Dissenter
русский
“I cannot shoot.”
The words are thick and heavy in his mouth. Spitting away the dust of a week’s silence, his voice is rusty and mechanical as he holds out a hand to the boy. It is dirty with the spoils of war; dried blood has forced its way into every individual line on his palm, a memoir of those he has killed blindly in the name of home and country. It is foreign to him, the act of forgiveness in a place so bloody but he cannot shoot somebody as young as his own son. Not when he knows that there is nothing worth fighting for anymore -- the Germans have already lost.
Not when he knows the pain of losing a child.
The words are thick and heavy in his mouth. Spitting away the dust of a week’s silence, his voice is rusty and mechanical as he holds out a hand to the boy. It is dirty with the spoils of war; dried blood has forced its way into every individual line on his palm, a memoir of those he has killed blindly in the name of home and country. It is foreign to him, the act of forgiveness in a place so bloody but he cannot shoot somebody as young as his own son. Not when he knows that there is nothing worth fighting for anymore -- the Germans have already lost.
Not when he knows the pain of losing a child.