later editions. The six characters are: Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto Tanimoto is from the explosion. A pastor at Hiroshima Methodist Church, a small man in stature, "quick to talk, laugh and cry", weak yet fiery, cautious and thoughtful, he was educated in theology in the U.S. at Emory University, in Atlanta, Georgia, speaks excellent English, obsessed with being spied on, Chairman of Neighborhood Association. Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura Nakamura is from explosion center. She is a widow of a tailor who is raising her three children (10-year-old boy Toshio, eight-year-old girl Yaeko, and five-year-old girl Myeko). Her husband recently died in Singapore in the war effort. Dr. Masakazu Fujii Fujii is from explosion center. He is described as hedonistic, owner of a private 30-room hospital that contains modern equipment, has family living in Osaka and Kyushu, and is convivial and calm. Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge (Makoto Takakura) Kleinsorge is from explosion center. Kleinsorge at the time is a 38-year-old German Jesuit priest. Weakened by his wartime diet, he feels unaccepted by the Japanese people and has a "thin face, with a prominent Adam's apple, a hollow chest, dangling hands, big feet.". His father superior within the mission station is Hugo Lassalle. Dr. Terufumi Sasaki Dr. Terufumi Sasaki is from the center of the explosion. He works as a 25-year-old surgeon at the Red Cross Hospital. He lives with his mother in Mukaihara, an idealist. Upset with poor health services, he practices medicine without a permit in communities lacking in quality health care. He is not related to Miss Toshiko Sasaki. Miss Toshiko Sasaki (Sister Dominique Sasaki) Sasaki is from the center of the explosion. She is 20 years old and engaged to a soldier, as well as working as a "clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works" "A Noiseless Flash" This chapter introduces the characters and details the witnesses' accounts of the morning before and their perception of the explosion of the atomic bomb. The explosion occurred at exactly 8:15 am, local time. Miss Toshiko is at her desk and talking to a fellow employee at the Tin factory when the room filled with " a blinding light". and the flash was so powerful that it pushed over a bookshelf crushing Miss Toshiko's leg while she went unconscious. She was covered with a bookshelf while the building collapsed around her. While sitting on his porch, Dr. Masakuza Fujii