Demise of a nation (Greg Dombrowski)


Thursday, March 6th

During the first years of China's life, the different regime changes meant trouble. Each new ruler tried to erase every trace of its predecessor, including the nation in their care. That way, China experienced the different execution methods, from the five pains to burial, including the thousand cuts. He survived each one of them and the different dynasties had to accept they would have to take him under their wind, reeducate him, instead of creating a new nation which would replace him.

By the end of the 18th century the same revolutionaries who guillotined king Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette arrested the French nation, who they accused of taking part in the oppression his people had suffered during the centuries and beheaded him in the Place de la Concorde. France's head, to general dismay, insulted those who did it and didn't stop bickering until it was sewn back to his body, and the ones responsible for that outrage were guillotined.

Around that time, a demented clergyman, against the popular vision of England being a divine creature, published a pamphlet in which England was presented as nothing but a wizard who had acquired immortality through pacts with the devil and one day got to kidnap him and burned him in a pyre like it had to be done to followers of Satan like him. Chronicles say England's burned flesh recomposed in front of the astonished eyes of those who found him.

These are just some of the things the Doctor told me, before applying them to me.

Those were days I really want to forget, so I am forced to omit the details. I will only say that man and his helper wanted to see in live, under the light of modern science, why the bodies of the nations could suffer all kinds of damage but couldn't die. What they saw surprised them, no doubt. I heard Nurse, who I think was actually scared of us, say several times that it was monstrous. She, by the way, didn't keep her promise and never used anesthesia on me.

I don't know how many days passed since I was captured. I only know I felt increasingly weaker. Apart from the torture I didn't eat or drank, they didn't even let me sleep. They tried everything that could kill a person on me. I was left exhausted, asking myself, yes, why couldn't I die and end with all of that.

There were times when I thought maybe letting myself die...

Then, my brother saved me. Much before I saw his face again.

A man came in. They called him G, it was a man with glasses, red haired. He had champagne in his hand.

"What are we celebrating?" the Doctor asked with a smile.

"We're making great progress lately. Greenland is dead and they just said on the television that Austria and Switzerland have fallen too.

"NO!"

I didn't mean to scream but it was something that came from deep inside of me, which took me out of the drowsy state I was after one of the Doctor's sessions and brought me back to life. I remember I stood up as much as the shackles allowed me to and I screamed.

"You couldn't do that! Liars! He can't be dead!"

"What's the matter with her?" G asked me, pointing at me. The thing is I was talking in my language and he didn't understand a single word I was saying.

"She's upset because her friends are dying" the Doctor replied, looking at me with a smile.

"In that case, we'd better relief her suffering quick, don't you think?"

"Come on, be a good girl and shut up" the Nurse told me, pushing me back to the stretcher.

But I didn't stop screaming. They had to sedate me to calm me down. Even though my mind was left terribly damaged after it, I kept on thinking. In that place I had, unfortunately, a lot of time to think.

My brother was dead. And I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe he had been one of the first to fall. I really thought his people loved him, because he was so good to them and loved them. It wasn't in my head, how quickly they abandoned him. It couldn't be true. It couldn't be true, I repeated to myself again and again, crying.

What would I do without Switzerland, I asked myself next. He was the one who taught me everything I know, who took care of me, the person I admired the most in the world. Now I was alone and that captivity felt even more unbearable.

But then I thought about him. About what he would have said if he had been there.

'Don't cry, Liechtenstein. What's the use of crying?'

It was useful to help me let out all the anguish I felt for my situation, but once I let everything out, it was time to think with clarity. It was what my brother would have done. What he expected me to do. So I did. I swallowed my tears and analyzed the situation coldly.

I let them try their horrible ways of execution on me, and among each pain I started taking note on their movements.

Someone called M came to visit from time to time and the Doctor and the Nurse went to meet her and tell her about their findings. I was in a hole with no windows nor clocks, so I had no notion of time. I got to have an approximate idea of the days by the body hygiene of the Doctor. He didn't allow me to be shabby. 'A shower a day is yay', he said as he washed my body with a hose. He also smelled particularly at certain times, like flowers. That way, I knew each time he smelt good and washed me a new day started. With that information, I could calculate when M's next visit would be. Each three days.

I noticed a few more things. In the door at the end of the stairs taking to the street. Each time someone came in or out a cold breeze made me shiver and gave me goosebumps. I didn't know what was on the other side, but it was the street indeed, maybe I had a chance.

Talking about the cold, the day when I decided to escape the Doctor put a blanket on me and caressed my cheeks as he used to do. I heard him mutter something. It was Russian. Even though people like me have a lot of time to learn languages and it is necessary to understand each other, I hadn't started studying that precise language seriously yet. But I could understand a name: Heidi. At that moment I didn't know if he referred to the girl from the book or if he mentioned someone called like that. The thing is that day M had to show up, I believed. And I am glad to say my calculations were correct. Nurse opened the door and descended some steps.

"M is here. And she wants us to make her happy."

Doctor looked at me and kissed my forehead softly.

"Good night, my precious" he told me, and left.

He got away and soon disappeared through the door. I was left alone.

It was time to act.

As I said, the days I spent in that place were filled with pain. At that point, if I had the chance to escape, I didn't mind suffering a little more.

I fought the shackles and yes, I broke the bones of my left hand on purpose.

It hurt a lot, but I was used to pain. I just bit my lips not to scream.

I got to get it through the ring. Even though it hurt so much and I couldn't move it well, I got to untie the strap around my other hand. With this one free I released my ankles.

When I got up from the table my legs faltered because of how weak I was and all the time I had spent lying down. Like a fawn, I started moving around the room. I saw the photos they took of each of the procedures, the instruments used on me. I didn't find my clothes, so I took one of the Doctor's coats from a chair and put it on.

I lost no more time and headed to the door.

Unfortunately, right when my fingers touched the doorknob, Nurse opened the door.

I almost fell backwards because of the surprise. She grabbed me and forced me inside, very disturbed.

"How did you...?!"

She squeezed my broken hand and hurt me so much. The Doctor smiled but the Nurse was very agitated. She's going to do every single abominable thing she can come up with, I thought, because I've tried to escape.

Then a voice spoke:

"She escaped? Great! I want to keep her."

What I am about to write is something I haven't told to anyone, not even Switzerland. If you ever read this, dear brother, I hope you forgive me for not having told you. It was too horrible for me.

There was someone in front of the exit door. It was a child. A girl, I believed. She looked around eight years old. She had dark curly hair, almond-shaped eyes and her skin had different colors—sorry, I just saw on the Internet that the name is vitiligo—; had spots all over her body and a white strip in her black face as if she was wearing an eye mask. Her eyes were yellow. I swear.

I remember Nurse turned around to look at her with surprise.

"A-Are you sure? But...we need her..."

"I told you I want her" the girl insisted. "She made a fool of you and she's pretty. I like her. I want her."

The Nurse looked at the Doctor and he shrugged.

"If Tero wants her" said a voice from outside. It belonged to a black woman with curly hair who wore a colorful scarf, "give her to her. We already have Germany to continue the experimentation."

"Experimenting with him after what happened in the concentration camps will be poetic justice, right?" Doctor grinned.

The girl grabbed me from the wrist and made some comments about my nudity under the coat.

I asked England not too long ago, during a meeting, how he knew America was a nation when he found him. He told me he really didn't know how to explain it. He supposed we recognize each other, like some kind of sixth sense. I believe it is so. Because the very moment I saw that girl they called Tero I knew she was a nation. The nation the movement had created. The one who would replace us all.