First, the newsreels of Hiroshima, in the movie taking place in Hiroshima, where the actress in the movie plays an actress making a movie about Hiroshima and peace. A movie about (re)membering what has been (dis)membered. A movie about the horror of forgetting.

It is here, in this movie, where I walk tonight. In the black and white streets of borrowed time, inside the movie set of a movie set, brazen neon flickering numinous promises, the fictional lovers first illuminated, then dowsed like a candle pinched between thumb and forefinger. Can you see me? Will you follow?

(You're destroying me. You're good for me.)

The late-night cafe. Cold pale crisp beer. The shadows of moths like tiny black hearts singed by the unexpected flashing burn of rice-paper lanterns. The insatiable koi mouthing the surface of the garden's pond, like insects fluttering against a lit window, like your face illuminated by the quiet electric glow of your computer screen as you read these words. Like my face, as I write to you.

Here, on the other side of your screen, inside the movie taking place within a movie about Hiroshima, about the illusion of love, about the illusion of not forgetting, I will tell you my stories, I will tell you I love you, and promise you that I will never forget you. Here, in this place, at this moment, it will all be true.

(She: . . . on the fifteenth day too. Hiroshima was blanketed with flowers. There were cornflowers and gladiolas everywhere, and morning glories and day lilies that rose again from the ashes with an extraordinary vigor, quite unheard of for flowers till then. I didn't make anything up.

He: You made it all up.)

Here, on the other side of your screen, by the River called Ota, which ran by the city where my mother grew up, where the clouds hang low and dark like bruised sulky pansies, and the glimpses of sky behind are a surreal, too-bright Dali blue (not that you would know this . . . don't forget, this is black and white) I am walking in deeper into the interior of the narrative's narrative.

Will you follow?

I will follow until "Like my face, as I write to you." That seems like a natural place to end...excuse my unworthy opinion.