Where Death Sings

thirteen // astrid

It's been hours since the sun went down when I finally step out of the church with tired steps. My eyes move up to the sky at the same second my body is underneath it. I stare at the beautiful and endless darkness above me. If I had been home, there wouldn't have been anything that could disturb the night, but here there is. In the distance the darkness is lit up by explosions, and where I stand the distant thunder tells me that people are dying. It screams and it whispers, and it mocks me because I cannot do anything.

   A cold breeze sweeps past me where I stand and reminds me of how much colder the nights are now compared to a couple of weeks ago, winter is near. I hurry over the square, past the fountain in the middle and to the other side where I stop outside a house. Before I enter the house, I give the sky one last look and I take in its calm and beauty once more. Where I stand outside the door to the house I share with the rest of the female nurses, it's not possible to see the explosion. Here the darkness is what it's supposed to be.

   I push the door open. A few nurses sit around the table in the kitchen, chatting and drinking coffee. A couple of them reacts to the cold air filling the room as I step inside. They smile kindly at me, welcoming me into the warmth of the house.

   "Astrid." One of the nurses, Ewa, exclaims. "Join us."

   I pull out the last chair and sit down while Ewa pours me a cup of coffee. The rest of the nurses have fallen silent, instead they look at me with curious eyes. It's almost like they are waiting for me to say something, and when I don't, Grace does.

   "I'm just going to ask you." She says. "The German soldier. What's he like?"

   "The German soldier? There's not really much to say about him." I reply. There really isn't much to be said about Friedhelm. He's kind, and he's sweet, and he is just like anyone else.

   "But isn't it exhilaration?" Grace says, not to me but to everyone. "To have a German soldier here, an enemy soldier, in our field hospital.

   I don't reply. I guess I in some sense understand what Grace is saying, the thrilling elements of having someone from 'the other side' in the church. However I see nothing exciting about Friedhelm, all I see is another wounded soldier, another victim. His presence in the church is no different to the presence of an English soldier. Why should we make a fuss out of a bad situation, about someone who is in pain? I don't need my job to be more eventful than it already is. Personally I would prefer less of everything; less exhilaration, less deaths, less wounded soldiers, less battles, and less explosions.

   I stay in the kitchen a while longer and listen while the other nurses keep talking. They keep talking about Friedhelm for another moment before they change subject, and I leave the table to go upstairs. There are only two rooms upstairs, both with filled with scrawny-looking beds. They are not very comfortable, but I keep reminding myself that at least I have a bed to sleep in. I have bed, and I get to sleep in a remotely warm house. I never have to sleep in the rain, or snow, or mud.

   My tired feet take me to the bed I got assigned to when I first arrived, and lie down. It's in bed where all the emotions I have pushed aside during the day come flooding back. Panic and sadness flows through my veins, and fill every little cell of my body. It feels like someone has put a heavy weight on top of me. I guess, in a metaphorical way, it's possible to say that all the emotions rushing through me is like a small box. Or to be more exact, they lock you into this small box, and it's four walls keeps moving closer and closer, making it almost impossible to breath.

   The dreams are not much better. On those occasion when I sleep long enough to dream, they are filled with anxiety and blood, and death. Death follows me throughout every day, and throughout every night. I see it wherever I go. I can't escape it. No one can.

The night is long, and just like most nights I don't get a lot of sleep. Sometime during the night it starts raining, and I lie quietly in my bed and listen to the raindrops drum against the windows in the room. At first, the rhythmic sound of the rain is calming, the even beat on the window. However as the rain picks up and starts drumming against the windows in a disharmonic way, my heart starts to pick up speed as well. Panic and anxiety rushes through my body, and horrific scenes flashes before me.

   I prop myself up on my elbows and look out over the room. I can't tell how many of the nurses are actually sleeping, but I can't be the only one suffering from nightmares. I can't possibly be the only one who's haunted by everything we see in the church every day. I already know, that it will haunt me for as long as I live. The things we have seen in the church is not something you forget overnight. It stays with you. And if those who fuel this war saw what we see every day, assuming they aren't completely heartless, the bullets would stop flying, the shells would stop falling and young boys would stop dying. The problem is, they don't see what we see, nor do they see what the soldiers see, so the war will go on until the field of Europe are adorn with dead bodies.