Post by Moritz Erichsen on Nov 26, 2009 23:16:49 GMT
Terrain: Poitiers, France
Time: 14:20 pm
Weather: Cold and foggy
Grey clouds scud across the darkened sky overhead as the engine was roaring deep into the dense and all-embracing forests bordering the Poitiers commune, revving up against the tall and thick grass on the bank of the river Clain. Nestling in the west-central France, the small provincial capital bore its highlights during the Middle Ages, being the base of Eleanor of Aquitaine’s court with a complete appendage of artists, aristocrats and cantankerous bishops; it was also adorned in that period with a framework of exceptional buildings, noble yet narrow streets and an undying quintessence of self-respect. Beyond the River Clain lay the Boivre valley, only a few kilometres away from Poitiers and upon which the division’s base had been temporarily moved for strategic reasons. Though it was early afternoon it seemed as though late evening had drawn its mystical veil across the wide and broken firmament, for everything fell into endless shadows of darkness, from the dead leaves on the grass to the river’s once crystal blue waters. The beautiful place was overshadowed by ghosts of the human beings who had fallen victims of cruelty and disastrous will of power. Adolf Hitler’s will of triumph over and over again, it remained a cold interface amongst the simplest of creatures and weakest of beings. Prejudice was not simply a given fact but an awfully discernible term to describe indiscernible ideas and abstract thoughts.
Moritz was smoking from the Bolshevik cigarette, exhaling fume from his nose and mouth as it dissolved into the cold atmosphere, smelling the stench of rotting meat and pissed grass from afar, a scowl of bitter distaste etched across the thin lines of his lips, the pale and long fingers looped around the cigarette’s length with light pressure as he stared curiously but with repulsive fashion in front of him, as the continuous trees and bushes of the forest were passing before his eyes with haste, and he thought at some point he noticed a human being hang from the trees somewhere in the distance of the dense forest, although it could just as well have been a hallucination formed by the deficiency in a decent amount of sleep and the black clothes hang creating the illusion of meat rotting within them. He made an indistinct grumble inside his throat, and then the view immediately flashed away from his eyes as the M3 half-track rushed through the woodland. Either side of the vehicle ten soldiers were seated upon, while the racks under the seats were used for the 4000 rounds of ammunition and rations; the supplementary racks behind the seat backs held their rifles and other various shipment, and just above the tracks on the external part of the hull was placed a small rack for mines.
There was nothing to look around but a never-ceasing area of vast green and grimy water, inside which numerous corpses had been thrown to be thus easily disposed of, but even the leaves that fell on the muddy-brown ground that cold autumn’s afternoon were yellowed and parched, and as they lay dead on the pools of mud, they seemed broken. Almost devastated. A veil of almost paralyzing mist had spread around the forest during the last few minutes and the trees suddenly turned into cruel monsters that threatened to devour everything good and decent they might have had in them. The half-track turned around with a roar and followed the path on the left, across the River Clain and deeper through the forest on its way to the camp. Some comrades were singing a crude but merry song on the back, others smiling at this, and Moritz continued smoking from his cigarette, the fume dissolving and mixing with the mist, now rendering indiscernible which was which. He did not feel the coldness through the military undercoat, but he was certain there were villagers kilometres away from them who perished in such a disgraceful manner, and others who had no socks to warm their feet up unless it was Sunday and they had to go church. Instead, they used pane they tied around the feet to stop them from freezing as much as they possibly could. There were young children dying not of bullets but illness, and daughters with crushed hearts at their lost brothers and fathers. Someone had once said war brought about the best features in men. Or the worst. They were wrong. Who claimed war was either a good or a bad thing? Who dared provide arguments that war created pain or happiness? War did nothing, it created nothing. It gave birth to nothing, but only knew how to orphan. Orphan ideas, orphan relationships, orphan people. It was nothing, nothing.
War itself was not an aspect of life. To some it was life.
Time: 14:20 pm
Weather: Cold and foggy
Grey clouds scud across the darkened sky overhead as the engine was roaring deep into the dense and all-embracing forests bordering the Poitiers commune, revving up against the tall and thick grass on the bank of the river Clain. Nestling in the west-central France, the small provincial capital bore its highlights during the Middle Ages, being the base of Eleanor of Aquitaine’s court with a complete appendage of artists, aristocrats and cantankerous bishops; it was also adorned in that period with a framework of exceptional buildings, noble yet narrow streets and an undying quintessence of self-respect. Beyond the River Clain lay the Boivre valley, only a few kilometres away from Poitiers and upon which the division’s base had been temporarily moved for strategic reasons. Though it was early afternoon it seemed as though late evening had drawn its mystical veil across the wide and broken firmament, for everything fell into endless shadows of darkness, from the dead leaves on the grass to the river’s once crystal blue waters. The beautiful place was overshadowed by ghosts of the human beings who had fallen victims of cruelty and disastrous will of power. Adolf Hitler’s will of triumph over and over again, it remained a cold interface amongst the simplest of creatures and weakest of beings. Prejudice was not simply a given fact but an awfully discernible term to describe indiscernible ideas and abstract thoughts.
Moritz was smoking from the Bolshevik cigarette, exhaling fume from his nose and mouth as it dissolved into the cold atmosphere, smelling the stench of rotting meat and pissed grass from afar, a scowl of bitter distaste etched across the thin lines of his lips, the pale and long fingers looped around the cigarette’s length with light pressure as he stared curiously but with repulsive fashion in front of him, as the continuous trees and bushes of the forest were passing before his eyes with haste, and he thought at some point he noticed a human being hang from the trees somewhere in the distance of the dense forest, although it could just as well have been a hallucination formed by the deficiency in a decent amount of sleep and the black clothes hang creating the illusion of meat rotting within them. He made an indistinct grumble inside his throat, and then the view immediately flashed away from his eyes as the M3 half-track rushed through the woodland. Either side of the vehicle ten soldiers were seated upon, while the racks under the seats were used for the 4000 rounds of ammunition and rations; the supplementary racks behind the seat backs held their rifles and other various shipment, and just above the tracks on the external part of the hull was placed a small rack for mines.
There was nothing to look around but a never-ceasing area of vast green and grimy water, inside which numerous corpses had been thrown to be thus easily disposed of, but even the leaves that fell on the muddy-brown ground that cold autumn’s afternoon were yellowed and parched, and as they lay dead on the pools of mud, they seemed broken. Almost devastated. A veil of almost paralyzing mist had spread around the forest during the last few minutes and the trees suddenly turned into cruel monsters that threatened to devour everything good and decent they might have had in them. The half-track turned around with a roar and followed the path on the left, across the River Clain and deeper through the forest on its way to the camp. Some comrades were singing a crude but merry song on the back, others smiling at this, and Moritz continued smoking from his cigarette, the fume dissolving and mixing with the mist, now rendering indiscernible which was which. He did not feel the coldness through the military undercoat, but he was certain there were villagers kilometres away from them who perished in such a disgraceful manner, and others who had no socks to warm their feet up unless it was Sunday and they had to go church. Instead, they used pane they tied around the feet to stop them from freezing as much as they possibly could. There were young children dying not of bullets but illness, and daughters with crushed hearts at their lost brothers and fathers. Someone had once said war brought about the best features in men. Or the worst. They were wrong. Who claimed war was either a good or a bad thing? Who dared provide arguments that war created pain or happiness? War did nothing, it created nothing. It gave birth to nothing, but only knew how to orphan. Orphan ideas, orphan relationships, orphan people. It was nothing, nothing.
War itself was not an aspect of life. To some it was life.
