Never To Happen Again

• Gabrielle Eberbach, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2017

When Alice was very young, she remembered being woken up to the sound of bombs and collecting rubble with everyone else.
She remembered heavy rationing and her mother kissing her goodbye as she got on the evacuee train.
She remembered the day when her tear streaked father appeared on the doorstep to inform her that her mother was gone.
She remembered everything.
But even now, decades later, Alice, now in her late 70s wondered, ‘Did there really have to be a war?’
She was huddled up with her knitting, staring out the cold little window of her tiny apartment, watching the children outside laugh and play, remembering how she had been deprived of all that.
A tear dropped down her old, soft cheek, and she wondered: “Why? Why did there have to be a war?”
Still watching, she saw in her mind a little girl with a fringe and a large evacuee tag. Tearfully, she embraced her parents who kissed her and waved her goodbye as she boarded the train. As she watched, the scene transformed into a pretty little countryside view. The little girl held hands with around 12 other children, and walked across to a home. A lady with them knocked on the door, and as they started to converse, the scene changed again. The little girl was up at night by herself in her bed. She sighed and rolled over, then the view changed again. This time, the little girl, crying, left the house with a man who was also crying. They stepped into a car, and drove off. After that, Alice couldn’t see any more of the little girl.
A hand tapped her softly on the shoulder, and she turned to see her 40-year-old son.
“Mum, are you ok?” he asked anxiously.
Smiling sadly, she replied: “Sorry dear, I was just remembering my life as it was.”