THE ENLIGHTENMENT
In mythology there are some stories, stories that are more than people’s simple entertainments, like the story
of Icarus and Daedalus. Those stories teach lessons only to whoever hungry to them and not fool enough to
avoid or to blink the warnings. Unlike the story of the wax wings, however, the following story is not a myth,
nor a legend. It’s only and only a memory that no one remembers, even those who lived it once upon a time.
August 1945, in Hiroshima in Japan, a boy named Aizen, at the age of 18 –young enough for a person not to
foresee- lived with his parents in a small house in a small town. His father, Hakiro was a man whose life was
capacious enough to experience two extremely bitter world wars or simply all the world wars that the earth
gave place to in its billions of years old lifetime. He had so many opportunities to see all kinds of breathtaking
deaths that a human being can face with; shocks, burnings, bleed outs, drownings, strokes ... If there was a
simple thing that he could comprehend about the way the mercilessness of wars work, it is that everything is
fair in war and a man should never let his mind and logic go passive in one, in a war.
Having foreseen a vague bad destiny they will face, Hakiro prepared an underground bunker where they will be
safe and invisible to the enemy troops or to any kind of danger. Everybody in the family knew how to get in the
bunker in case of emergency. Throughout his life, Hakiro, for so many times repeated the same thing over and
over, to his son Aizen. “Never get close to a warzone.” However, the repetition of the same thing that much,
summoned the cat killing curiosity inside Aizen. It was a curiosity that was like the white tiger inside a cage,
waiting for a simple loosening on the lock and to attack.
That day, on the sixth of August, the streets were a portion of the most painful place that people could imagine
for millenniums, a portion from hell, yet still there were things that they or any other one could not imagine
happening. Warplanes were flitting and conquering the blue sky, like the blackflies on a rotten body. Hakiro
gave the order, a clear must to everyone including Aizen, get into the bunker. It was the first time however, that
Aizen saw a flying object on the sky. It was so charming to him. He didn’t listen to his father, rushed outside in
a hurry that his old father could not catch him. As if he was racing the planes, Aizen did not stop running away
from the house. He was stunned enough to forget his father and the dangers of war. His father and mother
were already in the bunker, terrified, -having given up on their child- mourning.
Then a sharp sound of a falling object irritated his ears for about ten seconds. The infamous atomic bomb that
we all know.
Last signal that his brain processed was the immense light reached his eyes, the light that is much brighter and
hotter than the sun. It was so quick that he could not even know that he was dying. Just like Icarus, he ignored
his father. Flew too close to the sun. Simply right ahead. Here lies the irony; breathing for tens of years just to
be burned up in milliseconds. By the sun; by the war; all the same…
Atasagun Samed ŞANAP 10-A
Fly in the bright sky
To be free as unique birds
Feel your soul’s limit
The sky full of stars,
Sparkling stars are flickering.
They make the sky bright.
İrem KAYMAK Prep-C
Fatmanur CANBOLAT Prep-C
Snow, rain and hot days,
It adds cheerfulness to life.
They are my treasures.
The sun smiles on kids,
While they lick tasty icecreams.
The winds kiss red cheeks.
İrem Neva Gedikli Prep-C
Emir KIZILTUNÇ Prep-C
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THE CLAPPER 2016 - 2017