digigal's Stories

Lili Marlene's Vigil

2008-06-16T16:30:26Z

I hate this war! I made a promise to my beloved: “I’ll wait for you, darling. Please come back to me in one piece.” Every night after my shift at the factory, I make my way to the Air Corps base and ask about his squadron.

“No word yet, ma’am,” is the answer I always hear. There’s a lamp post nearby that’s almost become my second home. One private sometimes brings me coffee from the mess to help me stay warm.

“Why don’t you go home?” some people ask me. I want to, but I can’t. He’s expecting me, you see. I want to be the first thing he sees when he comes home. I haven’t even looked at another man without thinking about him flying over German skies, protecting our way of life.

I can’t forget him. I’ll wait as long as I have to at this lamp post, listening to the drone of planes and braving the cold until he comes back to me at last.

Harvest Rite

2008-05-23T02:36:30Z

A bonfire crackles nearby as I start to lay out the tools of my craft. The knife and wand glisten in the light. I draw my circle like I have so many times before, setting a candle at each directional point. Yellow for East, red for South, blue for West, green for North.

I work my ritual without fear. The spirits have been kind to us all year, and it’s time to give thanks. Corn and beans from nearby crops were gathered beforehand to be thrown in the fire as offerings. I take a bite of each as I toss them in.

A small and humbled salute is also given to the Harvest Moon as She smiles on my night’s work. A feeling of comfort and peace fill me as Her rays light my way home.

Season Opener

2008-05-13T09:36:08Z

I love the first day of doe season. The cool air and damp grass give me a connection with nature that I missed all year. My aunt Clara lets me hunt her fields every year. “If you get cold, honey, there’s chili in the kitchen,” she tells me.

It feels like I’ve been tracking this deer for weeks. The farm is so overrun, I can’t tell if I’m tracking the same one all the time. I hear a crack of a rifle off in the distance. I guess my cousin got his.

I decide to take a break and dig out my canteen, leaning my rifle on a nearby tree. I take in my surroundings and look at the time. Oh my god, I think. It’s almost dinner time.

I take one more look at the meadow before I head to the farmhouse. To my surprise, I see four deer near the tree line. I slowly raise my rifle to my shoulder and take off the safety. The one in the back should feed us for a few months. She takes an eternity to raise her head. Good shot, right to the heart. All that’s left is to dress and drag.

A Little Advice

2008-05-10T03:43:01Z

“Customers. Come in, come in! What can I do for you today? A tarot reading, perhaps? Look at some tea leaves? Or perhaps a message from beyond?” Not my usual sales pitch, but it seems to work.

“We’d like card reading, please,” said the feminine half of the couple as they walked in. “Our families don’t approve of our dating, and we want to see if that will change.”

“For star-crossed lovers such as yourselves, this is on the house,” I say with a wink. I pull my cards out of their box, and give them a quick shuffle. Several cuts later I begin to lay out the cards in my usual pattern. No surprise here, the first card is the Lovers. The next two cards are the 2 of Cups and 10 of Wands. And then I pull a bombshell; the 10 of Swords.

Seeing my face turned white, the guy asked, “what’s wrong?”

I say nothing as I prepare protection bags for both of them. “Carry these with you always,” I tell them as I shuffle them out the door. Two days later, I hear that he was murdered.

Reflections of War

2008-05-09T09:45:07Z

Colonel Helmut Albrecht looked at a picture in the corner of his office. He was at least 20 years younger then and still flying before his disgrace of injuring the Black Baron. A pair of tri-planes sat in the background. Happy moments played through his mind.

He often wondered what it would be like to fly for pleasure. To soar with the birds, not watching for enemy aircraft. That was a sensation he may never know. First the Great War and now the rise of the Third Reich insured that peace will not come quietly.

Albrecht shifted his gaze from the photo to the small stack of papers in front of him. Sometimes it felt like he was fighting his own private war with the Luftwaffe High Command. “I may be Kommandant of a POW camp, but we must still treat them as humans,” he often said.

His commander, General Johann Klein, never agreed with this. “These men have killed countless Germans, and you insist they’re human. Their militaries have extracted their humanity long ago. We’re targets, Helmut! They do not care.”