Autumn Leaves

The Allies have been invading. The Reich is falling. The Allies are beginning to invade the homeland. But we can’t defend forever, we are human. Flesh and bone, victims of bombs and bullets. We’re tired. We run, we have to run. Too many of them are coming to us. We can’t resist such large numbers of men. We can’t resist such large numbers of bombers and bullets. We retreat. We marched in large columns or ran in our small squads or platoons while they shot at us. Forever in a run that will lead nowhere. Yet, he doesn’t call for peace. That little man in Berlin. That stupid man in Berlin threw our nation into war. But who am I to call him stupid, he said he would, we loved him enough to let him take power. Then again, he took our family’s guns and put us to work in factories.

There are hollow shots in the distance with faint explosions happening once in a while. But everything is peaceful in the shallow forest I continuously stagger through. One limp after another, one painful joint movement after another just to limp another foot closer to the German border. I clenched my teeth and fell over. I lay there breathing in the cold air and blowing out a snowy air that looked like a cloud against the orange leaves, or at least the few that were left. I feel my blood squirming to my open wounds while the white blood cells try to close it, I try to picture something more fun rather than acknowledge that I was dying. But I couldn’t, another explosion occurred somewhere that didn’t let me and shot me back into reality. “I’m dying,” I thought to myself, my blood was spreading across my uniform, soaking into its fabric making it look darker than how it usually was. I began to gasp for any kind of strength and tried to stand with the sound of leaves cracking being my soundtrack as I continued to limp along the forest. My helmet was buckled and was left on the floor for whoever wanted, the same was true for my gas mask container which I took off to free myself from its weight which aggravated my leg for no apparent reason (though now I see that I was simply in pain either with, or without it).

A cold breeze came through and whispered in my ears and caressed my cheek with its dead hand, it whispered “Man is the tragedy”, then another explosion occurred somewhere and a battle ensued with a machine gun singing its wondrous song with the primer exploding then the small metal flying through the sky and making it’s little sonic *boom* I continued to walk somewhere, walking from tree to tree as a way to make myself believe some progress was made since I managed to walk past 21 trees. But even if I were to pass 200, everything would appear the same as before no matter how much blood I had to lose, no matter how much I wanted to see my mother again, no matter what, my leg was bleeding from shrapnel, and my lungs were burning. I’m already dead. But then another thought came along with another gust of wind, and it comforted me, “We’re all dead” it whispered as it held my cheek and whispered away.

“21 years,” I said to myself while lying on the ground again. “21 one years to die, born to die, die to be born. My mind, I feel it leaving… Mama,” I reached an arm out to the sky, “I’m sorry for telling you the war would be short. I’m sorry for saying that we would win.” I dropped my hand to the side of me and it landed with a thud on the soft dirt. I sit up and look at my leg and see that almost the entirety seems to have been doused with a darker gray which didn’t match the rest of the uniform. The darker gray was glossy and had a tint of shine to it as it caught some light from the lazy sun.

I saw the small hole in my pants where the piece of metal flew into my thigh, thankfully it somehow missed most major arteries. At least that’s what the medic said when he said that I didn’t die in a minute. I rolled up the pant leg and saw the old bandage turned from white to a dark red, almost black at the site of the wound. I dug into my pocket and took out 2 bandage rolls, one was stolen from a medic and the other was given to me by the medic who treated me, he said that he was giving it to me just in case. I told him it was stupid to give it to me because others could use it, he said that he was probably going to die anyway, he said: “Can’t help the dead when you are one!” He also gave me some pills and told me to take one if the pain sprung up again.

I slowly peeled off the old bandage, it felt like I was trying to peel off my skin, and it surely looked the same way as long pillars of blood stuck to the bandage and then collapsed onto the larger desert of dried and fresh blood. I groaned in pain but continued to slowly peel the bandage off which eventually revealed my skin, skin that was stained red, dark red, greenish, and black. My wound was similar to a jagged S, or similar to the symbol on the SS flag. It was black and had its surrounding areas red, it looked like a meteor that had crashed and created a crater on red soil. The bandages mirrored the same pattern except it had a slightly slimy substance on it, the substance that had stretched and attempted to hold the bandage to my skin. But I noticed that my wound wasn’t bleeding as much as I thought. Rather it seemed to have created a crust on top, a crust that wasn’t solid, but rather was like a smile. A black, reddish slime indicated something about my body, but all that mattered was that the bleeding had seemingly stopped a while ago. I tried my best to keep the wound clean and wrapped the bandage around it the same way the medic did it before, but my bandage was noticeably looser than the medic’s, making it droop a little when I lowered my pant leg and stood. I felt some blood ooze onto the bandage as I tried to walk some more, with each step acting as the fingers that were squeezing my wound for more and more blood to pour out of it. The blood was warm on my cold skin.

Some of the leaves began to fall as the wind began to pick up. The battle I mentioned before seemed to have ended with some fizzling-out shots still being heard, but I’d rather not think about what those shots could mean. Not when I remember taking part in those shots myself. I don’t want to think about my nation’s brothers on their knees with some soldier with a gun behind their head. Maybe they are more humane, those grizzly Americans, the Allies. Perhaps they won’t kill us the same we did to them. They kill us anyway, no one’s better than the other shooting back.

I continued to walk for no purpose, no reason at all, I wasn’t even sure what direction I was going, whether it be Germany or the Allies, to me it didn’t matter anymore. I limped and limped, my heart pumped and pumped, I grunted and groaned, I wished to sleep but I was afraid that I would die if I did. So I was on a constant walk for life, for anything really. I breathed in the cold air and blew out a snowy breath, my jaw began to jitter and I held my coat closed as I had lost the buttons to it. I had nothing on my person other than the bandages and perhaps some other forgotten stuff. I was useless to everyone. Nothing for anyone.

A ‘liability’ they called me while we were running, “We have good men to save” and then drove away on their trucks. Useless to the Allies cause I was nothing to the Government, I couldn’t be a valuable prisoner for them to bribe Hitler, I couldn’t tell them anything about any camps, HQs, where any of our commanders lived or even what their names were. I wasn’t valuable to my nation, I was already dead in their eyes. I was nothing to everyone. “What’s even the point?” I asked myself while sitting next to a tree, “What am I doing?” I leaned my head against the tree and looked at the Autumn leaves, some were falling toward me, others held tightly on those high branches, but all were of a beautiful orange color. The breeze picked up again and brushed my body. I was cold, but the chilly air still felt so nice. I wanted to sleep, but at the same time, I didn’t want to. I told myself not to sleep, told myself, “Hope, hope for mama, mama is watching. No, she’s not watching!” I tried to attack myself through closed teeth, “She’s at HOME! She’s waiting! She’s waiting. I know she’s waiting. Mama’s waiting in Berlin…” I began to cry, “Those Ally bastards. Bombing Berlin. Those piles of shit!” I fell forward and planted my head onto the ground in a cry and spoke with an airy voice, “Those damn, devils. Mama, mama. Mom, no.” Then I pictured the family home as a stout little place that had a small pathway to its front door with a garden of flowers standing at each side. I imagined it as it was, and how it is now, with its roof caved in, its walls fallen, and its lawn of flowers being covered with shot-up dirt, and the blood of a woman who wanted to water them. Her arm missing, her back blown inside itself, her face showing the true meaning of fear and sadness when combined, it’s nothing.

Perhaps I shouldn’t care so much on what if’s, perhaps I should rather focus on the fact that gangrene is likely spreading throughout my thigh, or that fact that my guns are missing and I don’t even have a knife. But I couldn’t stop focusing on that picture, of her arm, in my own head I was looking around the ruins of the home looking for her missing arm. “Mom! Mom! Look!” Holding up 1/3 of her arm, probably the elbow if anything, “I found some of it Mama! Don’t worry” I say as I place her elbow next to her, “I’ll find the rest.”

I sat down once again in this endless cycle of limping, falling, standing, limping, and falling again. I sat down leaning my whole weight against a tree, my head leaning against it till it stared up to the Autumn leaves, I couldn’t help but keep looking at them. Those little brown, yellow, and orange leaves which somehow seemed so unaffected by anything, or anyone. They didn’t care for the Jews, they didn’t care about the shouts of German and Aryan glory from Adof, they didn’t care about the fall of France or the invasion of Normandy or the following invasion of the Netherlands and ultimately of the homeland. To them absolutely nothing mattered and I wanted to know why? I kept staring at the leaves as if they would talk and, for some reason, I hoped they did. Long ago a ruler of Rome gave into the idea of Stoicism, his name was Marcus something, but people more or less know him as a figure, or the figure of stoicism, but these leaves show something that goes beyond the logical, and philosophical teachings of stoicism. They showed a level of calmness that I simply wanted, that no philosophy could possibly teach. I wanted the calm, I wanted the contentment for what’s happening, and I wanted the peace they had for themselves. I wanted their Apathy. The uncaringness they had for everything and everyone. I envied it. But then my mind shot itself and snapped me back into reality, “Those are leaves, not people.” I told myself. “Leaves! Leaves man!” But I responded, “Leaves or not, we can learn for anyone, and anything. Don’t we look to the oceans and their waves to understand emotions? Don’t we look to the trees and their deaths to understand life?” I begin to cough and release puffs of white smoke with each wheeze after the cough. My lungs burned and I felt weak. My eyelids wanted to drop and stay shut, my brain became foggy and wanted to shut down, my legs refused to stand and my arms refused to push me up. I was afraid but I could only cough and stare at the leaves. I was scared, I couldn’t tell if I wanted to sleep, or if I was finally dying. In my own mind I was clawing at the darkness of rest, I was clawing at it and crying for it to leave me be, to live and let live. But it didn’t care and marched to a shadowy doll that was held on a pedestal, which I figured was myself. Rest marched through me, marched against my grasps and cries, then it held up that doll. “Rest,” it said in a breathy, deep voice while it caressed my head. “Rest now. Ye need no fear. Rest.”