The stopped clocks mark the snuffing out of human lives, the burial of homes, the erasing of memories. If we view time as linear-as kronos-then these moments signify a stopping of time, an end. When I stepped through the flattened remnants of homes in Kumamoto, supposedly built to Japanese earthquake standards, I couldn’t imagine how so many survived. Survivors in Mianzhu wept while describing how whole buildings collapsed around them, trapping them in rubble. The survivors I know were somehow fortunate enough not to have been vaporized, or to have suffered horrible burns or severe radiation sickness, but they carried emotional scars all their lives. Survivors say that Hiroshima was like the flash of the sun burning around you. I can only imagine the horror of these moments when time stopped. It was a testimony to a certain moment in time. I almost bent to pick up the sleek modern metal and glass clock that lay there, shattered, but it was not mine to touch. And the Kumamoto clock lay askew in some rubble right at my feet. The Mianzhu clock was still in its tower in the city square I craned my neck to see it above me. The Hiroshima wristwatch sat in a glass case, inches from my eyes, among other artifacts and images of that horrific event. Time came to an abrupt halt in these places, with the detonation of an atom bomb and two devastating earthquakes. Hiroshima Mianzhu, China Kumamoto, Japan. They were stopped by a traumatic event.Ī watch stopped at 8:15. Not because someone forgot to rewind them or their battery ran out. In my travels, I’ve seen clocks and watches that once stopped suddenly. The next two topics for reader submissions are Threshold and Eye -read more. In response to our request for essays on Clock, we received many compelling reflections.
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