The sun burns me down my back and all over my hands. I grip tightly to the rocks I am carrying up the side of the quarry. I try not to be seen or heard any different from the rest of them. We are all the same in the Nazis minds.
Jews.
As I prepare to put my rocks down on the ground at the top of the quarry the Hauptarbeitsleiter- the head worker leader- pushes me back and I fall down the steep side of the quarry. When my head finally collides with the ground I black out.
There's a shadow- a wisp of hair- a turn of the head- "Sofie! Sofie, come back!" I scream. The shadow, the wisp of light blonde hair and the turn of the head always over the left shoulder- it is her. "Sofie, where are you?" I call out. I am running through the meadow that appears before me- it's the meadow I used to run in as a boy. I know it by heart. Sofie is standing at the end of it. Her petite body nearly hidden in the tall grass. Her green eyes are filled with a foreboding I don't care about. I want her. I am almost there- I can almost taste her strawberry lip balm and I can almost feel the curve of her body; the body that used to be in my arms and I used to want and still want. She turns away just as I reach for her wrist. "Warten Sie, ich komme! Warte auf mich! Bitte Sofie!" "Wait; I'm coming! Wait for me! Please Sofie!" She doesn't listen to me and suddenly I'm no longer the meadow with her- we are in Auschwitz-Birkenau and she is standing with her shaved head in line to the showers. "Sofie! Get away from there!" I exclaim. She doesn't seem to hear me. I try to take her out of the line but she doesn't budge. She walks into the building. I am left with two options- follow her in and die with her or have a chance to live. I back away from the building and yell to her. "Ich liebe dich, Sofie!" "I love you, Sofie!"
"Aufwachen!" a Jew with dark brown hair calls to me bringing me back to the quarry and away from the horror of Sofie's death.
I am alive.
She is dead.
How am I alive?
I am not.
Not truly.
We are dead together.
I am only stuffed into my living body.
She is stuffed into her corpse.
There is nothing I can do about it except pick up another rock and carry it up the side of the quarry and wait.
Wait.
Wait.
What for?
Sofie's gone.
Wait for my death?
Nein.
No.
I wait for freedom.