The ground is littered with broken families and glass.
If you were a nation, if your people were dying, if your people were killing –
If you were Germany –
Could you imagine how it would feel?
It's Nazi-Germany and Germany is being torn in two, or maybe he's being torn inside out. He's not sure anymore, but it hurts either way; like someone has reached down his throat and taken a hold of his spine with a burning tong and pulling it out of his mouth. It scalds his heart and burns his soul.
The same feeling follows him as he stumbles down a forlorn road. His reflection is leering at him from the shattered pieces of glass and when he steps on them, he feels a certain satisfaction.
Crunch.
But Germany soon forgets about the glass, and about the crunching and he remembers that the pain he feels is not his pain. It is the pain of his people. He remembers this when another window smashes, and another scream reaches an – almost – beautiful crescendo. Stores, homes, synagogues; nothing escapes the hawk-eye of the Nazis.
Not if it's Jewish.
And Germany can only watch.
He watches as another home is emptied of its family and another window pane is emptied of its glass. He treads over something, looks down, and he blanches. It's a body of a not-yet broken woman. Her mouth is bubbling something red and white, her eyes are wild and her fingers are twitching; Germany thinks that she's reaching for something. For him? For life? For death?
He isn't given long to answer though. A soldier stumbles over her body, just as he did. He stares at her then with something akin to loathing, he pulls out a handgun. Germany turns away now.
He doesn't want to watch.
Germany shudders when the trigger sounds and a cacophony of screams becomes the air. He'd like to think that the night looks beautiful; magical even. The black road has become the night sky and the shards are like faux stars.
And Germany thinks that it's a little cold on this night of broken glass.