Today Pegman took us to Minsk. I’ve once again gone to the dark side because I’ve recently started a class about the Holocaust. Dark times. Dark story. On the other hand, Happy New Year, fellow Pegman Writers!
You send taunting postcards from AfricaChinaNorwayPortugal. Some signed MissYou, WishYouWereHere. Others WeWillVisitHereTogether-Someday. The worst say WeWillNeverSeeOneAnotherAgain. They arrive in a neverending mixed-up rotation I can’t process.
But this last postcard broke me. You are the one person who knows my parents were thrown into a ditch then shot by Schutzmannschaft in Minsk. You know, because, just as you shouldered your rifle you noticed me, legs shattered by a hail of bullets, clinging to my father’s chest.
For some godforsaken reason, you pulled me out of the mud. Hid me inside your coat. Gifted me to your wife who kept me as if I were a child of her own. You? You merely kept me.
Twenty years later I lie here, half a woman with a gun beside my bed while you travel the world with your mistress, and send postcards. Today, Herr Stein, I choose WeWillNeverSeeOneAnotherAgain.
Up From the Ashes 