National V-J Day.
Clara shuffled her feet as the Master of Ceremonies spoke. Celebratory flags flew in the air, but her soul didn’t feel like soaring with them.
The names droned on. Everyone received a bell. Her Granddad’s? Only silence.
And the omission —
Louder than the names.
Her eyes fell on the wartime photograph in front of her. He spoke fluent Japanese; being Commandant Ishikawa’s interpreter fitted him well.
So Ishikawa thought.
No one else did. Everyone — even family members — saw him as the butler of evil.
That sat with her like a chicken would with wolves — badly. She had never defended her Grandfather, at least, not publicly. Condemnation, unfortunately, was an unwanted family contagion.
Her eyes fell on the photograph again. It had been captured near the Kempeitai’s former headquarters. Perhaps it would yield something — anything — that would finally absolve her — and her family — of shame.
Clara had entered the Kempeitai Headquarters shortly before the sun set.
They, as expected, were old. In her line of vision were a rusted loudspeaker, a few tiny, abandoned offices and a records room that remained stubbornly locked.
A military telephone suddenly jangled with urgent confidence.
Clara answered it with great reluctance.
But before she could offer customary salutations, lights lining the building’s ceilings and its walls started to flicker. Mist accumulated at an alarming rate; the striking clicks of marching boots filled the corridors. Prisoners lumbered, inhuman rakes in rags, into the compound surrounding the building.
A voice reported that Japan had surrendered.
The date on the 1945 desk calendar — August 15th.
History had not returned with gentle grace.
1945.
A thick, white mist.
Then, a familiar form. Beside Commander Ishikawa, patiently translating his instructions —
To tell the prisoners that the Japanese Army had won.
To take command.
To execute them before dawn.
She heard her grandfather deliver the false announcement, her heart dropping to unfathomable depths.
Each obedient bow had a tighter stranglehold.
She could barely breathe.
And then she noticed —
With the help of Google translate —
Little flaws.
Mistakes that were too small to attract Ishikawa’s attention —
But too precise to be mere forgetfulness.
A command to lock the eastern gate —
Mistranslated for the guard, who was told to leave it open.
The execution time changed from midnight —
To dawn.
The time of surrender.
And then —
The Surrender Notice.
In Grandad’s hands.
He had spent a good part of three years bending notices. He would not do so now. Not this time.
He reached desperately for the compound’s loudspeaker. If everyone heard the surrender announcement, Ishikawa would lose the power to order executions.
Then —
A rude interruption.
By the Person in Apparent Power.
Gunshots.
The lights failed.
Clara found herself looped to the beginning of the same hour. Her Grandad was alive. The phone was ringing off the hook. The dead —
Forever trapped because the surrender was never announced.
A cycle.
For Clara to continue —
Or cut.
Clara stepped through the gate. The camp was shrouded by deadly mist.
But Grandad’s choices weren’t her concern.
Then —
She sobered.
Her silence at his non-naming, every V-J Day.
When it should not have been.
He had adopted disgrace —
So others could live.
She avoided appearing foolish —
When the truth needed an appearance.
She had mistaken silence for innocence.
She turned back to the podium.
Just another step, then release.
Clara turned the loudspeaker on. Ishikawa and his cronies grabbed at her —
Vainly.
Static rolled through the compound, a defiant thunderbolt.
Her announcement reached the furthest corners of the compound.
The soft fall of bayonets. One.
Then another.
Then another.
The prisoners realised their freedom.
The locked eastern gate swung open with well-deserved flourish. They stepped out — not cheering —
Tearing.
With relief.
“Clara — ” Her Grandad’s voice was raspy.
“Why are you here?”
He lay limp on the ground, breath almost expired.
She cradled his head.
“Because you were.”
At the following year’s V-J Day ceremony —
Another deliberate silence.
Again.
But she didn’t remain stoic. Or silent.
She stepped forward with the now yellowed surrender notice and related his translation.
Or deliberate mistranslation.
The subtle altering of orders.
To deceive the enemy.
His death —
Attempting to announce the surrender —
So others would live.
Not every face softened. True courage did not require complete understanding.
It just required a voice.
Mirrors of the Mind by Michelle Liew is a collection of psychological and supernatural short stories that explore the quiet unease beneath ordinary moments. These are not tales of spectacle, but of subtle fracture — where memory distorts, silence speaks, and the self is not always singular. In these stories, what is unseen often carries the greatest weight, and what lingers is not what is shown, but what is felt
