Dissenter
русский
The body lying at his boots is not that of a hulking Nazi officer as he expected — it is that of a terrified child.
The gun in his arms, usually so resolute and final in its aim, falters a little as he watches a set of shoulders shake silently. He is thin and frail, like the branches of a tree ravaged by the winter winds; crumbles like the outer walls of the buildings that surround them. The thick cotton uniform he wears seems to swallow him whole as he sobs, the sound wretched as the screams of comrades downed by wayward bullets.
He has been told to shoot the German dissenter, to bring the lifeless body back to base.
But he cannot shoot a child.
The gun in his arms, usually so resolute and final in its aim, falters a little as he watches a set of shoulders shake silently. He is thin and frail, like the branches of a tree ravaged by the winter winds; crumbles like the outer walls of the buildings that surround them. The thick cotton uniform he wears seems to swallow him whole as he sobs, the sound wretched as the screams of comrades downed by wayward bullets.
He has been told to shoot the German dissenter, to bring the lifeless body back to base.
But he cannot shoot a child.