Firewood

Chapter 1

The children were playing; the old women were busy on their house works; the men were fixing their farm tools – everyone was happy. No one seemed to care. He felt very alone.

His wife was killed by the revolutionaries who accused her as being a traitor and supporter to the Japanese government. The simple help she offered to the foreign soldier was judged as a crime and was verdict to death by the unmerciful townsmen; townsmen who were supposed to understand them more because they were born and living in the same place but were the ones who killed his wife because of what they also believed to be right.

As he was sitting there, the harrowed scenes of how his wife was killed came to memory again…

The three men, still unknown to him, who crashed their door and entered their house with their knives; the awful scene of how those men dragged his wife outside; how they beaten his son and him until they became unconscious; the shout of his wife,  crying for help, though he wanted to but completely couldn’t because he could not even stand; the bloods; his dead wife mercilessly tortured in their backyard; the card board hanging on her neck with an inscription “I deserve this, I am a traitor”; the threats; the shame; fear; loneliness…

All of these were running in his mind. Holding his head, he cried hopelessly, but silently.

“I have told you before”, he desperately uttered. “You should have listened to me”.

And he cried again.

His dead wife, the accusations of their neighbors, their condition – are these the fruits of what they thought as charity? Should these be the effects of what they believed to be true? His wife cared and helped but what happened to her, she’s dead!

He looked at his side, as though his wife was sitting next to him, then he said “These shouldn’t happen if you only listened to me!”

“Look what happened to you, you’re dead Elena…”

And he shouted, “You are dead!”

He continued to shout and cried like a damned man.

The people looked at him then after a second, continued on what they were doing. The farmers fixed and carried their tools. The women continued cleaning their front yard, called their children and took them.

All the people passed him. All cleared their way.

Then he was completely alone.