text: Hey all. This is just a short story i wrote one day. Hope you enjoy it! Deaf voices all around me are speaking a language I once knew but understand no longer. A life of pride, indulgence and valour, foundations to the coarse wall of fear and death no longer standing. A loving wife. Obedient children. All taught to follow a false truth, a repeat of history. Around me I see my fellow companions, friends who walk the same path as I do. The swastika, a symbol which established my superiority and once stood proud in my eyes now lays on the ground with its meaning detached from its purpose. Coming to a halt, my future stood. The fortress which resides in stolen lands. Auschwitz. *** “The war to end all wars. Propaganda sought out by those who fear defeat!”. Spoken by my father, his final breath which serves as my final memory of the man. The confronting thought to which I hold as proof of evil teachings. My father, turned mad through war, turned mad through death. He was once a man of integrity and strength, yet he now lays here fallen to the fate which no one escapes. The journal he wrote, the scramblings of a madman, his concealed thoughts revealed. He now lays there, quiet as the cold dreary nights of his silent screams which echoed through the empty air, unheard. *** Uniforms, bland and generic. Worn by the bricks in the concealed wall of death and fear. Symbols I thought I knew challenge my understanding, tearing open a void encompassed with regret and question. Red, black and white stripes I was once proud to wear, a symbol which gave me authority, but over what? Authority of judgement and the taker of life? Propaganda manufactured by Lucifer and believed by all. No joy or happiness lives here. From the naive youths to those knocking on death's door, all were condemned to the same judgement. Tears strike the eagle emblem, the very same I was taught to worship as a deity, the God that will grant us victory. But what god would grant sinners victory? A machine designed to “Cleanse The Earth” of undesirables, a war machine built by blind, ignorant men now does the fallen angel’s bidding. Never had I comprehended the resilience and the determination of man until this day, clawing like tigers against the steel cage. Engraved scars mark the blood stained stone and the coarse concrete walls. Their fate challenged, driven by that evolutionary trait, “Survival”. Horrific acts against God to which I ordered, fates of the innocent I locked into place. Acts which cause celebration in the streets, with my people cheering my family name and chanting my deeds and values as gospel readings. Calling me the key for victory, the key to Europe and to all new worlds’. Yet, I feel nothing. I’m isolated in the lost desert of my own barren soul. The key to my past life now buried, hidden from the ages and to remain lost until the ends of time. *** A past life lead by a dead man. Lüneburg Heath. A field to learn my future hunting profession, passed down through the generations. A repeat of history. My father, his head held high with pride wearing his freshly pressed, immaculate uniform, overwhelmed with badges of honour across his left breast. I, his eldest son, carried the family pride, “Vereingewehr”, the weapon granted the title of “peacemaker” which kept us fed, defended and alive. I hold my father's compass, forged long before he was from intrinsic gold which shone as bright as he did, but folded as easily as he had. “What truth could a madman give?”. Confronting thoughts to a concealed, unanswered question which grew from a past war, one which drove him to insanity. *** The fresh stench of blood and smoke stood before us. Fifteen demons, clearing out those who took their last breath only moments before. Holding man's most horrid creation, the fifteen took aim at their next victims. Among the fifteen stood a young man, related only through blood stood my son, a man of questionable beliefs and provocative values but a man of unrivaled loyalty. Ahead stood fifty, the overspill of the ‘cattle’. All awaiting my signal, my signature for a reservation to hell. Why I was condemned to end their God given life, lives which could have changed the world, I will never understand. My son glances back, staring at my weary facade, through the rusted iron mask I wore everyday. With one breath, one I did with regret, anger and pain, I changed the moment, I signed that reservation. I played God. *** Horrors, stimulating past memories which surface from the suppressed subconscious. We came to a river concealed by a russet haze. Our future meal lay along the bank, our means of survival met. As I held the “peacemaker”, I grew nervous. Approaching the river bank, I see our blunder, a man lays dead, his life taken by a boy on the order of his father. My father, a man of strength and integrity began to weep. Sprinting to the deceased, my father looks back at me, but not with his iron face of God, but one challenged by weakness and sorrow. He stares at me with eyes as red as the fresh haze, as red as the blood which now stained his attire. It was at this moment that I saw the error of my father’s ways, the blunder he had made. Just like his father before him, history has repeated itself. *** Awards and medals for loyalty, obedience and leadership stood stately in my office. Characteristics which became my undoing. Above the medals hung my family's versed “peacemaker”, an experienced weapon carried into conflict across three generations. Outside grey clouds defeat the sun, smoke of the dead blankets the truth. Prisoners, forgotten numbers in blue and white scramble across the vast concrete fields. Reaching for the “peacemaker” I reflect upon the choices I have made, the pain and suffering I had bestowed upon my family. The choice I was about to make. Pulling the “peacemaker” down, the shining compass draws my eye, bringing forth memories of my family. A family driven to insanity by choices, wreaked by war and suffering. My family, whose perceptions and assumptions drove me to sign up and fight. My compass is the only memory of happier times before the war. Now, it simply signifies a practicality, a compass for direction. A direction which took me down the path of evil. The path for judgement by God.