Mein Kampf (My Struggle)
by Courtney Blackwood

I toss throughout the night, listening to my stomach as it gnaws at any remaining flesh, the same flesh that is being devoured by fleas. Sleep has fled from my eyes. As the morning grows near a dagger rises with the sun and begins to sharpen itself before me. It's time for roll call. I slowly rise from among the dead bodies and brush the splinters from my leathery skin, splinters that no longer bother me. As we mechanically exit the barracks I entertain the thought of ending this before the guards are given the satisfaction of turning me into yet another pawn in their game. No. I mustn't do this. I must not give in. I will not surrender myself to death but hope to die with dignity.

My partner was pulled from the crowd first, and then they searched for me. Together we were led down a path, flattened by boots and hardened feet that had walked it so many times before. The path is littered with bodies left to rot, but the horror of this has become so common to us that we are indifferent. The events of the past few days churn in my mind. It all began when the power plant was destroyed. They suspected my collaborator had carried out a plot to blow it up, and since I was his assistant, I must have some information about the mishap. Each day I was subjected to diverse corporal punishments, tortured until I could no longer speak. They would badger me for information, facts that I did not know. I soon realized that they would not believe my words, and so I began to devise fallacies. Even the truth has to be invented. Because I could not help them I was sentenced to be hanged. Now I will join the thousands of people that have been reduced to ashes while their worthless, tattered possessions are rendered priceless.

After each step I must search deep within to harvest enough strength to raise my foot once more. I am in a constant internal battle as my mind tells me to proceed, but my body has neither the will nor the power to carry on. However, I am determined to complete this final journey in which I see no end. Finally we reach the gallows. Here, the sighs and moans of the dying are part of the melody that echoes in the air. The guard fumbles with the cord, and the noose is slowly placed around my neck. My stomach knots as the rope scratches my throat, but I do not fight. My will to resist has been sapped by prolonged starvation and disease. As I stand there, my eyes roam over the mass of people, a sickly bunch with elongated faces. Each body is emaciated, bones protruding through their sore-covered skin. Scars and deformations are scattered over several bodies throughout the crowd, a souvenir of the horrifying experiments performed on them. Their thoughts are not of me, not of the idea that we are all victims of bigotry, ignorance, and hatred, but are consumed only by the search for food.

"Were your actions worth this?" bellowed the SS officer. He was performing the task this time instead of the prisoner who usually served as executioner, a prisoner that refused to kill a child. Silence is the only adequate response but the pressure of the scream persists. I still felt in the last moment the unsheathing of the great knife of parting, parting from the gray world of death. I looked up from beneath the beam that blocked the sky and realized that we are machines in a world no longer present, a world destroyed by the intimate absence of god, of man, of love.

There was not a sound from the crowd as I fell from the stool. The contents of my body plummet and want to continue their plunge towards the ground, but the rope yanks me back into the air. I feel my head snap back in a deadly jerk, and everything goes black. I expected that to be it. All the others had died almost immediately. But I open my eyes to see the crowd gazing past me. They were forced to watch many executions before and had already lost their capacity for emotion. My stomach tumbles as I rise and fall. Finally, the vigorous leaps of the cord stop, and I rotate from side to side. Just as the almost slackened rope begins to change directions, I catch a glimpse of my partner. He is limp and motionless. Then my eyes swing across the gawking spectators; they will be forced to watch until I am the same. I face my partner one last time. His head is skewed. I do not notice his face, nor his bulging eyes, but see only the tongue of a dead man in a naked mouth, purple and engorged.

The rope finally comes to rest, and I remain facing the thousands of viewers that watch me dying in slow agony beneath their eyes. Still, their faces remain void of emotion. Still, there is silence. The only sounds are the snarling and laughing of the guards as the hangman tallies his bloody score.

Time crawls by as each gulp of air grows smaller and farther apart. The pressure against my thorax chokes me, slowing the flow of blood. Each time my lungs make a pitiful attempt to suck in air, the noose burns my neck, chafing the skin. As I attempt to exhale, my Adam's apple bulges out, causing gruesome pain. I sense my pupils as they begin to dilate and my eyes grow larger. As my body grasps for the stench-filled air it becomes possessed by fear, a fear that strikes my carcass causing an internal mayhem. My heart begins to race and soon loses its strength as the pumps come more frequently. The blood falls to my feet that then grow cold and tingly. A numbness crawls through the tips of my fingers and creeps up my arms, until it eventually shrouds my entire body. My veins rise towards the surface and feel as if they are about to burst. At the same time my ribs begin to puncture my lungs as they swell, trying to fill with air. My brain throbs as it searches for oxygen but finds only poisoned blood that can not escape. My tongue is not yet swollen but is already beginning to close over my windpipe. I am doused by a cold sweat while each choking intake of breath escalates the tightness in my pasty mouth. I am parched and yearn for water to quench the dryness, to lessen the chalky feeling in my desiccated cavern. I feel as if a gritty sand has been forced through my raisined lips and remains there, continuously suffocating me. I am humiliated to think that others must witness my suffering and so begin to kick and squirm, forcing more pressure onto my neck, screaming inside for death to come. Soon, however, my muscles cease from lack of oxygen and I return to a helpless state.

Finally someone must see my agony, the inhumanity of my death. A scream from the distance: "Cut him down. Shoot him. For God's sake, do something!" There came a hurricane of voices speaking with the frantic tongues of bells. The situation aroused feelings of pity and sorrow that are a rarity in the jaded atmosphere of the death camp. As my head pounds and my lungs pulsate, the sounds grow muffled…Then there is silence. The prisoners are in turmoil, struggling with the urge to look away as their eyes remain glued on the gallows where I hang. Their faces are no longer void of expression but reveal that they are appalled, sickened by the show. Their jaws drop and the color drains from their faces that were flushed from the bitter wind just a moment ago. Through the glaze over my eyes I can see their cheeks swell as they struggle to keep the acid in their otherwise empty stomachs and I can almost see the surge of nausea as it tries to rise from within. A few victims in the front allow it to leak through the corners of their mouth. It was the first time the withered prisoners wept at an execution. In the corner of my view I even catch the guard cringe as he tries to stand straight to hide his weakness but can not fight his instincts. He bows his head but then rises it again, bringing his gun up at the same time. He contemplated ending my misery but then must have changed his mind. That would have shown remorse, an emotion not possessed by any of the officers that lurk throughout the camp. To them we are merely disease-carrying vermin. Instead he stands looking straight ahead with unblinking eyes. He is an automaton, cold and mechanical, void of human emotion, a machine that stands above whom our song does not reach.

Little by little everything around me begins to fade as a welcoming darkness grows near, a darkness that at one time would have stricken fear into each inch of my body. Now it brings desire. The sand that drips through the bell-shaped glass is almost gone.