Snowflakes waded from side to side as they gently drifted down and landed on the piles of rubble still lining the streets of Berlin. The spectacle was far from mundane but the local inhabitants had gotten used to it over the past few months. After the great war obtaining basic necessities such as food was a daunting task, most aid being brought into the city was quickly harvested by the corrupt officials and spread out to the highest bidders.
The middle class was affected the worst, they had no access to the supplies and had little knowledge of how to scavenge, this led to the sight of hundreds of mindless souls walking down the streets of Berlin desperately seeking hand-outs. On one such search for scraps a young woman named Marlene was greeted by a middle aged man brandishing a walking stick and an almost scholarly beard.
His eyes flickered with life but his posture gave him the look of a man struck with leprosy. After nudging her on the sho
ulder with his frail hands he slowly composed himself and began to speak."Excuse me, could you be a dear and help a failing old man with a small task".
Marlene was took back by his odd tone of voice but agreed as long as it wasn't too difficult. A slight smile crossed the man's face before he let out a boisterous roar of laughter. Which clashed with his previous demeanour. Slowly the man reached for his breast pocket and pulled out a clean envelope.
"I'd be most gracious if you could deliver this to an old friend of mine, I'd do it myself but I'm afraid my legs give way if I keep on them too long".
The young woman was hesitant at first but agreed to assist him out of sympathy after she learnt the address was on her way home. Gently she took the letter from the man's failing hands and slipped it into her own pocket. With that the man left, slowly he became enveloped in the crowd and the girl proceeded on home wards as it was getting late.
On the way home she finally came to the address written on the envelope, the building in front of her was daunting as it seemed to loom over the rubble that used to be neighbouring buildings. Slowly she advanced towards the structure and was about to knock on the front door when she caught a glimpse through an opening of the curtains inside the building of indistinguishable masses of flesh hanging from hooks on the roof. An immediate fear paralyzed the girl for a few seconds until she eventually turned away from the building and ran.
She rushed back to her house with fear the only thing keeping her legs moving. When inside her dilapidated abode she froze in place for what seemed like minutes. Eventually she broke from her stupor and grasped at the inside of her pocket. She took out the letter contained within and slowly opened it to reveal a piece of white paper with one crudely written line in its centre, it read a few simple words Marlene would never forget;
"This is the last one I'm sending today"
No comments:
Post a Comment