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What Is Under Your House?
The wind slowly blew the piles of ash. The dirt was muddy with the excrement of the many people who lived in the town. The bombs had ruined the sewage pipes. Water was spewing from every corner. They shot up like the fountains did at the park.
I had been asleep in my bed when my mother came running into our room. “Schnell, Hurry! Ingrid wake up!! We must get to the bomb shelter. Tommy wake up we must go. Schnell!!” I ran out of the house, not even stopping to put on shoes.
The bomb shelter was cold and dark, and with the rush of things no one had brought a lamp. I sat in a corner alone, praying “God please let us live. If you really care for us, you will let us live. Bitte, please.” Then I fell asleep to the steady rhythms of bombs being dropped.
I awoke to my mother’s voice, “Ingrid it’s over. Kommen, Come. Do you know where your brother is?” I rubbed my eyes, “Nein, I didn’t see where he went in the shelter.”
I went outside, the block behind us had been bombed, but the debris had carried over. Several houses had been damaged. Much of the underground pipes had been uncovered and were leaking. Several women were crying, there once beautiful homes were destroyed. Every scrap of evidence that there son had died serving his country was gone. The pictures of their passed away parents had been destroyed. They had nothing to remind them of there pasts, it had all been blown to bits.
“Tommy? Tommy!! Wo ist du? Where are you? Tommy!!” My mother screamed. “Have you seen Tommy?” she asked several of our neighbors. All of them said no. I continued onto our house, to see what remained of it.
Then I saw him. The crushed frail body of my twin brother. He was still in his bed. His face looked peaceful and calm. As if he didn’t have a single worry in the world. But his body, his body had been twisted oddly. His legs were moved and pointing in directions that they shouldn’t have. One of the support beams from the house had fallen and stabbed through his chest. He must have not heard my mother telling us to get up.
My once lively, brother now lies down under my destroyed house.
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