My anger with the US was not at first, that they had used that

Host: The room was dim, its only light coming from the flickering projector that threw images onto the concrete wall — black-and-white photographs, each one a ghost of Hiroshima. The faces on the screen were blurred, burnt, and silent, and yet their pain spoke more clearly than any human voice could. The air carried the smell of old paper, of dust, of time that refused to let go.

Jack stood near the window, the glow of the city behind him, his hands in his pockets, his eyes fixed on the screen. Jeeny sat at the table, a notebook open, her pen poised but unmoving, her face lit by the ghostly light of history.

Jeeny: “Wilfred Burchett once said, ‘My anger with the US was not at first, that they had used that weapon — although that anger came later.’” Her voice was calm, almost reverent. “He was the first Western journalist to enter Hiroshima after the bomb. Imagine what he saw, Jack.”

Jack: without turning “I don’t have to imagine. The pictures say enough.”

Host: The slide changed — a ruined street, ash where houses once stood, a child’s toy, half-melted, lying in the dirt. The projector clicked, a sound sharp and mechanical, like a metronome counting the heartbeats of a broken world.

Jeeny: “He wasn’t angry at first — not about the bomb itself. Isn’t that strange? You’d think that would be the first emotion.”

Jack: “No. Not strange. When you see destruction that big, anger takes time to find its shape. At first, there’s just… disbelief. Shock. You don’t even know what to feel. Humanity doesn’t have an instinct for something like that.”

Jeeny: “But he called it ‘atomic plague,’ remember? He wrote about the sickness that lingered — the invisible war that came after the explosion. I think his real anger was about what came next — the lies, the denial, the way the West tried to silence him.”

Jack: turning now, his face caught in the pale light “Exactly. You can justify a weapon in war, but not the refusal to face what it does. That’s the real sin — pretending the horror isn’t real. Burchett broke the script. He said what the victors weren’t supposed to say.”

Host: The images shifted again — a hospital ward, rows of bodies bandaged, doctors overwhelmed, a woman’s eyes open but empty. Jeeny looked away, her hand trembling slightly as she wrote something down.

Jeeny: “He risked everything. His career, his citizenship, his safety — just to tell the truth. I wonder how many people today would do that.”

Jack: “None. Truth doesn’t pay anymore, Jeeny. It’s not courage that drives journalism now — it’s attention. But Burchett… he wasn’t selling anything. He was documenting the cost of silence.”

Jeeny: “And that’s what makes his quote so haunting. ‘My anger came later.’ It means he didn’t arrive at rage through ideology — he arrived through witness. He saw too much to stay neutral.”

Host: The projector clicked again, the final image fading in — a skyline reduced to dust, with a single shadow burned into stone: the outline of a man who had once existed. The room went still, the only sound the faint whir of the film reel.

Jack: quietly “You know what’s terrifying, Jeeny? That the world keeps finding new ways to do this — and new words to hide it. ‘Collateral damage.’ ‘Strategic necessity.’ Every generation invents new language to make murder sound rational.”

Jeeny: “And every generation needs its Burchett to strip the language bare again.”

Jack: “But it’s always the same story. Someone speaks truth, and the powerful call it treason.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the price of seeing clearly. To witness is to lose the right to be comfortable.”

Host: The light from the projector flickered, the film sputtering as it reached its end. The wall went blank, and the room plunged into darkness, broken only by the faint reflection of city lights outside. Jack lit a cigarette, the flame flaring briefly, casting his face in harsh, orange relief.

Jack: “You know, Jeeny, Burchett didn’t write like a journalist. He wrote like a prophet. He didn’t just describe the dead — he described the sickness in the living. The moral blindness.”

Jeeny: softly “Maybe that’s why his anger came later. Because he realized the weapon wasn’t just atomic. It was psychological. A culture that could justify annihilation had already destroyed something inside itself.”

Jack: “That’s the thing about weapons — they don’t just kill bodies. They kill empathy.”

Host: The smoke curled upward, merging with the shadows, the room heavy with the weight of unsaid things. Outside, a train horn wailed — distant, mournful, like a lament for the century itself.

Jeeny: “Do you think we’ve learned anything, Jack? Since Hiroshima?”

Jack: exhales “We learned how to hide the consequences better. We turned atrocity into spectacle — now it fits on screens, in headlines, in statistics. We’re not less cruel; we’re just better at forgetting.”

Jeeny: “But Burchett didn’t forget. He carried it. That’s what makes his words still burn. Anger delayed is not anger diminished — it’s anger refined.”

Jack: “Refined, and righteous. He didn’t hate America. He hated what power does to truth. That’s a different kind of fury — the kind that loves humanity enough to be disappointed by it.”

Host: Jeeny closed her notebook, the sound crisp, final. She stood, walking slowly toward the window. The city lights flickered below — millions of lives moving beneath the indifferent sky.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what we need now — not new weapons, not new ideologies. Just new witnesses. People who can still be angry at the right things.”

Jack: “And patient enough to let that anger grow honest.”

Host: The two of them stood there, watching the night — the ghost of Hiroshima still flickering behind their eyes. The projector clicked one last time, its reel spinning empty, as if to remind them that truth, once revealed, never stops echoing.

In the end, Burchett’s words remained —
not a condemnation, but a confession:
that real anger doesn’t explode in the moment.
It ripens.
It waits until the soul can bear its weight.

And when it finally comes,
it is not rage —
but remembrance.