Into the Light

I wrote this in May of 2011, after reading Elie Wiesel's Night. I want to post this here because its topic and message is still important to me.

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You were only four years old, but the memory is so vivid. As if it were captured, moment by moment, by an artist sitting nearby. A fresh canvas for every heartbeat.

            The confusion is most prominent in your memory. A blanket over the world – yet it still didn’t manage to muffle the harsh German words that pierced the mist of the unknown.

            Your mother’s hand engulfed yours. Her grip was stronger than usual – her desperation fumbled with your innocence, threatening to rip through the screen that protected you from reality.

            Once, your brother stumbled. You had all been walking for so long, and you recognized the exhaustion in his eyes. Being five years older than yourself, he had seemed to have a limitless energy. This was the first time you’d seen him worn out. He stumbled – then, a sound that reminded you of thunder…but it was shorter, perhaps like the crack of a whip. It made him fall, as if sleep had suddenly overtaken him. For some reason, your mother cried out, but even that didn’t wake him up. One of the men shouted at her and she fell silent.

            You looked up at her, and she was shaking. You asked her something…ah, yes, you asked if she was cold. But she shook her head. Just keep walking, she told you. Don’t ask any more questions, darling. Her voice sounded different.

            You walked for days, but the sun never went down. The moon never rose. You walked for days.

            A man shouted something. Your mother pulled you to a stop. He yelled something else, and suddenly, your father was leaving. He didn’t say a word. All the fathers were gone. The older brothers were gone. Why did you leave your brother back there, on the road? You were sure he’d much rather go with your father than sleep on the ground.

            You stood in a line with your mother…and soon after, there were flames. That was all you knew, before you entered this beautiful world.

            Hell to heaven.

            When you got here, you found your brother. You asked him where your father went.

            Auschwitz, he told you. Don’t watch him. He’ll be joining us soon.

To Fall in Love

This is how it feels.

It's like taking a sip of freezing water on a hot day - it numbs your tongue, your teeth, and when you swallow you feel it rush down your body, past your heart, past your lungs, through your ribs. You're revived by the first snow melt of spring contained within you.

This is how it feels.

It's when you step outside when it's just become light, and the dewdrops on the grass which used to glisten in crisp autumn mornings has hardened itself against the biting cold, and you slowly place your foot down on the frost-tipped lawn - crunch. Satisfying. The footprint you leave behind rivals those left on the surface of the moon. Perfectly frozen in time.

This is how it feels.

It's like when you're sitting outside with good friends in the comforting dusk of summer, and the sun looks half an inch tall behind the hills, and somehow every one of your responsibilities and worries is drowned out by laughter and the orchestrations of crickets. As the sky fades darker, your hearts only become lighter.

This is how it feels.

It's what happens in the aftermath of finding yourself caught in a riptide in the ocean - you're pulled forcefully underwater and no matter how hard or which way you struggle, the battle is not yours to win, so you wait and wait and your limbs twist around you and your ribs tighten against your lungs and you're convinced that you're shrinking under the pressure until there your head breaks the surface and you finally gasp for air and your ribs are serving their purpose again - protecting your strained lungs and your panicked heart.

This is how it feels to fall in love.

Or, at least, so I've been told.