What If (My Ending )

The Corpse Of A Girl

 
Frank Volkheimer trudged down the dirt road leading away from the French town of Saint-Malo. The horizon stretched before him in an unending swirl of colors, mixing together in a beautiful arrangement that reminded the German Soldier of the old paintings his mother placed around their home. The man thought back to his days before the war, before Hitler Youth. When it was him and his mother in a small house, surrounded by fields of sunflower yellow wheat. Back before his mother’s hair went grey, claiming she was merely getting older. Little Frank knew this was not so. Recently an older neighbor had approached him, mentioning that the woman had always had anxiety. Unaware that anxiety was not life threatening, for it sounded like a deadly disease.  Genuinely concerned with his mother’s health, the boy saved every penny he could to send her to a doctor. Upon making an appointment, the doctor had explained that it was in fact not a disease. Volkheimer went home in shock after learning that it simply meant his mother worried. Worried about paying rent on time, whether or not she could raise a child on her own, worried about the war.

Snow crunched underneath his boots. It tickled his ears with the satisfaction of the familiar sound. Mutti never had to worry again. She was in the sky now. Taken last Christmas, or so he was told. He had yet to make it home since he was recruited into the youth program. His eyes stared up at the heavens, as if he could see his mother smiling down on him.

The day turned into evening. Soon he would stop to make camp. His legs ached from the constant trudging through the snow for hours on end. There should be a farm or two around the bend. He could loft in the barn for the night.

Time elapsed as he limped along at a baby’scrawl pace. He figured he should stumble along his own retreating country men. But as of yet, there was scarce of any human much less his own brothers in arms. Come to think of it he had yet to see any wild life. The man's lips dragged down at the ends. He could be headed towards the allies. Never was direction one of his strengths.

What would the allies do to a Nazi officer? String him up? Stand him before a firing squad? Or maybe they would leave him to freeze in the snow. Becoming one of the grey corpse along the road side. The only sign that life had passed through this land. He sighed at the irony of the dead body that lay further up in the ditch.

As he stepped closer he realized it was not a soldier, but a girl. War had no morals, thought tth man. To kill an Innocent girl with no remorse. Leaning over to check the girl for papers, wishing to send the dead girl's family news of her unforgiving end, his frozen fingers clutched her coat to flip her onto her back. Blood oozed slowly down her cheek from a gash on her forehead. It was fresh, she had been alive an hour ago. Snow caked her thick lashes and the edge of her face. A faint wisp of cold air evaporated from between them. In a start, the man dropped the girl back into the bank of frozen crystals. This wasn’t a corpse. The girl was still alive.