‘Nos-tal-gic,’ Akira said, as though it were a word he had been struggling to find. Then he said a word
in Japanese, perhaps the Japanese for ‘nostalgic’. ‘Nos-tal-gic. It is good to be nos-tal-gic. Very important.’
‘Really, old fellow?’
‘Important. Very important. Nostalgic. When we nostalgic, we remember. A world better than this
world we discover when we grow. We remember and wish good world come back again.
So very important. Just now, I had dream. I was boy. Mother, Father, close to me. In our house.’
He fell silent and continued to gaze across the rubble.
‘Akira,’ I said, sensing that the longer this talk went on, the greater was some danger I did not wish fully
to articulate. ‘We should move on. We have much to do.’