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Disclaimer: Jarod’s nightmares aren’t mine (until I wake up screaming.)
Shoes
By Serendipitous Cake
At night the shoes haunted him. Visions of people dancing, children running, and babies learning to walk, plagued his dreams. He often woke in a heavy sweat, unable to shake the startling images, unable to break free of the prison in his mind.
He had never been there, never walked the ghettos, never been kidnapped in the night. And yet he had.
He had visited the camps. Heard the screaming in his ears. Felt the sting of gas in his throat and eyes. But it was all an illusion for him. At the end of the day he could go home--wherever home might have been at that point in time.
They had clawed the walls, prisoners of race, prisoners held in a man’s madness. They had died merely flesh and bones, broken people. Hollow eyes.
It was the eyes and the shoes... the bony wrists and bowed legs. They flashed in his brain. Stretched, pained and violated.
And he had never inflicted it. But in other ways he had. He had killed, unintentionally.
He had never killed for religion, for faith or superiority, but he had killed through blind trust.
Perhaps the victims had never starved, never clawed, never even suffered. But he had still lent a hand in killing them.
They were still mothers, fathers, men, women, and children. They were separated by time, decades. But they were the same. Innocent victims.
They all had shoes. He had shoes. Everyone had shoes. And on the pile of shoes he wept.
The tour group had never questioned why. They understood it in their own ways, but would never understand it in his.
The walking, running, and dancing that he had stopped. The shoes that weren’t his own but were forced to remain empty because of him.
And every night he vowed that he would seek retribution and justice for the wronged, the lost, and the injured. Because he owed it to them.
Because he couldn’t forget the hollow eyes, the bony wrists and the pile of shoes.
Because it was all he could offer to make their death seem purposeful.
And because it was all he could do for them now.
Fin.
In loving memory of family members I never met, and ones that I did, who suffered the mark of small numbers and death for something they could not change.
Shoes
By Serendipitous Cake
At night the shoes haunted him. Visions of people dancing, children running, and babies learning to walk, plagued his dreams. He often woke in a heavy sweat, unable to shake the startling images, unable to break free of the prison in his mind.
He had never been there, never walked the ghettos, never been kidnapped in the night. And yet he had.
He had visited the camps. Heard the screaming in his ears. Felt the sting of gas in his throat and eyes. But it was all an illusion for him. At the end of the day he could go home--wherever home might have been at that point in time.
They had clawed the walls, prisoners of race, prisoners held in a man’s madness. They had died merely flesh and bones, broken people. Hollow eyes.
It was the eyes and the shoes... the bony wrists and bowed legs. They flashed in his brain. Stretched, pained and violated.
And he had never inflicted it. But in other ways he had. He had killed, unintentionally.
He had never killed for religion, for faith or superiority, but he had killed through blind trust.
Perhaps the victims had never starved, never clawed, never even suffered. But he had still lent a hand in killing them.
They were still mothers, fathers, men, women, and children. They were separated by time, decades. But they were the same. Innocent victims.
They all had shoes. He had shoes. Everyone had shoes. And on the pile of shoes he wept.
The tour group had never questioned why. They understood it in their own ways, but would never understand it in his.
The walking, running, and dancing that he had stopped. The shoes that weren’t his own but were forced to remain empty because of him.
And every night he vowed that he would seek retribution and justice for the wronged, the lost, and the injured. Because he owed it to them.
Because he couldn’t forget the hollow eyes, the bony wrists and the pile of shoes.
Because it was all he could offer to make their death seem purposeful.
And because it was all he could do for them now.
Fin.
In loving memory of family members I never met, and ones that I did, who suffered the mark of small numbers and death for something they could not change.
