Dr. Sasaki, who worked at the Red Cross Hospital in Hiroshima, lived out in the country with his mother. He was taking his daily two-hour train ride into the city to work and thinking about a nightmare he had the night before. He had slept poorly because of it and had woken an hour earlier than usual, feeling sluggish and slightly feverish. He almost didn't go to work that day, but his sense of duty finally forced him to go, and he left on an earlier train than he customarily took. The nightmare had shaken him so badly because it was closely related to actual events. He was twenty-five, rather idealistic, and had recently finished his medical training in China. Being distressed by the inadequacy of medical facilities in the small town where his mother lived, he had begun visiting a few patients in the evenings. Soon after, he learned that the penalty for practicing without a permit was severe, and was scolded harshly by the doctor who he had inquired about it. In his dream, he had been at the bedside of a country patient when the police and the doctor he'd consulted burst into the room, seized him, dragged him outside, and beat him cruelly. He almost decided to stop working in the country because of that danger. He arrived at the hospital at 7:40 and reported to the chief surgeon. A few minutes later he drew blood from a patient on the first floor for a blood test. He headed towards the stairs, because the lab with incubators for the test was on the third floor. One step past an open window, he saw the flash and had time to kneel quickly before the blast ripped through the hospital. His glasses flew off, the bottle of blood he was carrying smashed into the wall, and the slippers he was wearing zipped out from under him. Running to the chief surgeon's office, he found the man terribly cut by glass. The hospital was in horrible confusion; heavy partitions and ceilings had fallen on patients, beds had overturned, windows had blown in and cut people, blood was spattered on the walls and floors, instruments were everywhere, many of the patients ran about screaming, many more lay dead. Dr. Sasaki thought that only the hospital had been hit, and so started to patch up the wounded lackadaisically. Meanwhile, all over the city, the maimed an dying turned their unsteady steps toward the Red Cross Hospital to begin an invasion that would make him forget his private nightmare for a long, long time.

Next Mrs. Nakamura's immediate experience is related to the reader. At around midnight the night before the bombing she was alerted by the radio that 200 B-29s were approaching southern Honshu and residents of Hiroshima were advised to report to their designated "safe areas." She woke her three children and headed for their safe area, a military area known as the East Parade Ground, on the northeast corner of the city. They slept there until almost 2 A.M., when they heard the planes go over the city without dropping any bombs. Upon reaching home at 2:30, Mrs. Nakamura turned on the radio and heard yet another air raid warning. Tired of all the trips for nothing, and tired of the strain it put on her and the children, she ignored this warning and went to sleep. She awoke at seven to the sound of the air raid siren, and went to the house of Mr. Nakamoto, the head of her Neighborhood Association. He told her to stay home unless an urgent warning was sounded. At 8:00, much to her relief, the all clear sounded. She returned to her kitchen and started cooking some rice. She noticed her neighbor tearing down his house because the city had ordered large "fire lanes" to be cleared throughout the city in case an incendiary attack took place. All the able-bodied high school girls were ordered to spend a few days helping to clear the lanes and so they set to work a few minutes after the all clear sounded. At that moment Mrs. Nakamura saw the bright flash. She had time to take one step, and then she was lifted and thrown o

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3678
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page double spaced)