I Am Not a Soldier

By Dwight Phoenix

Seventy-Five Million graves exploded into existence from many of the dejected souls that participated in the world’s worst event, World War 2. This cataclysmic occurrence uprooted families, ripped countries apart and left a legacy of the true evil nature of man. We have been privy to many stories of the unprecedented war from countless westerners who curse the dictator and his minions. However, this tale takes the view of good men that struggled under the dictator’s radical political views and psychotic ideologies. It looks at men of peace that were broken to partake in deeds that were an abomination to their ethics.
Muller, a teenage boy with an unprecedented character and a unique love for nature finds himself a part of this group. And like others, he fights to avoid the devilish disfiguration of his identity. He is driven from his home in an attempt to escape the harsh reality of his country, Germany. But he is uncertain of where destiny will lead him and is embraced by Joy, Death, Pain, and Love. Through unfair and bitter circumstances, this tale tries to answer the question, can the saint become a monster?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781984581518

Dwight Phoenix

Born in the Land of Wood and Water, Kingston Jamaica, Dwight Phoenix has always been a lover of nature and creative thinking. As he grew older, it was those attributes that created a love for the field of science and the arts; a rare blend. Trying to keep a balance between his interests, he later decided to study engineering at the University of Technology Jamaica, while he continued furthering his appreciation of the arts as his hobby. It was during his time at University that Dwight decided to write his first book after many attempts at short story-telling. However, his inspiration for a historical fiction that focused on the events of World War 2 came from his father. After all, it was his father who raised him on countless war movie classics. He recalls seeing his father express extraordinary joy for great movies like Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan. He wanted to see his father convey those same feelings towards a spectacle that came from his son, his own bloodline; hence the book ‘I am Not a Soldier’ was born.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

A Normal Life

I was one with the wind, the sky above, and the canopies beneath me. My naked feet quickened their pace, dancing speedily atop young offshoots and overstretched branches. With each step, my toes felt the soft bend of the leaves and the curvature of their tiny folios. The wind skated across my face as I tried to go faster. Woosh! Like a tank to the body, I was attacked by a heavier gust. I was determined to go faster than the wind! I begged my legs for more; one stomp after another, I pressed myself for speed. No sooner, my toes became numbed to the leaves; peering down, I realized I now danced on air. Pound for pound, my body was charged with colossal gale-force winds determined to have no equals. But today, above the Koblenz, forest, I was destined to dethrone the dictator. Laughter and smiles escaped me as I stepped lividly toward my goal. Then suddenly, I felt it—no wind. The warmth of the sun washed my face, unveiled in an air with no chill. From behind, the sound of the jealous wind screamed and howled. It cursed my defiance and quarreled that I slow down. I was nature’s new mover and shaker. I determined when the trees bowed, when the grasses danced in the prairies, or when the waves crashed against the rocky cliffs of the immovable land. I was free. As I looked out, it seemed like the forest was ending; a huge gap slit the thistles in half. It was a river. I can make the jump, I told myself. One leg after the other, I was in the open air. Nothing but the roar of a mighty river stood beneath me. Pow! The sound of a gunshot rang out, cutting my speed in half—my smile left me. Pow! Another one echoed through the canopies. Immediately I was overtaken by the angry wind, catching up to weakened legs. Woosh! Next, I was tackled from the air and thrown into rough waters below.

Ahhhh! I exhaled sharply, popping my eyes open from another daydream. What was that? I pondered heavily. It felt different. I lost control. Those thoughts were not mine, the gunshot I did not create, I rebutted with my subconscious. Nonetheless, I would not be deterred. This was my therapeutic time, I told myself. Next, I breathed easy, and my smile came back. Thereafter, the daydream evaporated and I was lost to the glee of nature’s lull. Moments passed, and I continued resting in my cradle of ice. The snow fell to the ground with ease. Without any care or thought, it breached the air, gliding aimlessly onto my ruffled, overwashed fourth-generational coat. From my great-grandfather to me, my father never ceased to give me a lecture. I lay on the frozen ground with my eyes trying to pierce the thick whiteness above me. My thoughts wandered adrift as blank as the snow. No daydreams this time, no motion, no sound, just the silent whisper of the white stuff humbly falling to the earth, cocooned with the distant whistle of a cool zephyr. You could barely make any distinction between the ground and the sky. If it weren’t for the standing trees and my father’s nearby "hütte," no one could decipher between the two. All that existed was a giant white ball with flakes, scraped off its sides and tossed around. It was customary for me to lie on the snow, bracketed by a plethora of clothes encased inside my coat, allowing my thoughts to run amuck. My bones felt relaxed to the point where I felt them tingling beneath my skin. I was relaxed to the point where only a small fraction of oxygen was needed to keep me alive. With such little air, my chest struggled to elevate itself above my feet. But now, being buried by the snow made it even more difficult to see my boots. I was at peace. Then a thought came to me, This must be what it feels like to be de—

Muller! Dinner is ready. I crookedly helped myself to the ground where an avalanche of snow plummeted off my rested body.

I could hear my bones creaking and crackling as they tried to fit themselves back into place. It was dinnertime. As I neared the door, I took one last glance at the outdoors and mutedly responded with a delightful sigh, walking away from my cradle and the wandering thoughts it held.

My gullet reluctantly tried to accept the rented piece of chicken carcass, lamentably ripped apart by my cringing teeth and sloshed by an unwilling tongue. It was the same thing we had to eat every day and the same musty stories my father told about the old kingdom of Germany and the great emperor of Prussia in 1887. It was just my parents and me, with an almost-too-humble abode near the great Rhine River, famous throughout Europe. We lived in an area just inside the Rhineland-Palatinate, outside of the Mosel Valley. We moved from Frankfurt to escape my uncle’s illegal lifestyle that soiled our family’s image. At least, that’s how my father always phrased it. I guess it had something to do with my uncle’s involvement in past political tension. I also heard that he was involved in the famous march on the morning of November 9, 1924, when the Nazis had about two thousand supporters going through Munich in an attempt to rally support. It was there that Munich troops opened fire, and sixteen Nazis were killed. However, I had no recollection of any of his so-called illegal events while we lived together. I was only three at the time. There were days I wished I could know what my uncle looked like; maybe he was a better storyteller than my father, or maybe he didn’t have a mundane bald spot on his head? Regardless, time taught me to accept that it would just be my parents and me. No uncle, no grandparents, no sister, no brother—the reality of an only child. After barely walking away alive from my dinner, I dragged myself to the fireplace and occupied myself with my favorite book, written by Immanuel Kant. Although introduced to it from school, I found myself learning more than what was required by the syllabus. Immanuel had an interesting way of looking at German philosophy, and this made me appreciate the simpler oblivious things in life. This was what I wanted to become: a creator—whatever that was. I wanted to be able to recreate the world in the image of a reformed sanctum. I wanted to be able to take a snapshot of a small basic village and amplify that to an enchanting kingdom, to look at a flower or some random creature, like a caterpillar, etched in the crease of its dinner and/or bed, and be able to magnify or revisualize its imagery to the layman that just saw an insect. I wanted to make the small and great equally significant.

I sprung from the pages as a charred piece of log violently cracked open and spat out sprinkled pieces of enflamed wood near my feet. After willfully slaving myself over the books, it was now well into the night. My eyes got dreadfully heavy with the aid of my father’s old radio, forcing me to succumb to its painfully inductive classic tunes. My mother was frozen in her chair with the needle and thread still at work in my father’s pants. Her head hung lifelessly over the wooden floor, tired and worn from a day of cooking and cleaning.

"Mutter, Mutter! I’m going to bed now!" I shouted.

Gutten nacht, sohn, she groggily replied.

Papa, good night.

Gutten nacht, sohn. I placed the books in their respective positions on the shelf, awaiting another night of inspiration.

Creeeek! These old stairs were here for almost one hundred years, way before we came along; and the year was now 1937. But I never really complained about the house’s shortcomings. I loved the place and its surroundings spotted with rare flora. I loved my parents and how they tried to keep the family glued together and shut out the iniquitous world. My father was a coarse man, conjured by a hard and unfortunate pass, which he rarely talked about. All I knew was that he went to jail at one point in his life. But this was as a result of some bad decision he inevitably got himself into because of his then-impoverished life. However, he mostly spoke of how he elevated himself from the gutters and cocooned himself with the field of philosophy. Thereafter, he fell in love with German history and literature, and that has led him to eventually be a professor of philosophy at the tertiary level in Frankfurt—his occupation for three years now. Sometimes I believed my father to be the influencer of my now interest in literature. My mother, on the other hand, had a normal life as a young woman. She had clichéd teenager problems and a family that supported her every decision. Also, even though she was a smart woman with a secondary level of education, she subdued herself to basic wifely duties. I always saw an underrated cadre of nobility in the decision to become a housewife—the underlining defense for the frame of a family, singlehandedly upheld, supporting a community a nation and the world to a larger extent—the kind of woman I wanted for myself one day. Breaking myself from a chain of thoughts, I looked behind me and took one last look at them before going to bed. The moment deserved a family musical to perfect it. However, my father’s radio didn’t hear me. As I waltzed up the crooked stairs, I reflected on the day and thought about how to spend tomorrow. What could I do to make it better each time? That was before school could commence in one month, after the winter break.

Attention, attention, it came from my father’s radio. It sounded like the announcer was babbling about Hitler’s fascination and the ludicrous theory that the Middle Easterners were the cause for the country’s misfortunes.

"Bête. Real Foolish," I tried to catch the rest of the announcement. However, the announcer’s voice subsided as I drifted farther up the stairs. Just another driven politician with outlandish, irrational obsessions. I wished the country’s governmental system was not like a dictatorship. Then we all wouldn’t have to become mindless zombies following some of these men into a ditch. That was why we lost the war in 1918; at least that was what my father said. We were the greatest kingdom when the Prussian emperor existed. But look at us now licking our wounds after a defeat, being led by boys calling themselves men—the imagery of my angry father barking rabidly about these issues materialized before me. The night got darker; and I lay in bed, trying to reset my thoughts with more positive ones. Pow! The sounds of the gunshot from the daydream earlier today attacked me out of nowhere—again, that was not mine.

Come on, Muller, go to sleep, I told myself out loud, regaining control of a mind that had too much fun today. Moments passed, and my eyelids grew heavier; and before I knew it, I was out.

It was now morning; the smell of eggs perfumed the air with a unison of bacon and freshly baked bread.

Mhhhh, that smells great. I tossed the sheets off me when the sun from the nearby bedroom windows suddenly poked me in the eyes.

They appeared to be stained with white sand.

When are we going to clean the snow off those windows? I said to myself.

I could hear the sizzling sound of flesh burning from downstairs. My stomach felt more awake than the rest of my attenuated body. My ears were treated to a musical and my nose to a crescendo of multiflavored odor attacking my bedroom. Being anxious to get downstairs, I quickly tossed the sheets frantically across the bed, flung the first set of clothes that found my hands onto my body, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and headed for the stairs. Halfway down the stairs, an eerie atmosphere attacked me—the unprecedented was afoot. I felt something like an elevated consciousness screaming through my head. But somehow, like a runaway train, I was unable to stop myself from the imminent danger. My left foot skipped one staircase and landed awkwardly onto the preceding step with the next foot coming from behind, inept to discontinuing a forward rotation. With my left leg already going down, my right foot crashed into it, while my toenail detached itself from my big toe as it grazed the tip of the steps. No sooner, I tumbled and rolled all the way to the bottom of the steps. No creaking this time. My body was now fully awake, along with all its demerits, and my appetite gone before I could hit the floorboard. PAIN ALL OVER.

Muller, Muller! My mother hurried to the crash site, her voice uneasy and distraught as she yelped my name, unaware of the severity of my injury.

My head was quickly extracted from the cold floorboard, almost violently being thronged into my mother’s bosom.

Ouch! I yelled. The smell of bacon lingered on her hands.

As she wrapped her arms around my head, I could feel the warmth of the frying pan disparate from her natural body temperature. I also felt the warmth of her heart leaping at my anguished body as she squeezed me unending. Even though in pain, I felt like a child all over again, gently rocked in his cradle, comforted from the unassuming wiles of the world. My father soon arrived from outside after assembling dry woods from his shed. I could hear his heavy boots thundering the floorboards.

What is all that noise? he asked.

Then he looked down and saw my mother trying to assess the severity of my injuries. Whether from her verbal therapeutic approach or with the soft rub of her healing hands, I found a pinch of comfort amid the storm of agony. My father, however, appeared dour and slightly uninterested; but still, you could look past his wall of toughness and manly antiemotional defense and see a shy look of care, unraveled by his fatherly instincts. My mother then quickly beckoned to him to get the medical kit kept in the attic. Before she could issue another order, he quickly snapped out of his frozen state and excavated apt emotions from his fatherlike dexterities. His face stiffened, his eyebrows stern, and his mind thronged with the next set of responsible moves.

"Nein, the boy must go to a hospital. His left ankle is detached, and his right ulna appears broken. The kit will only help with small bruises. We must move now." Even though his was less comforting and caring than my mother’s gentle approach, I found solace in my father’s skilled composure and quick effectual decision-making skill.

Mother stared into his grim eyes and straightway aligned herself by his side. He grabbed me by my right arm and threw me around his shoulder, lifting me completely from the foot of the steps. My mother walked behind him, incessantly offering comforting words to me. When we got to his old wagon, the snow had almost blocked the way to the back door. It should have taken at least fifteen minutes to shovel the way free. However, in awe, my father took his left hand alone and robustly forced the door open, taking the door handle with him and moving at least a ton of snow behind it. I had never seen my father like this before. The next thing I knew, my head was bouncing off my mother’s lap as my father sped to the hospital. At the top of the window, I could see an array of trees whizzing by, like streaks of moving white queues. We’ve never gone this fast in a car before, I thought to myself.

We finally got to Frankfurt where there was a hospital in the center of the city. The air reeked with exhaust from mufflers and nearby factories, diluted with the frail exhale of overworked employees. The street corners were filled with extracted juices from garbage compost and oil from god knows where. The noise from quickened steps, honking horns, and a shouting newspaper vendor grew louder as we exited the wagon, trading in itself for screaming babies, ringing telephones, and mysterious whispers from nearby doctors and nurses as we entered the hospital walls. I forgot what it was like to live in a city-like environment. It contradicted the peace I knew at home. I was reminded of why I was glad we moved from the city—grimacing and squirming in agony betwixt autonomous thoughts.

Oooouch! The wheelchair crashed into the side of the wall and used my legs for reinforcement.

For that, my father blasted the nurse carrying me.

Um Verzeihung bittend Entschuldigung, she timidly replied.

I could feel the tightened grip on the wheelchair from behind, out of plain fear for my father. The wheelchair rattled all the way to my bed. Before I got there, I passed a few sick patients. One of them I specifically remembered moaned like a ghost. Only God knew what kind of excruciating pain he was experiencing. My entire body shook. This place is like a waiting room for death, a harness for broken men and women looming their imminent doom. I did not want to be a part of the group.

"Vater, I want to go to Berlin Hospital. It is way better," I said.

All hospitals are the same. There is none better. There is no better sick man or dead man. They are all the same. Now toughen up. You will be all right. I looked into his eyes.

They were grim. He didn’t bother to look at me.

Who was my father before? I asked myself in bewilderment, while the nurse and her helper got me onto the bed.

You have to go now. He will be fine, said the nurse.

They hooked me up to wires and wrapped me up like a present. Shortly after, I was given something bitter to drink; and in no time, I was out.

I woke up to ceiling lights and a buzzing sound from the room next to me. A strange taste lingered in my mouth, and my head felt empty. I tried to lift myself; but to no avail, I fell back onto the pillow. I tried to call for my mother, but my lips were glued from hardened saliva, and my tongue was heavier than usual. I felt horrible all over. My eyelids had somehow developed a sticky aqueous compound that kept them from fully opening—my body was not mine. The clock above the door read two, but it was quiet, and the lights were on so it must be night, I thought to myself. I could still feel a pinch of pain in my left leg and right hand. But I couldn’t move them—at least, I didn’t want to. I shifted my eyes to the right and could see that my hand was heavily wrapped. It felt like a useless old recycled appliance. What had they done to me? I hate this place, I protested to myself. I didn’t like to see people who were hurt or were getting hurt. Who knows what evil they conduct in places like these? Scheming thoughts pestered in my mind. The scent of strange medicine filled the air, with a mixed aura from the bedpans, sick flesh, detergents, and I’m sure I smelled blood somewhere in the ensemble as well. I hated hospitals and couldn’t wait for morning to come.

AHHHHHHHHH, AHHHH, AHHH! A shriek stabbed the air.

What was that? I whimpered.

It came from the room with the buzzing sound. It sounded like a dying man. The screams echoed throughout the empty halls of the hospital and awoke upset and concerned mumbling voices. My entire body became consumed with fear—a shattered glass broken by the impact of each scream, sprinkling the frailty molecules of a broken will.

Somebody help that man or shut him up, I spoke to myself in the dead of the night.

In no sooner time, I heard a rush from a pack of clicking shoes, storming the room. The nurses and doctors mumbled doubtfully as they tried to assist the poor guy. Next, I heard the annoying orchestra of clinking sharp tools, beeping machines, and the sloshing of something wet that frightened me near to death. Some of the nurses even shouted, Bring ihn zum Schweigen! Bring ihn zum Schweigen!

This continued for a while until the sounds came to a halt.

I couldn’t tell if he was dead or cured. I was lost in a conundrum—feeling bad about feeling good that they had silenced him. But what could have caused a man to wail so gravely? I asked myself. I couldn’t wait for morning to come. Thereafter, I locked my eyes and forced the sun to come up.

Good afternoon, young man. I woke up and saw that it was the nurse who had carried me to my room.

Hi, I groggily replied.

It was now evening. How could I have slept for so long in a place like this, I thought to myself, especially after what happened last night? I was hoping to leap from the bed, but the nurse quickly turned to me and shook her head when she saw my trying to lift myself.

Not until tomorrow evening, and that’s if you’re feeling better, she said. I almost cried.

But next, the unprecedented hit me. Something I did not expect to see in a place like this, something that had gone unnoticed, perfectly hidden by the thistles and thorns of a rose bush. But I was a teenage boy, and a teenage boy should notice a pretty woman more than any other point in a man’s chronological growth. I cursed myself vehemently! I was forcibly drawn away from my cons and captured mercilessly by the nurse’s radiance: the rose.

Woah! My lips leaked.

I couldn’t at the mercy of anything understand how I missed the immaculate beauty of the woman in white. It must have been the injury or the scare of this place, but I was livid with myself. She had silky red hair that shimmered as the light from the nearby window sat upon her likeness. Her skin fair and smooth as milk. Her lips were as red as the most affluent scarlet gown in Europe. She was an impossible woman to envision. Swallowing deeply before I continued my gaze, I felt warm all over and near the point of tears. How could I have missed this? I questioned myself again. She was too pretty to not notice.

Hello! It was the nurse calling me for the last couple of minutes.

Unaware of the fact that I was temporarily deafened and blind, I was a mute—dumbfounded and a little embarrassed.

Yes, nurse, yes, nurse! I shouted.

Are you all right? She asked.

"No—I mean yes, yes, mir geht es gut," I replied.

She looked at me and then laughed. I didn’t know how to feel.

How old are you? I asked.

Nineteen, she replied. Are you flirting with me, young man? she asked decisively, scaring me half to death.

Ummmm … m … may … maybe, I stammered.

Don’t worry, I was just kidding, fellow. She smiled and redirected her head back to her charts.

I breathed easy as she sat on the bed next to me and read the unimportant numbers. We chatted a little for the time I was there. Yes, she was nineteen, but she was not out of reach. I still had a chance, the man in me spoke. It wasn’t long, however, before she left after an amalgamation of failed attempts at flirtatious chatter—hopes of planting a seed for another day. My pride saw victory.

It was now the eve of the day when my parents would come for me. But I had the desire to stay. Maybe just one more day, I told myself. After all, I had the best medicine at my disposal. The demarcation of beauty itself envisioned in the form of a metaphysical being—Anna was her name. I was only fifteen, but one thing I had learned from Immanuel Kant was that we Germans were self-industrious and could attain whatever we desired if we put ourselves in full pursuit. Nonetheless, on the ride home, I didn’t tell my father about her. The thought of even staying at a hospital to flirt with a woman didn’t even cross my mind when I saw the seedy look of my father’s face entering my room. The spell was broken. On the ride home, it was just my father and me. He asked me how I felt, and I told him I was okay. There remained some fraction of minor agony in my leg and hand; but I felt comforted by the snapshot of Anna, hazy on the car’s window, imprinted in my memory bank. Thereafter, I remembered how my father had verbally lunged at her when she accidentally bumped me into the wall. Immediately, my smile spun into a frown. I was displeased with how he had treated Anna. Why was he always behaving so bitter? I questioned myself. I had to say something.

"Vater, what were you like when you were younger? Vater, Vater!" He stared straight at the moving pavement and didn’t respond.

That is a foolish question. You should just be thankful that you are okay.

After fifteen minutes of reticence, that was all he could say, I argued with my eyes. We remained silent for the rest of the ride. My head found comfort staring out the window; and from there, I visualized my father’s past from various angles—filling myself with answers and suppositions to a question that wasn’t answered. In contrast, he stared emotionlessly at the moving road, unperturbed, unhinged, almost devilishly. The human side of me, however, knew he was happy that I was okay. He was just incapable of expressing it. I understood him, but I disagreed with a father being uni-emotive. Discipline and solemnity are not the only things you can teach and show your child. I needed love and support. But maybe that was what mothers were for, I digressed. My father then switched the radio on to break the silence. But he unknowingly added more discordance. It was the radio announcer talking about Hitler’s ideals of bringing the German empire closer together and rebuilding the nation after the defeat in World War I. More rumors of war.

CHAPTER 2

Wolves at School

Snow everywhere was being swallowed by the sun—no longer incarcerated by enormous white puffs of clouds. The winter break was over. My leg and hand were completely healed from culminated efforts of nursing from a caring mother and too many dosages of playtime. The holiday, even though dimmed by broken limbs, still welcomed countless opportunities for me to have fun. In every passing second, I made sure that I extracted every drop of youthful nectar I could find; whether it was hidden in a treetop perched among carefree birds or beneath some haphazard bolder untroubled for decades or in the cold icy river I would never dare to enter—imitating the clumps of clouds with its icy debris. And then there were the collective parchments of nothings in my mother’s draw that could be used to make a gun to defeat the Persian army. I found every and any means to have fun before the holiday was over. I was fifteen years old and had a crush on a nineteen-year-old woman, but I still played like a child. This was the inevitable outcome of an only child with insurmountable playing dexterities—no one to teach or share these pearls of wisdom with. My father was a good man. He was stable and strong for our family, but he never really had time to play when I was younger. At least that was what he always said. He always seemed busy with his duties. Whether it was hunting a mysterious wolf threatening the chicken’s coop, stalking a walking carcass for dinner, or rescuing loads of unnecessary wood from the forest. He also spent a crazy amount of time by an uninhabited corner—in his seedy rocking chair—cleaning, shining, waxing, or polishing his shotgun. He was always occupying himself with something else. Only when we were going hunting did he show interest—his other responsibilities suddenly evaporating. Admittedly, however, it was there I had learned a lot about guns and how to shoot. Father had a knack for guns and hunting, and much of that seemed to have rubbed off on me. Last week, I killed three deer on the first shot at a 110-foot range. The look on his face was priceless. I don’t believe he was ever prouder of me in his entire life. Even though not my choice for time spent together, we had a good time; and I cherished it.

Muller, you must pack for school tomorrow.

Ja, Mutter, I replied.

Thereafter, I dragged myself up the creaking stairs and forced myself into an untidy room.

How would I find anything in this place? I thought to myself.

Week-old socks were dashed onto the ceiling. Worn and unworn clothes were tossed across a field of unharvested, ruffled fabrics, starched caramel-colored underwear, unattended muddy shoes, and an unspread bed. I blamed my injury, however, knowing the underlying truth of a lazy teenage boy masking the neglect of his personal duties for incapability. But I was okay now—no bandages, no wrappings. I forgot what it was like being verbally badgered with constant reminders to do your chores. I only had to pack my books, I comforted myself. I’ll leave the rest to get magically done.

Sonny, let’s go hunting!

Godsend! I cackled, fleeing the junkyard.

Coming, Father! I burst my bedroom door.

Mom, could you handle my books? I thought while gunning downstairs.

In no time, we were deep into the thicket. Father and I had gone past the lighter side of the forest, and we’re now venturing into areas where the sunlight was scarce, where paled streaks of light battled through clusters of branches and leaves before tumbling onto the ground as a mere spot of white. It was around 2:00 p.m., and there was ample time to find bird(s) for dinner. The snow had stopped falling, but the air was still very cool with shards of ice lying on the ground. It was a good evening to go hunting. You could smell it in the air. You felt the tingly sensation creeping up your spine. I loved the smooth curvature feel of my gun and the fresh scent of gunpowder after its first pow. I smiled delightedly as I recalled my last hunt.

Dad … I whispered, wheeling and turning to see where he had gone.

Being lost in my thoughts, I hadn’t noticed my father softly coming to a halt and with such innate stealth that I had walked six feet ahead of him obliviously. Something was wrong. I read the look in his eyes and knew that it was a wolf. No, I’ve never seen him so grim; I further studied.

Wolves! I screamed.

Shhhhhh, son. He tossed me a rifle and mouthed instructions to me. But I couldn’t understand.

Dad, I can’t do it, I whimpered.

You are dead center in their path. It has to be you. Just cock it, cool it, then kill it. I looked into his eyes and saw how confident he was in me.

I rued the day I killed those deer. There was no way I could do this, I thought to myself.

Down! my father screamed a whisper.

My body found the ground slowly and could finally hear what my father heard two minutes ago: the soft trot of a cold-blooded killer. If you listened hard enough, you could hear their paws softly going down on the forest’s floor and their furs rustling the nearest shrub. My heart leaped. I could finally see one of them. It was the leader. The rest of them then emerged from behind him like death from its shadow. Their eyes were yellow with a small black window to their empty soul. And their teeth were sharp and abnormally long. Maybe it was the fear, but it seemed like if they were to open their mouths, those knives would extend past their bottom jaw. Suddenly, the leader came to a halt, a reflection of my father. They couldn’t see us. We were fastened to the forest floor and below the wind; but still, the leader seemed to notice that something was wrong. They picked up our scent and were expecting us to be somewhere around this area. There were four of them. Immediately, I squinted my left eye, slowed my heart rate, silenced the forest, stopped breathing, and aimed at the leader’s cranium. The forest’s ambiance became still, and the air pooled itself to the epicenter of a tensioned atmosphere betwixt them and me. I heard my father’s voice in my head saying, Now! Before I knew it, the gun in my hand went off in quick succession.

BAM! Reload. BAM! Reload. BAM! Reload. BAM! Reload. Four bodies hit the ground. I could breathe again.

Yes, I did it! I did it! I turned to look at my father, but he was still on the ground.

Vater, Vater! BAM! I jumped.

I turned to look at the four wolves, but there were only three. I looked at my feet and saw the fourth wolf with its mouth opened; a splash of red zigzagged across the sole of my shoes.

Danke, Papa, ich habe den wolf nicth gesehen, I told him, like the guardian angel he was.

Father! I exhaled deeply with a look of gratification.

I was expecting congratulations to follow for a job well done, especially since I killed three of them. But he didn’t dare to look me in the eyes. He was disappointed. The hunt was over. We headed back up home without the exchange of a single word. We didn’t speak for the rest of the day.

My mother decided that she would be driving me to school. I was comfortable with the idea of an under-experienced driver carrying me a few miles; but after yesterday, I preferred her presence. She was welcoming and sociable, a contrast to soothe the cold memories of yesterday. My mother was not much of a driver; but after a battle with my father last night, she got the chance to take me to school. I believed it was because she wanted to ensure that I got there safely, especially after she had heard about what transpired yesterday. Not many of the students’ parents had cars at school; after all, it was sort of a fad, especially if you weren’t from the metropolitan areas. They were one of the good things Hitler did for this country. Most of my classmates had to walk, just like I did before