I tried... the Great Scribe in the Sky knows how hard.
But the prompt word STALAG kept flashily dominating any other thoughts - harsh and painful to the eyes as though struck by a stark laser beam in the deepest, blackest hole in the universe.
It caused erratic feelings to surface, but I couldn't say why. SO puzzling. I wasn't even born until near WWII's end. I had no first-hand knowledge of a STALAG (See? The word insists on printing itself in bold brash letters, and when I repeat it, even in my head, it gets more staccato and harsh, and well-ll... ACHTUNG! ACHTUNG! ... German command-type of sound. You know?)
I have no personal stories of loss or pain suffered by anyone near and dear to me, yet my heart ached with sorrow as I read that word. It does again now, as I write it... STALAG (there it goes again!)
It's been suggested more than once in my life that I'm an 'old soul' - a person who's lived previous lives - gone through different stages of self-knowledge. And though there's no clear remembering of any other lives, a certain deep thoughtfulness, innate knowing (maybe even wisdom?), seemingly carries through. Maybe so... I don't know.
Perhaps I was the imprisoned fighter pilot who took three months to carve and create a violin from bed slats, using a pen knife and a piece of broken glass. Or maybe I was one of those other Allied airmen in that hated STALAG LUFT 1, who scraped excess old glue from chair joints; ground it and melted the powder down; made new glue for that precious violin. That would explain my passion for recycling - way before it became trendy.
Or was I the guard of that barracks one Christmas Eve when the creator of that treasured violin, a self-taught violinist, played 'Silent Night', and couldn't help joining in the singing? Away in the background that guard sang the beloved carol in German, and tears filled his eyes. Is that why the 'voice' of a violin always brings a tear to my eye?
Could be I was one of the hopeful tunnelers, eternally trying to escape the hated STALAGS. I wonder if I was one of those poor unfortunates who died down there? That could explain my morbid fear of being underground, and my claustrophobia. Certainly nothing in my background this time around ever has.
Would I dare to imagine I was Anne Frank, the young Jewish girl hiding in a secret annex for more than two years? Not in a despised and feared STALAG, but a prisoner nonetheless - cruelly incarcerated like few others, living out her first teen years in abject terror of discovery. Final exposure and arrest ended her short life in the horror concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. She died in the same month I was born. She wrote her heart's blood, too.
And speaking of Jews... was I one of the persecuted and displaced, having to flee with one suitcase of most treasured things? Like most of them, did I lose even those painfully few possessions? Is that the basis for my love of old 'material things' and the tremendous difficulty I have, parting with them?
Or was I Schindler, saving 1200 Jews with all manner of deceptions? I'd love to believe I could possibly have that kind of courage. But could that be why I've been a rescuer of all kinds of small, vulnerable creatures, and hand-made toys, and sorrowful hearts and souls - all of my life?
This is a can of worms. This is Pandora's Box. My mind is racing with possibilities and I've barely scratched the surface. Clearly the word STALAG is too dangerously charged with emotion for me to be able to create a story with it.
Ohh, hang on... I think I just did!
YOU ARE READING
Prompt Perspectives
Short StoryA collection of short stories inspired initially by a wide array of prompts from various places. Sometimes it's one word; maybe a phrase or a saying; sometimes a particular photo setting the creative wheels in motion. I love the development from tha...