Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ School ❯ School ( Chapter 1 )

A/N:

A documentary on the Third Reich was the inspiration for that little piece of prosa. War from the perspective of the loosing side.

 

________

 

School

 

 

He says that school was hard. He says that he learned a lot without ever finishing it.

 

He tells about happy lessons, when they were reading stories about brave young men giving everything for their fatherland, when they were playing outside on a playground that actually was a smaller version of military training courses, when there was comradeship amongst them. He says that nowadays, it would be called team-work. Sharing your lunch-box when someone didn't get any. Carrying your friend's pack when he was too tired to keep up on one of their long marches. Jumping from a high tower, believing that those below with the rescue net will catch and hold you. He tells about funny games of defending their street against `the enemy', conquering neighboring streets in retaliation.

 

He tells about spending nights in an air-raid shelter after the sirens warned of a flight attack. He said that the teacher never punished him when he fell asleep during class the day after.

 

He tells about seeing a man burn alive. He tells it as if it had happened to someone else, as if he was reading a story. But he saw it with his own eyes. A man burning alive, dying men.

 

He tells of gun-shots, of mortars, of grenades. Of houses collapsing upon them as the ground was trembling from the bombs and the air-raid warnings were yowling through the streets. Knowing that the enemy was only a few miles away, and that no one could stop them.

 

Their school class was tasked with shooting down enemy planes, and during lulls in the action, they were trying to read Latin, do their German homework. But he says, who gives a shit about school when all around you houses are burning, explosions are rattling the ceiling, and you know hat the enemy's coming closer and you can do nothing to stop them.

 

He says that until the end, they desperately tried to hold up a semblance of normalcy. But one day, the janitor didn't let them enter school; the Russians were no more than three miles away. They couldn't return home because the trains and buses didn't go anymore.

 

He says that, as young as they still were after the war, they were already too old for school. He says it with a small laugh, nothing hinting that he feels uncomfortable reliving the memories. The wrinkles on his face smile, his eyes are a little bit clouded from remembrance, but happy. He isn't bitter, he isn't angry. He isn't sad, either. He's just recounting it as if it had happened to someone completely different.

 

Sixty years afterwards, and he the only thing he regrets is never having finished school.

 

___________