The Sleeping Army Awakes

Part 17 Bad Memories

Samuel and Katka sat at the entrance to the mine. Katka had really eaten as much as she could for the meantime, and she wished that she had taken Samuel's advice, not to bolt her food down. Her stomach was full to bursting point and she dreaded having to get up, because she felt heavy, and clumsy and she wanted to go to the toilet, but was too shy to ask where she could do this.

Without having her having to ask, Samuel pointed to some bushes about a hundred metres across the marshalling yard. She got up and went over to them and returned several minutes later making a big thing of washing her hands in a large puddle as if she thought that she had to teach Samuel about basic hygiene.

When she returned, seeing that Katka had more or less finished her food, Samuel thought that perhaps it was about time that he knew something about his companion.

"Just how, did you come to be wandering on the hills, on your own, in the first place Katka?" Samuel asked.

"Oh I wasn't alone to begin with!" Katka said, toying with the spoonful of congealed sauce with a solitary baked bean, wondering whether she had space for it yet, "Five of us escaped from work camp together."

"What happened to the others?" Samuel asked to encourage her to talk, though he had a sneaking suspicion that he already knew what the answer would be.

"Zuzka and Jitka died few weeks back," Katka explained, "it was strange in way. It wasn't what I expected starving to death would look like... at first we thought that they just have some stomach bug because we had to keep stopping because you know... they had to go. You know it was more like dysentery. We tried to find enough water for them but in end they couldn't even keep that down."

"That happens in the last stages of starvation. The only thing that you can do is to put them in a bath of warm salty water and then they can absorb some water that way!" Samuel explained, "But tell me what happened!" He sounded genuinely curious. When Katka continued her speech was halting and broken.

"At end it was more as though they were just tired all time... we needed to move and they couldn't... and when they became really ill... they sort of gave up and they fell asleep," Katka said sadly, "and when I tried to wake them in morning... they didn't wake up."

"I'm sorry for your losses!" Samuel said, thinking of how many people he had lost on the way in similar circumstances. Suddenly breaking through the darkness the two girls seemed to be there. Images of the two girls, pale and emaciated with lips of a strange colour, but lying lifeless and still as if they were merely sleeping hung in the air. "It's a shame... they were such nice looking girls." Samuel remarked casually.

"What?" Katka asked, "How could you know?" Though she was thinking, "typical man he only values pretty girls."

"All human beings have a strange predilection towards symmetry. So don't blame men. But you are much prettier than they were and you have one real attraction over these girls..."

"What's that?" Katka asked suspiciously.

"You have that one gift that makes you special and unique..." Samuel said. "you still have a pulse....you are alive... and you are you."

Katka had been hoping that Samuel was going to remark about how beautiful her eyes were.

"You were taken aback by my appearance," Samuel said and you judged me harshly because of it."'

"I suppose that that's true." Katka admitted, "But you do look bit..."

"Look I can see them!" Samuel said quietly, and there before them hovering in the air, looking as though they were just asleep, was a smaller than life size, but faithful 3D image, of two blonde girls in ragged dresses, lying dead appearing to sleep without a breath of air in their lungs in an old barn that had sunlight coming through the roof.