This was a story I had to write in English about World War l. My teacher at the time read it and said that it was too professional and I had to dumb it down. >:( Still makes me angry to this day.
My pencil furiously scribbles across the blank pages of paper, guided by my hand, writing down the memories that flood back.
October 26, 1914
Ypres was beautiful. Banners of all sorts of colors were strung from the small shops to the enormous hotels. Many shop owners were having sales of all kinds to drag in as much people as they can. Teenage girls twirled in their dresses as they threw flowers in the air. Others danced with the boys, trying to show what they could do. Delightful bells rang through the streets. Tiny bracelets with bells glued on to them were given to the children of Ypres along with a lone white daisy. My two young, bright eyed girls skipped down the streets, their hands intertwined together. Their golden brown hair was braided into long pigtails that laid down their backs. Their emerald green eyes both shimmered in the sun, as if it were smiling along with my girls bright and crooked toothed smiles. My happy, young girls both smiled at me.
I slam my journal shut, suppressing the thoughts back. I didn't want to remember any further than that. I didn't want to think more of that cursed day. I slip my journal underneath one of the hospital beds. I twist my sandy hair into a quick bun before I stand in my white high heels. Flattening my grey dress with a white apron over it, I check over my supplies. St. Mary's Hospital wasn't doing so good. Germany wasn't doing so good either.
"Three soldiers coming in!" One of my fellow nurses shouts over the German words being thrown to and from each nurse.
A soldier was thrown on to the bed when I was getting up. Bullet wounds was profusely bleeding from his shoulder, forearm, and calf. I get to work.
A different nurse pulls off the soldier's outerwear and cuts open his shirt by his shoulder. I grab hold of the cold, blood covered tweezers with my shaking hands. I stick the small metal tongs into the wound in his shoulder. He screams a blood curdling scream before he starts to kick and squirm. The other nurse sticks the needle in his arm. She pushes the plunger down in the needle. I watch as the clear liquid known as morphine slowly drains into his vein. He stops squirming. I continue to work.
After three bullets being pulled from the soldier's body, I wrap the bandages around his wounds. I give a small nod to the other nurse, wipe my hands on my white apron, and took out my journal again. I could feel the repressed memories coming back from before. I couldn't outrun these memories. I start to scribble furiously once more.
I smiled back at my girls before the chaos happened. I watched as a bullet cut through one of my girls skinny cheeks. My other girl was looking forward before a bullet blasted through her left eye. My smile left me as I screamed for my baby girls. Blood red spots started to show through my girl's white shirts. Twenty five thousand kids fell that day by the British machine guns. I crawled towards my girl's dead body. Millions of parents screamed and scrambled all around me. I held one of my daughter's head in my lap. I looked up to the sky. I screamed, "Kindermond bei Ypern! Der Mord an meine Mädchen!" The murder of the children at Ypers. The murder of my girls. Soon after the attack on the children, I was sent to the fortified trenches that stretched at least 475 miles. I was sent away from my children graves to try to save unknown soldier's lives.
I was cut off from my writing as my hospital shook. A giant boom pierces my ears. I duck down and cover the back of my head. Another earthquake and another boom.
"We need nurses to the front!" Someone shouts.
A nurse next to me looks up. Her big blue eyes stare into my grass green eyes. Her eyes were full of fear. "Nurses to the front? Something terrible must of happened. They never send nurses to the front."
"Experienced nurses, come to the trucks!" A different voice shouts.
I glance at the nurse next to me before getting up. Twenty other nurses and I were sent to the front. It was something I never seen before. Bullets flying across crater holes. Men dying by the second. Suicidal men trying to run across to the other trenches just to be mowed down like the kids in Ypres.
My hand covers up my gaping mouth. The tears were welling up in my eyes. Haunting memories were flashing in my mind.
"Selda?" A nurse asks. "Are you alright?"
I shake my head 'no'. My precious, baby girls. Smiling and laughing before the bullets ruins their faces. Another bomb explodes. It pulls me out of my haunting memories.
"We have to get going." The nurse next to says, pushing against my arm.
I get off of the truck. Hundreds of men lay dead on the ground. Flies walk casually on their rotting faces. Some flies disappear into the dead's hollow mouth or eye sockets.
"The nurses goes over here." A soldier tells us, showing us the way.
The nurse that stays by my side leads me to the other nurses. I stare at the dead soldiers. I scream at the sight of one particular soldier. He wasn't quite dead yet, but the flies were crawling up his face. I recognize the short golden brown hair. The emerald green eyes. I fall to my knees to the soldier's dying body. I hold his head in my hands.
"My son. My beautiful baby son. Oh, how did you end up here?" I cry.
He weakly laughs. "I was forced to join." He tells me. He lifts up his arm. I gasp. A metal bar protrudes through his stomach. A knife was stuck in his shoulder. "Oops, right?" The tears were running down my cheeks. He clicks his tongue before coughing. "Don't cry, mother. I know how much pain you are in right now, but please don't cry for me."
I shake my head 'no'. "I don't want to see you like this. I'm going to help you."
He holds up a hand. "You can't." He moves a dead soldier's arm. On his arm, was the French flag. "You remember, right? I was married to a French woman. They put me under as a French soldier."
"No." I cry. "No!" His chest stops moving. His head tilts away from me. I shake his body. "Son? My son?" He doesn't respond.
"Ma'am, you can't be here." A soldier says, grabbing my arm.
I rip my arm away from his grip. I run forward, towards the bare land. Everything was running through my mind. The attack on Ypres. Kids being killed. My girls falling to the ground. My son losing his finally breathe.
Pain shoots through my chest. I stumble back. I look down to see that a crimson red spot was growing across my chest. A lone bullet strayed from its designated path and found its way to me. I fall flat on my back. I fall into the pile of the decaying bodies. The flies were already swarming around my dying body.
The world was becoming dark. My head was spinning. I couldn't breathe. I heard laughter of children. Two heads pop into my view. Golden brown pigtails. Emerald green eyes.
"Mommy, why are you lying on the ground?" They both ask. "Get up. We have to find a perfect spot for a picnic."
A hand takes my hand. I rise up to my feet. The one who brings me to my feet was my son. "Come on, mother. We have to go to find a picnic spot." He tells me.
We were standing in a green field. No war destroying a beautiful sight to see. I smile, running across the grass. I was finally reunited with my children.
