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I took some boots off of a dead enemy soldier. I've walked well over a mile in these boots and I still hate him and his kind.
I wear a coat that's too big for me. I took it off of an old man lying still and cold by the side of the road. The coat is full of bullet holes and it's stiff in places from dried blood. The flies and crows stay close to me. Either they're too stupid to know that I'm not dead or maybe they know something I don't. Maybe they sense that the path I'm on is coming to an end soon.
They played games with us before they killed us. Little lotteries, promises of survival if we followed the rules, if we all gathered in the town square, if we had our papers in order, if we separated ourselves into groups based on sex and age, playing our hope like they were musicians. It's amazing what we fell for, what we believed. Especially when the evidence that we were doomed was right there in their glittering eyes. Every order came through their megaphones tainted with barely-contained laughter. This was fun for them.
They ate all of our food, they drank all of our beer, they slept with all of our pretty women and then they killed us.
We were only the latest village. I had escaped the slaughter in my town a week earlier. I was out in the woods when I heard the crackle of gunfire. I ran.
I got to this village two days ago.
I was taken in by a family who told me to pretend to be their son. They told me that I would be safe with them. It was a large family. The invading officer in charge came into the room the next morning and asked me if I was part of the family. I nodded. He told me to tell him the names of everyone in the room.
Like I said, it was a big family. He shot the ones whose names I couldn't remember. About half.
I was the only one with blue eyes in the room. The officer knew I was lying. He thought it would be amusing to let me go after that.
Outside, I saw someone get kicked to death. I never thought I'd see that. I couldn't pinpoint the moment of death. It was almost like the body settled into the rhythm of the boots until it became apparent that the person was no longer a person. So much more shocking and fascinating to me than the sudden death of a bullet.
It was then that I realized how numb I was to death. Seeing someone die that brutally was no more than a swell in the music to me. Something I noticed, nothing I felt. I knew that I was no longer here. I'd become a ghost.
When I was six, I saw firefighters on a summer's day putting out a house fire in my town. The firefighter holding the hose leaned forward against the pressure of the water coming out of the nozzle. The sky was blue. The house was burning merrily.
Yesterday, I saw a soldier burn down the church with most of the town trapped inside. It was raining and he used a flamethrower. He leaned against the pressure of the napalm coming out of the nozzle just like that firefighter did when I was six. It was like I was watching the opposite of that childhood memory.
Today, today is a beautiful day. I'm walking through a field, wearing dead men's clothes. I smell the pollen in the wind and the faint tang of ashes. I'm smiling.
I'll never live again.
tags
I wear a coat that's too big for me. I took it off of an old man lying still and cold by the side of the road. The coat is full of bullet holes and it's stiff in places from dried blood. The flies and crows stay close to me. Either they're too stupid to know that I'm not dead or maybe they know something I don't. Maybe they sense that the path I'm on is coming to an end soon.
They played games with us before they killed us. Little lotteries, promises of survival if we followed the rules, if we all gathered in the town square, if we had our papers in order, if we separated ourselves into groups based on sex and age, playing our hope like they were musicians. It's amazing what we fell for, what we believed. Especially when the evidence that we were doomed was right there in their glittering eyes. Every order came through their megaphones tainted with barely-contained laughter. This was fun for them.
They ate all of our food, they drank all of our beer, they slept with all of our pretty women and then they killed us.
We were only the latest village. I had escaped the slaughter in my town a week earlier. I was out in the woods when I heard the crackle of gunfire. I ran.
I got to this village two days ago.
I was taken in by a family who told me to pretend to be their son. They told me that I would be safe with them. It was a large family. The invading officer in charge came into the room the next morning and asked me if I was part of the family. I nodded. He told me to tell him the names of everyone in the room.
Like I said, it was a big family. He shot the ones whose names I couldn't remember. About half.
I was the only one with blue eyes in the room. The officer knew I was lying. He thought it would be amusing to let me go after that.
Outside, I saw someone get kicked to death. I never thought I'd see that. I couldn't pinpoint the moment of death. It was almost like the body settled into the rhythm of the boots until it became apparent that the person was no longer a person. So much more shocking and fascinating to me than the sudden death of a bullet.
It was then that I realized how numb I was to death. Seeing someone die that brutally was no more than a swell in the music to me. Something I noticed, nothing I felt. I knew that I was no longer here. I'd become a ghost.
When I was six, I saw firefighters on a summer's day putting out a house fire in my town. The firefighter holding the hose leaned forward against the pressure of the water coming out of the nozzle. The sky was blue. The house was burning merrily.
Yesterday, I saw a soldier burn down the church with most of the town trapped inside. It was raining and he used a flamethrower. He leaned against the pressure of the napalm coming out of the nozzle just like that firefighter did when I was six. It was like I was watching the opposite of that childhood memory.
Today, today is a beautiful day. I'm walking through a field, wearing dead men's clothes. I smell the pollen in the wind and the faint tang of ashes. I'm smiling.
I'll never live again.
tags