Fallen Angels

• Krystina Sammour, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2018

I can not bear the sight of the girl’s scorched body. Smoke rises in black smoldering clouds above her and with it, her soul dances away, carried by the remnants of her affair. One year ago, I was a happy supporter of this movement. How proud I was the first time I shut the door on those screaming girls who were infecting our country. But now, having witnessed the agony, and the feeling of complete despair at the hands of this girl, I can no longer stand with those around me. The black, white and blood red emblem of Aryan identity has been overshadowed by the exposure of the formidable truth. Although my body has not been burnt like hers, my spirit is ash. It is slowly blowing away with the wind. The structure that held the fragile world I once knew has fallen. Gruesome lies and distorted truth meld together to present a final illusion of the camp and its horrors. What’s left now but to fall along with it?

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The girl with the fanciful ribbon in her hand cannot be ignored. The deep set red of the ribbon, contrasting so perfectly with her sapphire eyes, seems to absorb the light from around her. The ribbon is not merely an accessory. It is a part of her. A story in itself. Everything begins to fade. Everything except for the girl and the ribbon that she so masterfully twists. Not a word escapes her lips but as she leaps and twirls against the night sky, she tells a story. The heat from the fire carries her, whispers against her cheek like a lover, "listen to our story". She tells of a girl visited silently in the night, the guards turning a blind eye, as they revel in the pleasure brought about by her small, shuddering body. With little sound she takes it, tears creating tracks in the layers of dirt on her face, joining with the blood pooling around her. She focuses on the ribbon in her hand, ignoring the pain. She tells of a woman, beaten for nothing more than the fact that she is unable to work because of her swollen tummy. With a final show of maternal protection, she feels the hollowness where new life was only just beginning to form.

In anguish, the girl continues weaving her story as I watch on. My body is paralysed, the girl’s movement like a swinging pendulum, hypnotising, immobilising. Unaware of the effect she has, she continues telling of every faceless girl tortured. In her last moments of glory, when all I can do is stand and watch, in amazement, in horror, she appears to have conquered the tongues that engulf her. A living angel of fire, the flames twirl, and flicker with her body. But even angels fall. With a blood-curdling scream, she collapses to the floor. She has had her final affair with the flames. And I? Well, I know what it feels like seeing angels fall.