The Rewritten Ending of The Book Thief

THE ACCORDIAN

She sprinted. It wasn’t an instinct, nor was it something she necessarily had to do. She just sprinted.

And she left The Book Thief behind.

He sprinted after her.

After collecting the poor victims’ souls, I went over to the Amper myself and sat for awhile, enjoying the lapping of water around my feet.

Yes, Death has feet.

I noticed the book blatantly sitting there, waiting to be picked up. So I plucked it off the ground and took it with me for safekeeping.

I’ve read it many times since.

“Papa? Mama? Where are you?”

She searched.

She searched through the mounds of rubble that were once houses of friends, roads of recollection, and building blocks of her life.

He searched too.

Himmel Street was barely recognizable. The already impossibly run-down houses had finally met their match, and every building collapsed into piles of building supplies and furniture.  The  fires  had  already  started,  but  they were a minor issue;  the  more  pressing matter was if there were any survivors.

✵   ✵   ✵   HERE’S A FACT OR TWO  ✵   ✵   ✵

There were no survivors.

There was only me.

Human hope is a strange thing. Even when all seems to be lost, humans still hold on to what they have, and what they always have is hope. It’s that one strand of insanity that everyone tugs on when their situation seems bleak. They just hope and keep hoping.

The LSE pulled out body after body away from the mess and smoke, never stopping to see if their hearts were still beating or if their lungs were still breathing. No, they just continued running through the broken buildings, pulling out more lifeless bodies.

And Liesel continued searching for her parents, hoping (there’s that word again) that they were alive.

She found them, sprawled out on the remnants of the street like all of the other corpses. Her papa was peacefully sleeping. Her mama had lost her cardboard expression.

She checked for their pulses, sat back, stared, and started shaking.

Somewhere near her, there was a choked cry.

She didn’t have to look who it was; she already knew. However, she calmly lifted her head and looked up to see the other survivor, kneeling by his lost family.

Rudy.

He looked up as well, little streams of tears cleaning his grimy face. Their eyes met for a second, then they both looked away. They went back to staring at their deceased family instead.

Liesel lost it.

“Papa? Come on! Wake up, Papa! Papa! Mama? You too! Wake up! It’s just a dream! You’re just sleeping! You have to wake up now!”

She cried.

He cried.

Even I cried.

She she headed towards what remained of her house. Rudy, noticing the sudden movement, ran over and restrained her before she made any rash actions.

“Please, let me go. I have to get something.”

“No.”

“The accordion.”

“No. Tell the LSE.”

With that, he pulled her along to one of the workers.

“Please. My papa’s accordion. It’s inside.”

The worker went in and retrieved it.

She held onto it tightly.

Rudy picked up a piece of shrapnel.

They left, hand in hand.

They were homeless. They lost their families.

But they had each other.

The LSE worker continued pulling out more bodies and putting out more fires. It wasn’t until much later when he thought of the little girl who asked for him to fetch an accordion. He thought it a strange request, but he knew people sometimes had queer needs after a bombing, so he had gotten it without question. He never knew why the little girl had asked for the accordion out of all of her family’s possessions, until he met me. I smiled a sad smile, and had told him, “For her papa, to keep on playing."