Broken

1916 - Germany

A bright light sheets his vision and he falls. His back hits the ground, his breath swiped away, struggling to return against the layers of darkness that smother him. But he can see a round light above him, standing high on an intricately carved leg, sheltered by a fringed lampshade. He stands cautiously, the thickness of the black supporting him.

The man looks around the room, everything a silhouette in the deep grey room. A lamp sits on a table nearby, and he goes to pull its switch, bring more light into the room. He pulls the chain with a click but no light fills the bulb. He tries again, click, click, click. The room remains dark and solemn.

Whispers brush past his ears, speaking words from languages he doesn't understand. And yet, there is a murmur—feathery, breathy, he almost fails to hear it—I miss papa... Then he catches a voice, words spoken in English, echoing above the whispers.

"She came from a man sailed all th'way from Nor' America!"

The man follows the voice that glides through the lapping waves of shadows. He recognizes this voice.

"'E was mournin' t'loss of 'is lil girl. Said 'e wanted t'git rid of any 'minders of her, 'cludin' this doll 'ere."

He can't see much, walking blindly with hands held out, the light from the standing lamp steadily dimming as he walks further and further away. He enters a new room, orange light slanting through a grimy window high on the far wall, sparking the dust motes floating in the air. A wizened old lady, skin hanging in wrinkles off scrawny bird bones, stands by a table strewn with odds and ends, chittering away.

"Thot that'd make th' grief easier t'bare. Seemed real eager to trade."

She looks over at him. In her arms she grasps a tiny body. A doll. "What'll we be tradin'?"

Then she's holding an old fur cap and he looks down into his hands that hold the doll, looks deep into Maggy's black eyes. A screech from across the room, metal against metal. He looks up in time to see the window curtains yanked shut, and the room goes black. And he's falling.

Unfamiliar faces flash past in a blur of features. A pointed nose, a jutting chin, big round eyes, spindly fingers, gnarled limbs. Then suddenly the fall stops as large hands catch his body. The hands are soft and warm, holding his body gently. A young girl looks down at him, flickering like candlelight, in and out of his vision. She smiles, but he's falling again, a doll having taken his place in those gentle hands.

"She's so pretty..." The words tumble down with him.

He lands in a bed, and a cough sounds in his ear. Turning his head he sees the girl lying beside him, a giant compared to his doll-size. Her cheeks are no longer plump as they had been when she held him, her eyes hollow and shadowed, her lips dry, her skin pale and sickly. As he stares, as she coughs, the blankets begin to swallow him. He sinks through the bed and falls, landing again in soft, warm hands. He looks up at a young girl, his young girl, as she flickers in and out of his vision like candlelight.

"Thank you, papa," she says as she looks down at him.

He falls, a doll having taken his place in her gentle hands.

"She's so pretty..." The words tumble down with him.

He lands hard as the words fade from hearing and it feels as though the ground is splintering open beneath his weight, the cracks reverberating in his eardrums. Then he's falling again and he jerks awake, swaying in a swaying hammock, pounding feet pounding the deck above.

"Get up! Get up, boys!"

The man scrambles out of his hammock, pulling on his boots, and runs up the wooden steps, stumbling, steadying himself with a hand on the cabin wall. Frosty air pummels his face as he emerges from below, clearing his head of the lingering dream fog, and he squints against the cold, squints against the grey world surrounding him. Sailors stand along the deck, hands stretched for the sky. A long steel ship bobs alongside their own, men arranged with their guns aimed.