A Short, Wartime Bedtime Story

Necla opened her hazel eyes at the sound of an immense explosion.

She bolted upright in her chair and ran to the dingy room at the end of the dark corridor. Her young sister was sleeping still, miraculously, a torn doll tucked under her dirty chin.

"How can she sleep through such a sound??" Necla thought breathlessly, feeling the hot flush of anger in her cheeks.

Anger? Yes. For being scared, but also anger at herself because she'd promised her sister that she wouldn't sleep before her...or sleep too much because she couldn't afford to, not now.

Not when there was so danger all around them.

Kneeling by the cheap mattress, she ran her fingers through her little sibling's hair, whispering a half-remembered prayer...and then, a second explosion!

This time her sister woke up--with a scream that could wake the dead.

In fact, they heard these sounds everyday--screams, bombs--it was nothing new, yet they were still afraid. And there were other sounds too now.

Gunfire.

They could hear soldiers shooting outside, shooting what, they didn't want to know. But they did know.

More death, more families cut down without explanation. The bigger sister thought they would die at any moment. There was no reason not to think so... After all, their parents and neighbors were already gone.

"It can only be a matter of time..." But that's not what she told her little sister. "It's okay, it'll be over soon. Don't listen."

She hugged her small sister, despairing how her sister's sickly pale body could bear so much pain. It didn't seem possible. And it certainly didn't seem fair. What sort of life was this? The heat of anger returned, mixed with adrenaline and dread.

They should both be going to the school, playing with friends on the street, not clutching their fragile ears while cowering over broken glass in one-room house! This was--this was wrong!

And it never ceased. Since their parents had died a week ago, they were living the same fear every day, every night, every time. Death at any minute. Death from a bullet. Death from a bomb crashing through their roof.

Death from starvation, death from wild dogs. Death from thirst, or from madness itself...

Necla caught herself shaking and stopped herself. This wasn't the appropriate example to give her sister. The war made this girl a woman, a mother, a father. For her little sister--everything.

But it didn't answer the question burning in her brain...

"Why is this happening?"

They did not know why they were in this situation. Indeed, Necla wondered if anybody knew. Obviously the dead had no ideas...and as for those left alive...did it really matter? Would knowing the reason for this destruction actually change something? What would be the point to know that?

Nothing. There'd be no point to the knowledge. It wouldn't bring back her parents. But people have a natural desire to comprehend things, even in the face of insanity. Understanding makes things somehow more manageable. But it was only an illusion...

"People always do that. They create an excuse to feel good, deceive themselves." That's exactly what Necla thought. It didn't matter. Whatever the so-called reason for this war--a war they didn't ask for, but one which they were caught in the middle off--whatever the reason, children should not have to feel the fear death.

This world didn't owe them much...but she knew the world owed them a life. At least that. And so they must survive. She was determined to do so at any cost.

When the voices outside were silenced and the gunfire had stopped and all the screams of the dying were finally cut short, they tried to sleep again. Actually sleeping was an escape route for them. The life they wanted could only be seen in their dreams, so it was better to attempt a return to that land of possibilities. Of hope.

As the girls lay side by side, their faces close, their eyes open but slowly narrowing as sleep attempted to lure them in...they saw an unwanted recognition in each other's eyes. They knew.

"Tomorrow will be the same. And the tomorrow after, too."

Necla sighed and ground her teeth, her hands suddenly feeling too empty and powerless. She wished to have a gun by her side, a gun like the men outside. But she didn’t know how to use one. And she didn't really want to kill anybody.

Did she? The anger inside her said otherwise...

"Some thoughts that I once found horrible--," she thought as the sunlight outside drained until the only light coming in was a lifeless cloudy grey screen of smoke and dust. "Maybe...the horrible things can be the only way."

Eyes shut, Necla imagined a time when all of the horrible things would end one day, a day of fun and laughter and...and she knew it wasn't going to be anytime soon.

After this fantasy played out, her mother and father returned to her, in...not a dream, but more a vision... Both bore the lined faces of the grieving, of people in mourning, of a hollow-eyed pair who'd lost everything but were left standing to look at the emptiness and the ashes.

They wore the faces of the guilty damned.

And Necla understood the reason for their pitiful expressions. She even wanted to tell them: "It was not your fault. It wasn't your fault you left us alone."

Or was it?

Did her mother have to die? Did her father? Couldn't they have done something? They were grown-ups. Why hadn't they moved the family before the soldiers had come to town?

She would feel guilty for thinking so, and tried again to remember beautiful things. Of their last breakfast picnic, of laughing… And finally, slowly, Necla slept while she cried.

Outside was Hell, but they didn’t want to live there. They hoped for Paradise but every time they knew, when they opened their eyes, Hell would be there again.

Hope was a fiction but if they were lucky, they’d die fast.

If they weren’t, they’d live through Hell again and again and again...