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At the Edge of it All (Part 2) |
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The Edge of it All (Part 1) |
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Cold Hands |
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The Last Step |
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It Ends with a Broken Beer Bottle |
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Cold Hands
Tragedy
 Created on 3-25-07
 Views(83)
 Story Rating G
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“Cold Hands”
When it was light, the streets seemed depressing, when it was dark they seemed depressing, when it was dawn, when it was dusk, they seemed depressing. The cold stones, the cold bricks, the cold days. Everything was depressing, the houses, packed full of people, So much life, but so much death.
It’s all depressing
It’s all sad
It’s all miserable
It’s all here
It’s where I live
The Ghetto
The German patrolled ghetto
The work or be killed ghetto
The live or die ghetto.
I live here, as only a child, as only a boy, as only one, alone.
They killed my parents
They killed my sister, and my brother
They killed my dog
My Jewish dog
They killed him, they killed him, just like they killed my grandparents and my cousin, they’ve killed everyone, everyone except for me.
Its cold like usual. And the twelve people in my house are huddle around what we call a fire, a small stove, just enough heat to keep us alive, but I’m in the back, in my bed, looking at the ceiling, through a hole that lets me see the stars, the stars where I’d like to be, on the outside, up above it all, gone, gone from here.
A little girl comes into my room and up to my bed.
What is it, I ask her
Do you have any food? She asks.
No, I don’t, no one has any food.
Do you have any gloves? She holds up her bare hands, almost blue.
No, I don’t have any gloves.
Do you have room in your sheets?
No I say
Please? She whines.
No I say again
Please, pretty please?
She is cold, I can tell, her face is pale, but her cheeks are scarlet, just enough to know that she is alive.
I lift up my sheet. I don’t know this girl, this little girl.
Where are your parents I ask her?
They went away, they’re gone.
I go quite.
I go still.
I go motionless.
She is all alone, I am all alone, we both are all alone, and we are both under a sheet just to keep from going where I parents went.
When it is morning, I always am looking for food, anything, a potato, a turnip, a piece from the dead horse that’s lying in the street. But today, there is nothing, not even a bad potato, not even a scrap of meat, nothing, nothing, there is nothing today, nothing except the sadness that everyone is overwhelmed with.
That night
In my bed
In my cold room
There is the little girl, the little girl from the night before, wrapped in my sheets, sitting on my bed. She smiles at me.
Look what I’ve got. She says. Her hands are held out wards toward me and in them is a potato, big enough to make soup. “Would you like some?” She asks.
And I nod, and we cut into fourths, one piece a night, that’s four nights of food, that’s four nights that food might keep me alive, that’s four nights where I won’t be dying of hunger, that’s four nights that this little girl has given me life.
That night I let her stay, that night I let her sleep under my covers, that night she is warm and I have I food.
The light in the morning brings bad news. The Germans have come. The Germans want us out. They are searching, they are shooting, they are taking people away, they are throwing boxes, they are tipping tables, they are hitting and beating old men, women, children in the streets.
The little girl and I are in my room with the door closed. On the outside we hear screaming, we hear Germans yelling, we hear bangs, and booms. We hear them walking about, we hear them, and we hope that they don’t come in here.
Ten minutes, ten minutes we hear screaming, we hear yelling, we hear moans and weeps, we hear the children calling for their mothers, their fathers, we hear the women calling for their husbands, crying for their sons.
We hear, and we hope that it’s over.
We hear, and we hope that their gone.
We hear, and we hope that we are safe.
Morning comes and when the little girl is up, I am standing at the door, starring at it, waiting for the door knob to turn and for me to be killed. She comes and stands next to me, and we both stare, we both wait.
Twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes of staring,
Twenty minutes of waiting.
Twenty minutes pass, and the girl walks to the door, she walks to the door and I stand there, and I wait, and she opens it and the girl is in the empty door way. And we both walk into the empty room, we both walk into the empty apartment, where the table has been tipped on its side, and the vases are smashed into the walls, and the paintings are torn, and the chairs are broken. And we both stand; we stand where people had lived.
The next morning is the same as the one before, it is silent. Just the little girl and I sitting around the stove, burning the broken chairs to heat us, to keep us warm, and we both have are potato wedge, and we eat it, we eat it early, because we know tomorrow, they will take us, we know that tomorrow is when they are going to finish clearing out the ghetto.
The next morning comes.
And the little girl and I are standing in the doorway when the Germans come.
With their guns.
And they grab us, and they take us to the street where we are shoved into the mob of people walking out of the ghetto. And every now and again I’ll hear a bang of a gun, or a scream, or a moan, or cry, and I hope to God that I won’t die.
And as I walk
The little girl is next to me.
And she is holding my hand, and her hands are cold, I can tell, even through my gloves I can tell. We walk in the group, not saying a word, not saying a prayer, only thinking, and hoping that we won’t be killed.
As I’m walking, the girl is getting tired, so I lift her and carry her, I carry her so that she can stay with me, so that she can keep me alive like she did before, so that she can be a friend.
But, I am getting worried as we get closer to the end, where people are being put on to a train. The train where we will be shipped to the camps, to the camps where we will die, where we will work and be shot for doing so.
Before I get on, I put the girl in first, but after I do, a German pulls me away, he pulls me away, he grabs me by the hair and he drags me, and I scream, and I yell, and the little girl jumps off the train and runs after me.
And the little girl is running towards me, and the German drops me, and he pulls out his gun, and the little girl is there, and the little girl is yelling, and the German pulls his trigger, and I am gone, my eyes are closed, I am in the dark.
And then I open, and there is red in the snow all around me, and the little girl is gasping, and the German is gone. As I turn over the little girl rolls off me, she is covered in red. And I cry. I cry for the first time. I cry for the only time, and I ask her, I ask her why.
And she replies “My hands are cold.”
And I pull off my gloves and I put them on her, and I cry, I cry for this little girl, this little girl who I shared a bed with, who gave me food, who saved me, I cry for the little girl.
And now
She is gone.
She is dead.
She is away, with her parents, with my parents and my grandparents, and everyone’s parents, and with all those who have died, and all those who are going to die, she is there.
My angel, My savior.
Comments
Please Login to post comments| On June 18th 2007 Alexaluvshim Said : | |
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woah |
| On April 18th 2007 Twiggin Said : | |
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.... don't play that way..
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| On March 29th 2007 Unperfection Said : | |
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wow!!! thatis amazing.....sad,but amzing! i love it!!!!! it is long but deffinately worth reading! |
