The Most Random Book Ever

May, 1943

May, 1943

I was riding my bike home from the market when I saw him, dirty and entangled in the thick forest trees. A sorry sight. He stood there, his mouth hung open slightly, and his grey-blue eyes wide....He was staring at me, his face a contorted mixture of what looked like pain and shock and relief at the same time, I slammed on my brakes, since I usually rode home as fast as I could, something mama would hate me for if she knew that I did it.

He was wearing a beat-up looking bomber jacket that was dirty on the elbows, and boots that looked like they hadn't been polished in ages. I threw my bike down,and walked up to him, unsure what to do. Would mama be mad that I brought an American soldier home, another mouth to feed? He coughed, as if he was trying to say something, staggering onto the wet dirt road.

"What?" I said, standing there like an idiot. I was scared that he was gonna hurt me.

"Help me." He mumbled at the sight of me, before falling in the dirt, making a loud 'Thump!'. I backed away, averting my eyes from his pleading ones. Then I reached for my bike and bolted.

I wasn't gonna help him.

'I'm gonna get in trouble.' I thought, my hands wobbling the handlebars of my bike. 'We won't be able to feed him. He probably will get somebody else to help him.'

But all the while, behind all my lists and reasonings, I felt my stomach tighten and I automatically crinkled my brow. I think....I think I was feeling guilty.

Once I reached the house and I put my bike in the shed, which was a good ten yards from our little house. I started to the house to put the groceries away. It was nothing much, since everything was rationed and just to buy one egg would ebb well over fifty francs, which was quite a high price. I'm glad we don't have to buy those, though.

'It's this stupid war, Marie.' Mama often said, every time someone would come to us for food, and every time we had to turn them down. We owned two chickens and a cow, considered delicacies in these parts of France, where we are often vacant of food. Mama told me not to tell anyone about our animals, even my friends, which I was quite shocked to hear.

"You see what hunger does to a person. A man will turn into a beast, I've seen it myself." Mama reminded me and my younger brother Alex often.

"Yes, mama." I said, and my brother would nod. He never talks. The doctor says it's his brain. But my brother isn't dumb. I'll pound on anyone that says so.

When I put away the flour and such, I started on my chores, but did poorly at them, because the wounded American soldier on the side of the road still lingered in my mind. I regretted running off on him, and at one point it bugged me so much that once I finished my chores, I lied to mama and said that I was was going to a friend's house, and bicycled back down the dirt road that ran near town and in the forest, praying that the man was still there.