As the man rose from his bed he could feel the stringent beads of sweat tear from the side of his face.  This had been the seventh day since he had those nightmares.  Those darn nightmares.  Night after night he dreamt of limbs undone, the endless screaming, and the dismal nights under the bombing twilight.  Of course, these were just his hidden relics of the past.  Ethan lived a life of doubt, wandering from day to day questioning his past.  He often wondered to himself what his purpose was. He had realized that an entire ten years of his life were dedicated to war: the cruel and oppressive expression of human aggression.  Now his life was reduced to a desk, a squeaky chair, and a bleak office filled with others who shared the same impending doom: death.  He tried to make sense of his haunting dreams.  “Am I going insane?” he quietly asked himself once again.  No, no his mind was strong.  He was living the life that the average American could only dream about.  A war hero, an accomplished businessman, a father of two, and a supposed breadwinner.  Yet, what was that itching twinge in the back of his head?  Ethan fell back into his chair as he exhaled.  Perhaps this was just a relapse of the past he thought.  As Ethan fingered his pen, he slowly began to recollect that one day in Germany.  Oh the tragedy! 

The smell of men filled the air as Ethan followed listlessly in a line of desperation and fallen morale.  It was the end of the war with Germany, the all-powerful nation of fear and ultimate control.  The sky was tinted gray, and foreboding black birds flew through the stagnant air.  At this point in his uncaring step, his mind had left his body.  With the absence of his conscience, his actions came stiffly.  It was Monday, ration day.  Ethan never smoked. He believed it was a form of self-deprecation, and the fast lane to a respirator and two doses of morphine a day.  Yet, when offered a hit he took it as an escape from the hellish experience he was living through.  This is what war did to men like him, Ethan thought as he chuckled to himself bitterly.  Rations of salted pork, bread, and tobacco were the only highpoints in his life at this point.  An orange haired boy ran up to Ethan with an eager expression.  He was in need of companionship, as did the entire infantry.  His name was Matt, another youth tricked into dying for an unknown cause.  “I heard we are approaching a camp.” Matt said uncertainly.  “A German camp for what?” Ethan questioned.  “I heard it was a holding camp for Jews.  Hopefully we can assist them and be relieved from duty, ay?” Matt said hopefully.  Ethan did not respond.  He looked up into the sky where the birds flew freely and continued to walk.  By afternoon Ethan’s troop had reached the immense fortress.  Massive gates surrounded the entrapment.  The air became smoky and dense, and the aura of overwhelming death began to settle in the bowels of the infantry.  After mitigating hours of procedure and safety precautions, Ethan began his way into the camp.  Plain large structures filled the camp area, without a single trace of vegetation or wavering optimism. Only a rough latrine and a center fire hole existed in the main commune area.  Matt sensed the empty loneliness and the awkward silence of the camp.  Running to and fro like a headless chicken, each American soldier began the search for the prisoners.  First the bodies were found.  Disfigured and grotesque bodies emerged, and the body count remained constant.  The putrid odor of rotten flesh and broken bone permeated throughout the air as rough holding houses were broken into.  Grown men vomited, screamed, cried, and even lost consciousness after viewing the sickening display of human cruelties.  Men, women, and children were targeted.  No mercy was held, for the gas acted emotionlessly.  Ethan’s body took charge and his mind crawled into its corner where the darkness reigned supreme.  Ethan’s arms extended without emotion and slowly picked up the odd ends of corpses: loose fingers, shapeless heads, and lifeless bodies with wide shocked eyes the size of silver quarters.  Fingers caught in menacing contortions and bodies scrunched in forms unimaginable.  For the first time Ethan felt alive. His body picked up the rhythm of the work and his fingers flared with life until his mind awoke among other things to realize his sick and demented intellect for enjoying this morbid task.  Ethan felt the engrossing feeling of bile rise from his roughened stomach and his eyes glazed over.  Day’s worth of undigested tobacco smoked pork and bread mush flew out Ethan’s mouth as he grabbed into the ground with his degraded fingers.  His vision slowly found its way back into its sockets.  Quiet and defeated, Ethan regressed into his detestable work and trudged through the rest of the day.  By nightfall, only half of the Jewish corpses were cleared.  Yet the stench subsided momentarily as the night sky proceeded in comforting the worn souls of the soldiers.  Not only had the dead emerged from the ruins but the undead: indistinguishable figures that were not clearly alive or dead.  Walking, moaning, with arms the width of pins, the victims were even more horrifying then the dead.  At the first sight of food, prisoners gorged themselves, which caused them to explode from inside.  Vomiting and more screams of torment filled the camp.  Oh how innocent the presence of food. 

Ethan quietly looked to his left where Matt sat.  His body in the fetal position, shaking as he tried to cry but no tears was left to shed.  His eyes, just like Ethan’s, had glazed over.  The empty shades of gray covered his once innocent and optimistic eyes of honor and validity.  In the morning his body was found amidst his own vomit, his wrists slit with contempt, and eyes gouged.  Matt had given in to the comforts of suicide. Oh the sweet escape of suicide.  A leaving message was left in the soft ground, which was written with his fingers, leaving traces of blood and broken nails.  “The future of tomorrow is bleak and undone, for all are doomed to die.  May there be a God for everyone, for life is meaningless”

Ethan rose from his chair and stepped out onto the ledge of his 15^th story office building.  He looked down then up.  Below held humanity: those who did not truly understand the hardships but were capable of retaining a sense of innocence and everlasting happiness, despite their meaningless trifles.  Upon looking above, a few black birds soared through the sky; a separate part of society, a looking glass, a portal, true nirvana.  With his last breath Ethan repeated, “May there be a God for everyone for life is meaningless.” And jumped off the ledge in hopes of a silent end. 

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