Imaginary: A Short Story
It was a normal tuesday day for Henry, he woke up to find his room full with the smell of freshly cooked pie. His wife was up early cooking breakfast for him and his sick kid Josiah. Henry was a farmer and didn’t have the money for medication and plus there was no doctor for miles. So he went out to toil in his farm. That day he had harvested his carrots,potatoes, and onions.
He drove his harvest to a nearby town for sale. He had got his quota with $10 extra, so he went to poznan. Henry hoped he had enough to pay for medication for Josiah. When he passed onto a concrete road he noticed that the officers looked different. The police had on olive green uniforms instead of blue and they carried assault rifles instead of pistols. Despite the scare henry got out to hope he had enough for the medicine. He walked into the pharmacy and asked for the medication, but the pharmacist asked for a ID card.
Henry said he didn’t have it, so the pharmacist motioned over a officer. Henry began to shake, and told the pharmacist not to and that he would give him $5 to pocket if he didn’t. The pharmacist thought about it, but still got the officer to come over. The officer told him to follow him to a small concrete building. Henry followed the officer to a booth where the officer sat him down and asked him for his full name, birthdate and birthplace. The officer said he would be back with the ID card. The officer gave him the card about 10 mins later and told him to go get his medication and leave quickly.
Henry was confused, but did what he said. On his way back he looked at the card and everything was on there that he told the officer but, there was a 6 pointed star. He never thought about it and kept driving back home. He gave the medication to his son, who was still in bed with a high fever and cold sweats. Henry went to sit down for super and showed his wife the card. His wife said that the star ment that he was a descendant of a jew. They both didn’t think of it much and went to bed.
The next morning he found his wife up early again tending there sick son. He went to go and talk to Josiah, but to his surprise Josiah was up and walking but still had a fever but no cold sweats. Henry was happy to find that and went to work on his farm happy and ready. He worked till late that night. The lightning bugs started to fill the sky so he laid down in the field and called for his wife to lay with him and enjoy the night. They both fell asleep in the field and awoke and went back into the house to find their son missing nothing was moved or missing. Like he woke up and just ran off.
They went to get in their car to drive to find him, but before they got in the car they saw treads in the dirt from some other vehicle, but it had started to rain when they got inside. The road began to become slick and undrivable and the tracks disappeared. Henry and his wife waited for the next day and set out to find their son. They went to town and found it destroyed most shop fronts were destroyed the officers tripled and their where cloth signs up saying “Juden werden hier nicht bedient” (Jews are not wanted here). They stopped to ask a “officer” what was going on the officer said, “The fuhrer order that all jews be relocated to a new housing area”. He asked for their identification card Henry gave him his new found card the officer told him to pack up his things and head to the train station for his safety. Henry asked if the officer had any information of his son’s whereabouts.
The officer said that there was a caravan coming by to pick any able body to fight for the german army. Henry and his wife were dumbfounded and scared, because this wasn’t like their son to do a thing like that. Henry and his wife went home trying to comprehend what their son had done before they had to move. They stayed up all night preparing to leave and still trying to comprehend what was going on. Henry and his wife left at sunrise to get a head start, they went through town to get to the train station. Hey had noticed that even more stores were destroyed and more signs were up. They had arrived at the station packed and ready, they walked up to the officer behind the counter he gave the officer his card.
The officer let him through and 2 more officers grabbed his suitcases and told him they would be returned to after the train yard. That was the last time he would see any of his family again. He looked at the car and saw that it was a cargo car not a normal transit car. They were stuffed in and he began to think there was something else going on than what he wasn’t told. The whole ride was 3 days long and he was tired and hungry, the whole car smelled of a dead body do to the overfilled outhouse bucket in the corner of the car. They had finally reached the “new area”. There was lots of guards with bigger guns all around.
There was a man in a black suit with a baton direction men, women and children. He walked under a gate to get to the man in black and it said Arbeit macht frei (work makes you free). He finally got to the man in black he looked at me and played with his baton and pointed it left. He was pointing at a concrete building i asked what it was the officer said, “Dusche”. They piled us in the building told us to strip down and drop our belonging in the big bin. There was a lot of us in there with only 10 shower heads. We sat in there for awhile it was a lot different from anywhere i have been before.
All of a sudden the big metal door shuts behind us and a hole in the roof opened and a can fell in and people in front of Henry started to fall over as if to die. The Henry knew it was poison and that was it for him. Another hole in the roof opened behind him and one above him opened and it blinded him. The can fell from the roof on his head and knocked him out to the floor.
