Time Lapse!

1 - Nejlepší den

Brno - September 19th, 1945

I was barely six years old when World War II ended. I remember waking up in my home in Brno, my hometown in Czechoslovakia. As cliché as it may sound, as soon as I woke up I could feel that something was different that day; the sun shone a little brighter, the wind didn't carry the smell of gunpowder product of the shootings that had happened the day before, the people I could see from my window didn't have the fear plastered in their faces this time, and even though the radio man was still rambling, he was rambling happily about how the war had finally come to an end.

"Maminka, co je člověk mluví?" I asked my mom as soon as I went down the stairs of our home. ("Mom, what is the man talking about?)

"Lucas , jsme konečně v bezpečí." she answered as she smiled. I smiled as well, not entirely because the war had ended, but because this was the first time in months that Maminka had genuinely smiled. (Lucas, we are finally safe.)

After two slices of bread for breakfast instead of one, as celebration because war was over, I ran outside to look for Dalek, Jan and Kamil. They were my best friends, or at least the ones that I had left. Edvard and his family had ran away to Zagreb, in Croatia; and Beda had died a few months ago because of a bombing. There was also a girl, Bora, who was the most beautiful girl any six year old could ever have the luck to meet, she also left for refugee somewhere else, but I heard her boat to Finland had been sunk by mistake.

My friends and I got to ride our bicycles, steal apples from the market and play with airplanes we made out of newspapers and ripped German propaganda. The best part was that we did all of this without having to run frantically back to our refugees because there was bombing risk or anything of that fashion. It was the perfect kind of day, the kind of day any kid my age should be used to live every single day. To feel the unusually bright sun on his face, to smell the bread being made at the bakery without it being accompanied by some trace of gunpowder odor, to be able to wander off more than 200 meters away from home without being afraid of dying, to be able to have a crush on a girl without being afraid she could be dead the next day. To live without fear, to live like an actual kid. That kind of stuff I could never truly enjoy because ever since I was born war had been present, haunting the world with it's deadly shadow.

Sweating, grinning, with my clothes dirtier than ever before and one suspender missing; (scandalous, I know) I parked my bicycle next to my home's door. I smelled something foreign, something so sweet and inviting it made my mouth water.

"Maminka, what are you doing?" I asked while peeking into the kitchen.

"My dear Lucas! Look at you! You're so dirty, we must get you washed up in a hurry." Maminka said as she quickly took out of the stove the food she was previously cooking.

"I'll go wash up immediately if you tell me what is it that you are cooking." I said with a cheeky grin.

Maminka rolled her eyes and returned to the kitchen, talking while placing two strange looking pastries out to cool. "Today Elsa, Dimitri Princip's wife, passed by and gave me a basket full of goods as a gift for helping his husband when he was shot by the Germans. She also gave Dominika and Jarmila one of their own." She explained. I just hummed in response.

"How was your day, honey?" She asked happily.

"Good, good!" I said grinning, not wanting to get punished for the mischievous things I had done that day.

"Hm, did you cause problems?" Maminka said smiling, reading my mind.

"Not at all, Maminka!" I quickly answered, my voice higher than usual. She laughed.