Atto story [First survivor; 銀果]

Between Dante’s Paradise and Milton’s Hell, in a slowly decaying Limbo, you can find, in the proximity of Hiroshima epicentre in 1945, where no plants or animals survived, six charred hibakujumoku¹. Still alive today despite the extreme, because of the extreme tenacity to live in the light of extreme destruction. They are marked with signs at Housenbo temple (205), Shukkei-en (285) and Jōsei-ji (125). They are living fossils, thought to be extinct in the wild despite a long history of more than 170my epoch. They are fan shaped of striking deep saffron yellow tinted autumn sleeping beauties. The veins radiate out into a blade, never forming a network… they know the path. They are somnambulists balancing on disturbed places, along stream banks, rocky slopes or cliffy edges, quick to fall and transform into a sleepy winter before green. No aging, no senescence, no worries, slow spectators of the fast and stumbling human steps. In search of their mates, silver fruit of a drunk night… Always alone, never bothered.

Thank you London Road for the leaves.