“Now do you believe I am your brother?” asks Little Boy. They are resting up against a squat gray pedestal where a statue once stood. They are careful not to touch.
Fat Man says, “How long have you been born?”
“Only a few days before you.”
“So you’re supposed to be my big brother?”
“I’ll try to take care of you.”
Fat Man says he doesn’t think he can be taken care of by someone who can’t even find him any food. He says that maybe he should leave his older brother, that they should part ways. He stands and makes to leave.
“Wait,” yells Little Boy, who struggles to his feet and looks up at him with wide, pleading eyes. Little Boy steps close to Fat Man and wraps his arms around his leg. He squeezes him through the silken robe, presses his forehead to Fat Man’s rubbery hip. His little hands are warm, though also bony.
Fat Man feels how very small his new big brother is. He puts one hand on Little Boy’s back and his other on the crown of his head, which soothes the boy and relaxes his body. “Okay,” says Fat Man.
Little Boy’s eyes close. “Thank you.”
Fat Man asks his new big brother what they’re going to do.
“We’re going to take care of each other,” says Little Boy. “We’re going to find you something to eat. Then we’re going to find a way out of here.”
Fat Man says, “I don’t like it here at all.”
Nobody does.
THE SOLDIER’S BODY
It is not long before they find the shorter soldier’s body face-down in the shattered fragments of a limestone statue. The dashed pieces suggest that the statue was a furry creature, perhaps with a mane and clawed feet. The shorter soldier’s gun is gone. His left arm is folded under him. The right arm points outward, three o’clock. The purple blotches have expanded through his skin; they have multiplied. Fat Man squats for a closer look. Little Boy turns his back on the body.
The taller soldier is nowhere in sight.
Fat Man says, “He had a limp. He tried to hide it.”
“Why hide a limp from you?” says Little Boy.
Fat Man says he doesn’t know. He says he thinks the soldiers were afraid. He says, “They found me wandering and locked me up. They can’t have known what I did. I think I was supposed to be a hostage, or a war criminal. They never answered my questions.”
“They didn’t speak English.”
“They didn’t even try,” says Fat Man. He rocks on his heels, balancing with his hands on the ground. Chill air lifts the loose threads of his robe. “I kept asking and they didn’t even try.”
“What were you asking?”
Maggots come to the surface of the body. A spider crawls from its ear.
“I wanted to know where I was. Then I wanted to know why they were keeping me. Then I wanted to know how things had changed outside. I wanted to know if the fire was done, how many people died, how many survived. I wanted to know if they were ill. Why the short one was limping. I wanted to know their names. I wanted to know what they thought of me. What they were going to do with me. What they called me. Was I alone. Was there anyone who wanted to see me. I wanted to know if I could do something.”
“Like what?” says Little Boy.
The maggots eat of the short soldier’s neck, they sprout in his hands. They squirm barely perceived beneath the soldier’s heavy jacket. Between the fingers, worms writhe. The spider crawls over the body.
“Like help,” says Fat Man. “Like could I do some work for them, could I fix things, make them better. Could I do something to make them like me more.”
The soldier’s body begins to sag beneath its uniform. The skin is riddled with holes. The hungry things favor the purple blotches, eating them first.
Little Boy says they should leave the body. He says today is a bad day to be an American standing over a dead Japanese.
Fat Man says, “Soon there won’t be a body.”
Little Boy asks Fat Man what he means. Fat Man points and asks if it is normal for a body to decay so quickly. Another spider crawls from the ear, which so far the maggots and the worms have left intact. They have focused on the cheeks, what is visible of the shoulder, and everything beneath the soldier’s clothes—perhaps cartilage is difficult. More worms rise to the surface of the dirt. The uniform itself, now damp from inside with blood, begins to grow a cotton mold.
“Yes,” says Little Boy, “this is normal.”
“Are you sure?”
“We should go.”
Instead Little Boy folds his legs beneath him. He scoots up close to watch. Fat Man feels a warmth rising from the body and the things that grow inside it. His legs begin to ache from squatting. His hands as well, from the weight he leans on them.
“The taller soldier might come back.”
Little Boy says, “Then we should go.”
They do not go. The body becomes bones. The maggots become flies. These land on the two brothers, skitter and buzz their wings, but do not fly, keeping to the skin.
Fat Man says, “They itch!”
“Swat them.”
“Won’t they fly away and land somewhere else?”
“They won’t.” Little Boy squashes several on his left hand with his right. They do not try to move away. They become black smears.
Fat Man falls back on his ass, sore feet briefly rising up into the air and then settling back in. He holds out his left palm. There are two flies walking a slow circuit from thumb tip to pinky finger. His right hand casts a shadow over the flies. They perhaps twitch or tremble, but otherwise stay where they are—become still, in fact, where before they were crawling. Like closing an alligator’s jaws, he lowers his hand. What is left of the flies, he scrapes off on the ground, and proceeds to remove the others from his face and neck and calves, one by one, pinching them dead, flicking away their corpses.
“Good job,” says Little Boy, encouraging his little brother as he kills his own flies too. “That’s the way.”
The bones stripped clean. The uniform a mold-fuzzed tatter. The worms creep toward the brother bombs, who stand up, step back. Little Boy puts his hand on Fat Man’s stomach, pushes him back farther, to keep him safe.
Fat Man asks, “What are we?”
Little Boy says they are brothers. “Only brothers. Always brothers.”
Now there are more flies.
A cloud of them looms over the brothers—the only brothers, the always brothers.
Little Boy says, “We should run.”
Fat Man has already started. He can barely find the strength, but what’s left is enough. The cloud of flies follows them, sending dizzy scouts, which the brothers swat, or fail to swat—they flail, the flies dive and buzz around their ears and eyes. As if to say, “Look at me!” As if to say, “Listen!” They need to be heard.
“Does this often happen also?” pants