I listened to Tangerine Dream's 'From Dawn 'til Dusk - 1973-1988' only a few days ago.