I collected a number; they are much the same in the one quality that causes journalists to seek them out, just as are the grimacing, often swollen, frequently forehead-bruised corpses whose images face us on the fluttering blue tarp-wall of that temporary morgue at Ishinomaki; their expression much depends on the angle of the head. The survivors who view them keep calm, in the best Japanese manner, gesturing each other forward with a polite “hai, domo!”, offering one another the best views of those horrid faces, whose eyes are usually closed. One woman was explaining to another: “I came here to look for my mother-in-law, but since the faces are swollen it’s difficult, and the number I specified was wrong; that’s why I couldn’t identify her right away. . .” On the other side of the long rectangle of sunlight, a priest was ringing a bell, and a photograph gazed down upon a bed of donated flowers. Relatives bowed over the ritual bowl; candles flickered. The priest bowed. My throat ached with dust.
