After the Bombs(James Joseph Sullivan) Istanda went to bed the previous night in fear. Not because of the war - he was used to that. It wasn't even because of the fighting or what was going on inside his mind. No - it was because of his family. Not because of the fact that his father shouted at him, called him sick, or that his mother wanted him to die - it was because of the state of their cracking family. They blamed it on him, and he felt terrible. So he cried himself to sleep that night.

He was lying in bed the next morning, pensive. He was thinking intently about his family. He was not scared of the war, but for a very good reason indeed! He was a member of a high class - just about the highest class you could get. His father was the CEO of a major production company in Japan, which meant that he was safe from the war - maybe physically, but psychiologically - no. Definitely not. He was not scared of what his parents might do to him. No, he was scared of the state of his family.

But something was different that morning. It wasn't the sounds, the touch, the taste. No - it was the air. It wasn't the smoke - smoke was commonplace in Hiroshima at the time. It wasn't even the tear gas that was wafting into his room from the windows - no, that too was fairly normal. No - it was the smell of hatred. Those who were not there, in faraway corners of the globe, wouldn't understand. You've got to be there to sense it. It wasn't the hate of his family, his 6th sense told him, even though his eyes were closed. It was the hate of the Americans. And then he knew, before he even got out of bed, that something terrible had happened.

He got out of bed. His windows were covered in some kind of dust -nuclear, he thought? NO!, he shouted to himself internally, and put that thought aside. But then he looked down the corridor of his house, and he knew it. He just knew it in his gut. People had died that night, while he slept in a comfortable bed under silky sheets under a fan. He lived too far away from the city to be affected by it, but he just knew it. And the corridor was empty. His father, his mother, his brother's rooms, all were empty - empty not just by humanity, but by clothes, everything he once (despite his family troubles) called home. And the roof was torn in at the end of the corridor-even though he lived 25 miles from the centre of the city, in a little village which was quite affluent compared to many other areas around Hiroshima.

So he began his cautious descent down the stairs. What waited for him at the end? And at once he felt alone. And although he was twelve years old, the longing for his parents, though he knew they would just degrade him, was overwhelming. His parents wanted him to die, they called him sick, they called him 'it', they wanted him to die - but he longed for them. He walked down the stairs, being careful not to make even the slightest creak - as he feared, childishly, that the monster of hate would come to snatch him away.

He stepped out, and he saw it - the nuclear bomb. It rose hundreds of metres into the air - and though it must have struck hours ago, the effects were there. Istanda's clothes were now musty with nuclear dust. The houses in the next village by the sea were obliterated - and that was when he saw them - his family, huddled, crying, in a blanket next to the house, with suitcases packed.

"Mama...papa..., oh, I love you...I'm sorry I bullied my brother, I've sworn to god a million times, you may not believe me, but I do..."

"I forgive you," his father said, and the lust for love overwhelmed him, and his eyes brimmed with tears. His dreams in life had come true.

"Come over here, snuggle up here, let's learn to live and love again," said his mother, with her once-spiteful face which used to say 'He's the bane of my life' was filled with emotion as she said "Come."

And as he snuggled up next to his parents, their warm coats up against him, he finally said, "I love you, papa."

"I love you too."

And then he realized that no steel or alloy was nearly as strong as the bonds of family love, and that even though he knew that relationships based on extreme circumstances tended to be very short-lasting, as in movies, that nothing could tear them apart after what had happened that day - and that they could go out into the world.

And as the family looked up at the mushroom cloud, disintegrating into the sky, they realized, without speaking, as a family telepathy, that the Americans and Japanese were one - they just needed to learn to live and love again. After the bombs.

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