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Nia, a Jew
The day was dark, cold, and dressed in gray. That's the way all the days appeared, since They came.
Don't complain, Nia told herself bitterly. It's prohibited. Independent thought, the way life used to be (a distant memory), all against the rules, that They came and established without our consent.
Again she raised her head from the dirty gray ground, barely able to see through the gray foggy air (it was early morning). Again she pinned on that accursed yellow star, that used to be a holy insignia but now was a mark of her abnormality, her Jewishness, and an excuse for the Passerby to hate her without reason.
Again she immersed herself in invisible armor, silently wishing for it to be gone, but it stayed, mocking her (it always did).
***********************
Lisolette, a handicapped person
Nazis, they called themselves. Inhuman, killing machines dressed in gray, calling themselves mortal as they shine their black boots to match their cold, glinting eyes. Lisolette wished them away, bent and broken on the ground.
They were coming.
It was her paralyzed leg, her flaw, that they were coming for. It was her, in her imperfection, they were coming...
It wasn't long enough, those two minutes on the ground, waiting. Knowing that today was decimation, today they were going to kill her and not care.
She watched the daily distribution of the meager meals from a distance, not bothering to ask David to help her. What did it matter?
It was today, it wasn't long enough, and they were coming.
***********************
Pasco, a gypsy
"Don't care," he said nonchalantly.
Velita gave him a dirty look.
"Don't pretend."
Speech was short, utilitarian, and only uttered when convienient. That's how it was, in the ghetto, how life was. The penalty for an actual conversation was death.
But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Pasco smiled.
"You really don't care, do you, Pasco?" she said softly. Now her blue eyes were a dismal gray. They matched her, they matched all of them, dressed in gray.
"I care, but they're never hear it from me," he replied shortly, glaring at a nearby soldier.
She nodded, brushing a black curl away from her face. Her beautiful scarves and jewelry were gone, just like the blue in her eyes.
"One day the war will end, Pasco, and we'll all wake up."
He knew what she meant, looking at the man beside him who cried without ceasing, the woman who stared into space as she twirled her hair, twirled, twirled.
He snapped his head away, refusing to fall into the doldrums they were all lost in, waking up.
***********************
A Nazi soldier
They're not human! It doesn't matter what we do to them, they're imperfect and that's not what what we need!
Over and over and over not human not human not human
But he couldn't do it. They breathed, the ragged dying breaths of the Jewish girl in the street. They bled, the coursing crimson rivers rushing from the heart of the handicapped girl in the concentration camp. They felt, the defiant scream of the gypsy boy that fell to the ground as they beat him down, as his sister watched.
He looked around and saw that he was the only one who cared. All of them stood, with impassive masks, all had watched when he murdered innocent children and all looked the same then and now.
He took a shuddering breath. Tommorow this will all be but a memory. Tomorrow the killing of innocents will be the daily routine again, as it always had been.
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