About Blowing Up

Post 173:

            Back in 1945, a man was going about his business. He was a Japanese man, from Hiroshima. It was a lousy time to be from Hiroshima. A United States bomber dropped the most devastating single weapon ever construed by the minds of men that day. He was on the outskirts of the town, so the shockwave didn’t quite kill him. The heat didn’t quite fry him. The radiation didn’t quite turn him iridescent. The man sustained some serious injuries, though. He lost friends. There was nothing left of the city but chaos and misery.

            A couple days go by. After convalescing briefly, he hops a train to another town. As the train was nearing its destination, another bomb went off, a lot like the one he had endured earlier that week. The destination was Nagasaki. Again, he was injured, scarred for life, physically and emotionally in ways nobody could even begin to understand.

            This actually happened.

            Question: Was he the lucky or unlucky?

            It’s a question worth asking. What are the odds that anyone could survive the only two nuclear attacks in the history of the world? What are the odds that he would even be there? It’s one of those things. There’s anomalous stories like this that pop up from time to time, things that make you wonder about fate and luck, like they’re more than just concepts that float around nebulously through the ether.

            Maybe things are going a certain way and you can’t figure out why. It happens, and I totally understand. In the grand scheme, I live a pretty comfortable life, and, though I’ve had to fight and scratch, I’m lucky.

            Sometimes people ask me what it takes to make it. I tell them I don’t know, because I haven’t made it. Not yet. Hopefully, I’m on the way. Hopefully. I’ll do what I can, stumble, fall, get back up, the usual. Everybody’s special and nobody is. So maybe one day my number gets called and the next level beckons me to come forth. Maybe it never happens. There’s a bit of luck involved, something in the ether that’s doing more than just nebulously floating around. It can be really damn frustrating, but think of that Japanese guy when things get weird. How terribly unlucky he was. How terribly lucky he was. How terribly unlucky you are. How terribly lucky you are.

            It’s sunny in Columbus today. I’ll call that good luck. See you after.