Death is Eternal #331

Sunday. January 15, 2023. 1,640 words.

I’ll try to write a shorter-than-usual Death is Eternal, which means, as you know—if you read the newsletter for a while—that this will be a very long Death is Eternal. Regardless of knowing I’ll fail, I’ll try my best to keep things short because today is a full day. So without further ado, let’s witness my failure to be concise.

Contents

1. Operation Meetinghouse (intro)

2. Operation Meetinghouse

3. Writing

4. Last Week (from January 9 to 15, 2023)

5. This Week (from January 16 to 22, 2023)

6. Death is Eternal Review #169: Captains

7. Death is Eternal Review #170: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

8. The End

1. Operation Meetinghouse (intro)

Honestly, I don’t remember where I first heard about Operation Meetinghouse. I think it was on Dan Carlin’s podcast (maybe when he interviewed Malcolm Gladwell) before I knew any better about who he is and what he stands for—that’s why I won’t link the podcast. I do know that something Curtis LeMay said, “I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal,” fascinated me. I can't wrap my head around the idea of committing war crimes to win a war and being so blatantly honest about it. As a pacifist, what I did try to do with the short stories was to show that war and war crimes should never be accepted. The ends should never justify the means. I tried to show that by telling stories about fictional people that died during the horrible attack. I don’t know if I accomplished my mission, but I enjoyed the challenge.

As always, remember that this is a first draft. That’s another story I wrote for the project “my hiStory.” I hope you enjoy the reading!

2. Operation Meetinghouse

Takiko Oyama was in jail during Operation Meetinghouse. She was a dissident that had been arrested for protesting against the horrors of World War II. Oyama was found in her cell; her hands were grabbing the bars. The prison was one of the few buildings in Tokyo not made of wood. The jail endured while Oyama suffocated. Takiko Oyama died a pacifist.

The Kaneko family died hugging each other in the family pond. They ran to the water when they first felt the smell of smoke and saw the flames on the horizon. They had no way of knowing that the American bombs were full of napalm—that generated so much heat that it boiled almost all of Tokyo's water. The Kaneko family had lost their older son in Iwo Jima a few days before.

Junji Okamura died running to the fire. He woke up with his wife screaming through the open window; they saw hell. Okamura tried to help. He ran through Tokyo carrying two buckets of water. Junji Okamura died in a fire whirl; he still had his two buckets in his hands.

Operation Meetinghouse lasted about three hours and killed between 90,000 and 120,000 people. Their histories should be preserved and remembered as a vital reminder that war is not glorious nor glamorous; war is abominable, dreadful, frightful and mournful.

3. Writing

In this week’s module of The Writing Studio (TWS), I realized something that may be getting in the way of being a better writer: I don’t want to tell a story; I want to test what I can do while writing.

The module was about “Possibilities of Form,” and while reading the theory and the examples, all I could think about was how I could be different from everything I was reading. And that has been what always drove me as a writer. My first book, Crônicas de uma Eleição, was me challenging myself to write a book without descriptions—only dialogue and thoughts. The second one, Uma Estória do Mundo, was about writing a fantasy and sci-fi novel. The third, Um Suicida no Céu: Uma Jornada de Escolhas (Suicidal in Heaven: A Journey of Choices), was a challenge to write a book without giving the protagonist’s a name, sex, and dealing with the post-life while respecting all religions, and faiths, and so on.

What drives me to write isn’t telling a story but trying to do things I never read before. I want to innovate how you tell a story. However, how can I create something new without dominating the basics first? Self-publishing taught me a lot but also deprived me of precious lessons. So, I’m glad I’m going through TWS and discovering what I already know and can do, but more importantly, I never learned and never even thought about it.

Thanks, TWS!