Cold
Munich was a cold city. There were nights that I was sure would never end. Those were the nights that we couldn't forget. The death, the poverty, the depression… It surrounded you and formed a miserable cocoon. The Nazi raids had ended long ago, but the memories of sleepless, horrific nights remained.
Many times, I questioned myself. My sanity. My ability. My duty as an older brother to protect the fragile life I had given so much to save. Was it all even real?
But I knew it was real. I couldn't imagine anything near as devastating as waking up to gunshots and the hushed sobs of my brother's broken spirit. I knew he tried to be strong, but under everything, he was still a child. I should have known better than to chain him to this cold city.
And cold it was. Every winter seemed more unbearable than the last. We were poor enough as it was that we could hardly feed ourselves, let alone buy firewood. But we managed. Year after year, we barely survived. Come spring, we were shells of humans, but we survived.
But miracles don't exist in this world or our home. Money doesn't last forever or grow on trees. I knew we were running out of burnable material- all the books were chars, the furniture was long ago turned to ash. The fire went out one night while we were asleep. It wasn't long before he became sick. His cheeks, already so chapped by the cold, became blood red from fever. His form, reduced to skin and bone, began to shake violently. We had no money for medicine, so the best I could do was give him all my food. Nothing I did helped. I woke up next to a cold body void of a pulse on- I remember the day, even without a calendar- February third. My twenty-third birthday.
I didn't know what to do at first. Wait, let me rephrase that. I knew what to do, but I didn't know how to go about it. I couldn't cry. I couldn't even move for hours. But I had known what I needed to do.
It was midday before I managed to stand up. I walked over to our junk pile- that is, the pile of inflammable objects. There was a gun in the pile. Nothing special, just a nine millimeter pistol. The barrel fit perfectly in my temple.
They say Munich is a cold city. They don't even know the definition of the word.