[1][2][3][4] It follows a writer who, suffering from anxiety states due to her experiences as a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the possibility of a future nuclear war, undergoes mental treatment.
She reminisces her Hiroshima experiences, her campaigning against nuclear weapons, and her housemaid Takeno's offer to commit suicide together, which Atsuko rejects, as she does the option to leave her home country.
Atsuko enters a sixteen-day-long deep sleep period; upon awakening, she suffers from hallucinations while at the same time witnessing the sometimes inattentive or even abusive treatment of her fellow patients by the nurses.
The story closes with Atsuko and a young nurse, whom she finds sympathetic, taking a night walk in the hospital's green area and watching the full September moon.
[4] In addition to the bombing of Hiroshima and the Korean War, Ōta's story makes references to the suicide of writer Tamiki Hara,[1] the "red purge" in Japan (dismissal of communists and suspected communists from government posts and teaching positions),[4] and Ōta's encounter with a horribly disfigured young woman, a Hiroshima survivor like herself, which she also thematised in her 1953 short story Fireflies (Hotaru).