One cannot imagine the sight of ten million soldiers, tanks, planes and all manner of machines and weapons of war converging and stampeding across an entire, hapless city. We were made the focal point of the enemies entry into the Republic and they then fanned out unabated across the open plains and as far as the coastal provincial. For a time, the Capital withstood a merciless siege before they too were overrun and the Great Hall of the People's was rendered asunder.
They came speaking the same gibberish that Sophie uttered to me and said was from Karl. I found it quite odd and terrifying that these soldiers all sounded like Knut. When I said a few of those gibberish words they took pause and delight and singled me out for some kind of unwanton praise.
As they went seemingly randomly down the streets killing and plundering everyone, they left me alone. I could not understand why, were these the Artesians? Was this the army of Karl Knutmudsen coming at last?
Sophie went into hiding along with Ingrid, Martha and many others. Many of the hiding places were found and the people dragged out. Sophie was fortunate and hers held out to the very last and by then the horde had taken their fill and moved on to the next cities, leaving just a small retinue of rear guard to hover over their prize.
My clothes were now tattered remnants, my shoes nothing but pieces of rubber tied with string and I wandered aimlessly through the streets I had always known, not sure of who I am or who I was. Someone would call out to me, a few remembered me as the old Commissar and the foreign soldiers laughed even more when they understood what I once was to this city.
I kneeled in the city square next to the smash remnants of the Great Mural. A few letters remained of my family name sake, still taller than I could stand. I wondered when the Commissariat would rise up and say this was all in their plan and just another hoax or scheme to test all of us. I would then get reassigned to Camp 47 or some other place, maybe finally thrown onto the Island.
Alas, none of this came to pass. The Commissariat was gone. The Party gone. All monuments. All the party songs. The Artesian movement had indeed arrived, it was not a hoax as they so claimed it to be. It was just their own hoax of a hoax and all their silly games that had been playing on their own people all these many generations. We no longer understood what was real.
Someone tossed me some clothes and a pair of shoes. I at first didn't know what had hit me and thought it was a dead bird. I clung onto it thinking it would bring me sustenance later and walked to a burnt out alleyway. There were a few scavengers, but they paid me no attention. My shabby appearance and my tattered pockets offered nothing.
In my final desperation, I sat down and lay my head how I once did in that garden and wept. Someone put a blanket up to my shoulders. I then heard the thud of a bottle of water and the clunk of a metal pan with some food and when I came too, I was in a small room with a simple mattress, a chair and a latrine. It felt like a prison cell, but much nicer than anything I remembered from the camp. I then thought it might a hospital gurney, but saw no sutures or a IV.
I didn't care anymore, I didn't eat. Didn't drink and just slept for what must have been days. When I came too, it was to someone reassuring and caressing my arm. It felt familiar, it was Sophie's. She was dressed in the uniform the foreign soldiers wore and a pair of mismatched boots. She somehow had found me and had me brought to that rehabilitation station.
She said the war had ended in a stalemate. Our city was indeed overwhelmed and overrun. Many other cities and the Capital were overrun, but the military had planned this and retreated. Just like when Wolf's 331st was sacrificed, they then unleashed hell and drop unholy weapons atop the mass of foreign invaders. None made it back to this city to retreat.
Sigmund proved worthy of Wolf's name and would have made him proud. He died in his heroism, but not before he delayed the retreat of the Army. There were none left, she was now the last. All she had was me.
When I was well enough, she help me limp to one of the last remaining battlements overlooking the ruins of our city. We then saw across the bay and saw that our once neighbors had been completely leveled and none survived the initial onslaught. In irony the unification of our two cities merely spared us the worse of it.
A new Commissar was approaching. He nudged me on the shoulder, it was my old Colonel. Accompanied by the Major and even the Captain who had reinstated into the Army. They all survived and welcomed me. We all somehow survived, incredible, amazing they all said.
No comments:
Post a Comment