Zoning out, with waves of sweat. Air sucked from (the entire) digestive system. Floaters dance / ears roar – I cannot see the words on the screen, Atomic People. She reads the subtitles in a flat voice, befitting the subject matter – as Hibakusha speak, from a vast distance, of the moments after the bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By the shore / why were they not given water? Squinting and shamed by self-pity as the programme ends. Some visceral hypersensitivity. Some total disconnect.
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© Stephen C. Middleton
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