literature

The Hangman

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None of them could have said what life was like before the war. They recalled the first news of the invasion, and the retreat into the forest; now it seemed to have become their entire lives. That two out of four had been city-dwellers seemed distant and alien now; the dense greenery had become their home, a hard and unforgiving abode from which they pillaged and harried the enemy.

Hours, days, weeks, months – such measurements were meaningless. They only counted their ammunition, and how many of the fascist invaders they maimed and murdered with it. Every shot fired was one less person to rape, murder, plunder and burn. Each day they woke invigorated by the thought of cleansing the world of monsters.

The gallows was a crude thing, hastily built just outside Polotsk. The sky was grey and sullen, the air dry. A small crowd had come to watch in silence, giving the four of them looks that ranged from pity to contempt – spineless traitors, the lot of them. One of the enemy was reading from a proclamation, butchering their language with the same proficiency as he doubtlessly butchered those that spoke it.

Anna could pick out bits and pieces – they were 'aiding and abetting Jewish Bolshevism' (what an absurd concept!), and 'unthinking lackeys of the tyrant Stalin' (what did that make them?). There was something about 'cruelly taking the lives of Germany's valiant sons' (oh, how she loathed posturing). She didn't care; she would defy them to the last, leaving with honour and dignity.

Elena had known that her doom was at hand, and resolved to face it in the company of those she called her sisters. It had been a joy to dispatch those that tormented her people. The sliding of the rifle bolt back and forth was music to her ears; she estimated she must have struck down two dozen fascists. Every one of them, she was certain, deserved nothing less.  

Lara's face was etched with dread at the prospect of imminent death. She was the youngest of them, content to be a mere scout, and all her life she had been told that the Lord and His kingdom were puerile lies designed to oppress her. Only now, when she had heard the priests on the radio speaking with such passion and conviction about heroism and loyalty, had she begun to reconsider. Now she was lost, and before her there seemed a meaningless, empty void.

Olga looked upon the hapless girl wordlessly. What a miserable dilemma to have at a time like this. What truly mattered besides what was right in front of them? She took pride the dogged defence she had waged; in her mind she heard the booms as the railways and bridges were torn asunder, heard the noise of the bullets leaving the barrels of their weapons, the screams and shock of the enemy. How sweet the sounds were.

Their captors had been astounded at the hoard they came across when they found them: there had to have been a dozen guns between them, and thousands of rounds of ammunition along with the plentiful grenades. They could only surmise – correctly, as it turned out – that they had been supplied by their handlers. To those they condemned, their incoherent fury had been worth witnessing.

It had all been worth it.

Anna took a long breath, her heart pounding, and smiled; then the floor vanished and she fell.
Flash fiction, 572 words. 

Based on a dream I had in October 2014. The last moments of Soviet partisans on the Eastern Front, 1942. 

"There are two hundred million of us; you can't hang us all!" - Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya
© 2015 - 2024 holocene-dawn
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