by Vani Viswanathan
Lying in bed, Sadako’s fingers feverishly made the last folds on the paper, a crumpled, brown piece of packaging with stains of glue that had been used to paste stamps. Her face twitched with excitement and nervousness, even as the tips of her fingers ached from constantly pressing and folding down on paper since morning. But she didn’t want to stop. She had started the day with 923, and she wanted to complete her 1,000th paper crane by tonight at any cost. And now, she was on that magical number – the 1,000th, that gateway to getting a wish from the Japanese gods who are pleased when anyone puts their mind to making a 1,000 paper cranes.
As she made the final fold and pulled the tail of the 1,000th crane to make its wings flap, the brown paper lit up with a soft golden glow. It gently flew out of Sadako’s weak fingers, and landed on her purple, swollen leg, fluttering noiselessly, before it went and joined the bedside table on which Sadako had placed the other cranes she’d folded for the day. Sadako’s eyes, tired from lack of rest – and food, for she’d refused to eat anything all day – gently closed, even as she smiled tiredly.
But Sadako woke up with a start in the middle of the night. She’d been having strange dreams where an intense flash of light engulfed her sight. Awake now, her body twitched in pain from the cancer. She looked at the next bed and her companion, her competitor in making a 1,000 cranes, was sleeping peacefully, her breathing laboured. Sadako looked at the table, the 1,000th paper crane was sitting limp, just like its sisters. What had she thought, that the legend would come true?
But almost immediately, as if chiding her for even thinking so, her mind said, why not? Wishes take time to come true – it’s not magic, but requires sustained work! Wondering how exactly she should convey her wish to the gods so as to make it easier to come true, Sadako drifted off to sleep.
************
August 6, 1945. 8:16am.
A little girl, all of two years old, was playing in her house in the bustling town of Hiroshima. She suddenly looked up as a brilliant flash of light engulfed her sight. The eyes, filled with wonder, saw through the window the shadow of a giant – yet gentle – bird, flapping its wings and flying across the sky. She chuckled, and grabbing the opportunity where her daughter sat still, her mother carried her for a quick bath.
The day was like any other, and the world never got to know about the atomic bomb.
In a parallel universe, Sadako’s wish came true.
