Throwback Thursday: Short Story

With the wave of terror attacks that has hit Israel over the past week-plus, I find it difficult to concentrate on writing for myself or writing anything remotely happy (not that my usual work is happy, I actually have incredible difficulty writing happy stories).  So for this Throwback Thursday post, here is a short piece I wrote right when I turned 19.  I don't remember what exactly precipitated this story but I have two distinctly different versions of it and I like this one better.  It seems fitting, for current events.  May we know sorrow no more.

In a Puff of Smoke

A never-ending column of concentration camp inmates, all ages and sizes, shuffling five-abreast down a road flanked by two barbed-wire fences.  There is no color; even the sun is cold and grey.  The column moves very slowly.  All sway side to side as a single unit, in rhythm with their footfalls, which sound as one.  The guards in the watchtowers are motionless.

Slowly, starting with a single inmate, there arises a low moan and wailing.  With each additional voice, into the hundreds and thousands and millions, a funeral dirge begins to make itself heard with uniquely intertwining harmonies.  All play some part in the dreadful song, down to the smallest Jewess dragging her feet at the edge of the group.  There is a beauty in the sound, and great, great sadness.  Such sadness and despair the world has seen too many times before, and shall revisit countless more times.

              

The road, like the column, seems to be never-ending.  But always in the distance can be seen a great smokestack, towering over the squat building at its base.  A steady black stream of smoke pours forth and separates into smaller puffs.  Upon closer inspection, each puff forms a name.  One says Freida; another reads Menachem.  But in the end, they all dissipate and disappear forever.  There are no exceptions.

          

Although each individual’s eyes are fixed ahead or on the ground, their hearts, as one, reach out to our Father in Heaven.

        

Some color begins to appear in the sky.  First one man sees, then two, then ten, then one hundred.  As more faces are upturned, the color begins to brighten and solidify into the shape of a city.  Mouths that have forgotten how to smile hesitatingly remember, and voices that have forgotten the sounds of joy are suddenly gleeful as all recognize the city to be Jerusalem.  Her radiance warms the hungry faces and brightens the dulled eyes.  The myriad footfalls become lighter and lighter until the column is dancing, newfound strength injected into spindly legs.

Jerusalem! they shout.  Here is our salvation at last!

               And they dance closer to the crematoria.

Our Father has heard our prayers and answered us! they sing.

               And they dance closer to the crematoria.

We shall finally be free! they cry.

               And they dance closer to the crematoria.

The group surges forward, conscious only of the brilliant Jerusalem hanging in the ash-laden sky.  Their bodies, abused for so many years, yearn only to rest.  But their souls – their souls are yet strong.

              

And still they stream forward.

        

The first rows reach the crematorium, eyes still skyward.  It is but the work of a moment and their bodies come out the smokestack as nothing but a puff of smoke and a name.

               

But they don’t dissipate.

               

Slowly at first, then with increasing speed and intensity, the puffs of smoke stream towards the still-evident Jerusalem in the sky.  They see other puffs, other names, other souls approaching the city from all directions.

               
We’re going home, they say to each other in ecstasy.  Finally, we’re going home.