Part 1
Track Suggestion- "Song for Bob"
It was Christmas in Poland, the
year 1940. Isaiah had not seen a
Christmas celebration since the day he was born. This year, he was determined to celebrate the
holiday with his mother, the way his friend Irwin described it. She was sick and Isaiah could not bear the
thought of surviving without his mother in what he felt was the small and
wretched city of Opole. He wished to offer his sick mother a special
Christmas present this year. He wished
to take her out of Opole and travel to the
biggest city in Poland, Warsaw.
Isaiah occasionally had dreams of Warsaw, a city he
perceived to contain bright lights, happy and satisfied people, delicious food,
medicine for his mother, and best of all no Germans, at least that was what he
understood from what Irwin told him.
Isaiah winced, scratched his nose, and tossed
about on his tattered make-shift cardboard mattress. As he tried desperately to sleep, he saw
visions of the German soldiers. He could
hear them. His visions were piercing and
felt real. Their thunderous bombs and strained
marching. The wet screeching sound of
their rubber boots as they beat on the pavement in tandem disturbed his sleep. He could smell their insipid army coats and
their coarse breath, probably from staying up long hours on their death
marching from Germany to Poland. He
could feel their faces scowling and their anxiousness as their boots stepped
louder as if approaching him. Though
Isaiah was on guard, he knew they wanted to capture him and his mother and
force them to work. They forced all the
young boys to work until they no longer had any use for them.
One more of the distant bombs boomed
and for a second swallowed the purity in the air. For that second Isaiah was in
the heart of the darkness. The smell of
death, poison, and sand twisted within each other engulfing Isaiah. It was certain, they were getting closer. Isaiah rose and quickly turned to face his
mother. He really thought that this time
the German soldiers had found them. His
heart jumped as his head jerked around to survey the area for his mother. He hoped they had not taken her, she was all
he had. This night, like the other
nights, Isaiah would not find sleep.
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READ WITH Track Suggestion- "Song for Bob"
He hated them. Isaiah understood the Germans searched for
people like him and his mother, powerless Jews who may be used for work,
or worse. He sat up
against the brick wall, legs spread and gnawing at his blackened fingernails
frantically while staring at his mother. Isaiah watched as she rested across
from him in his upright position against the hard brick wall. He grimaced and chocked back a burning anxiety
in his throat as she routinely coughed and dabbed her mouth after coughing. Isaiah bit his bottom lip and fought back
tears as his mother’s face would slowly fall and rest on her chin. Her posture and fatigued expression was
heartbreaking. As he watched his mother,
he thought of the event years ago that almost took her away from him.
Isaiah remembered his father
playfully cupping his chin and insisting he drink hot peppermint tea. He had never tasted tea before, but he remembered
resisting it until his father happily forced the hot liquid down his throat. He remembered cringing at how the liquid stung
and absorbed his taste buds with heat as it engulfed the insides of his mouth. As the burning in his throat turned cool, the
peppermint flavor then caressed his tongue.
The flavor was so sweet, Isaiah could taste it as his tongue searched the
inside of his mouth for more peppermint.
Isaiah grinned as he remembered playfully fighting his father for the
full cup as they both laughed while his mother and two sisters watched them
with cheerful grins and heart warming laughter.
His sisters were not twins, but one might have guessed they were by the
same way their dark ponytails were twisted and their beaming smiles
overshadowed the difference in their appearance. Isaiah remembered the overall color in the
tea and cake shop they went to every Sunday after service. The flowery table mats, white and black floor
tile, the red and orange flower dresses the young Jewish waitresses wore
that matched their table mats; a strategic touch to an otherwise dark and gloomy city. As Isaiah, in the present state, leaned on
the red brick wall reminiscing, the sudden shade and darkening of the wall in
front of him snapped the explosion into his memory. Tensed by the cold chill in the air, Isaiah
curled his nose, brought his legs up to his chest and dropped his head into his
knee as he began remembering the fleeing waitresses with their colorful aprons
now dampened with the dust and dirt of the smoke. He remembered the ambushing Germans, the dark
discoloring of the walls after smoke and soot had smeared them with their
dismal blemish. The Germans had brought
the darkness of the city into the tea and cake shop. The blaze from the fire
swallowed the tables and chairs beside Isaiah, his sisters carried by the blast
were thrown out of the jagged and broken window, his father reacted with mouth
wide open and veins smeared at the corners of his now teary eyes, a frightened
look that was new to Isaiah. His memory
then remained still at his father’s expression.
A slow moving snapshot of the horrific event at the tea and cake shop,
Isaiah’s memory stilled on his father’s shocked and frightened expression. Isaiah remembered all the joy leaving his
father’s face as the scared feeble man cowered on top of him to protect what he could
from the encroaching fire. His father
saved him. As quickly as the explosion
played in his mind, Isaiah forced himself back into the present as he raised his
head from his knees and quickly wiped the tears that fell to the corners of his
mouth, not knowing until he had done so that the sand and rock shards that had collected on the back of his hand, would leave an unwelcome burning sensation in his eyes. He beat his hands on the coarse
ground of the alleyway and held his eyes upon the ground until the pain from
sharp stones were forced to invade his memory.
Altogether it wasn’t soothing.
The burning and anguish he felt the day of the explosion felt as real as
the pain that surged up the palm of his hands and throughout his arm. At that moment his breath left him and Isaiah
began panting. He forced himself to
exhale deeply through his mouth as he continued to concentrate on the stony
floor.
As his breathing relaxed, Isaiah
began counting the years that had passed on his fingers as tiny stony shards on
his palm fell to the ground. He
remembered he was five then. He thought
to himself that he must be ten now.
