White. Everything was white. I fell to the ground and waited for my vision to come back. Around me, people were doing the same. I crawled, silently in the high-pitched whine filling my head, toward the alleyway leading to the bar’s rear entrance.

What was this light? This noise? I curled into a ball of searing pain against the brick, wishing only for death. If this agony would stop, I promised, I would be a good girl forever. I pressed my braids into my ears, hoping to stuff out the sound. I screamed with no noise.

It stopped. The people outside the alley remained on the ground, looking at the sky. My woolen skirt and sweater fluttered in the breeze, everything was black and white. I looked up and saw the plane fly over head. It must be a contained atomic blast, they conducted them all the time in the pastures outside our village.

“Inge!” my sister called from the bar, just a murmur in my dead ears, “Get inside now! Papa is looking for you!” I went in, haunted by the charcoal drawing that was outside.