Work Text:
Page 1.
I was born in the village of Bielefeld in 1928. The sky there was always grey, always sad as it looked down on our petty home. My father was a hollow man, and had a limp from the Great War. I always used to watch him polish his boots, and sometimes he’d let me polish them with him. Father never really smiled much, and to his defense, we didn’t have much to smile at anyways. I didn’t understand it until I went to war myself, joining the nazi army when I was seventeen. I feel like I lost my smile after that; the way war lingers on your hands even when it is over and the rifle was long taken from me.
I'm writing this right now with a hand that cannot keep still, like an autumn leaf. One of the ones that have spent too long laying on the floor and are now all dried up and crunchy, like they’re going to turn to dust at a mere touch. I’ve noticed that callouses have started to form on my knuckles too, but… not really callouses. They’re almost orange in colour, like a piece of rusty metal peeling away after years of tolerating storms. My knuckles crack when I try to grip the pen too hard, and the ink runs like blood when I press too soft. There are things I remember, and things I can’t forget, and I need to write it all down before I lose them. I won’t stop until it’s all down. I can’t stop. Won’t. Won’t stop.
Page 2.
When I was seventeen, they gave me my first rifle. They called it a Mauser, but I called it Clara, after the girl I kissed behind the fields the summer before the uniforms came in lines and numbers. She was beautiful; had a red ribbon in her hair. Or maybe it was blue. Either way, she smiled like someone who didn’t know the world was ending. Back then, I did too. We were happy before it all; I do miss her sometimes.
The gun was heavy, but it felt right in my palms when I first held it. Clara (the rifle, not the girl) had a scar along the barrel where someone had dropped her, I think. They told us we were the proud generation, that “Germany will rise”, as the officer said. I remember his voice; very clean and smooth.
I remember the mud, mostly. Sweet but rancid like a rotting piece of fruit. We called it Schlammhaut, which means mud skin, because it would cling to you like a second layer of skin. It always got into my boots and behind my ears; it lived with you basically. There was this boy from Dresden who claimed it gave him nightmares; nightmares of his mother by the sink, always peeling potatoes with no eyes.
I remember his name. I think it was Otto.
Yes. Otto.
We were good friends, I think. Or maybe I shot him. That part is quite blurred actually, there was a lot of smoke back then. His face was too pale to tell.
No, wait, hang on. Otto gave me his gloves, remember that; for the frostbite. That’s definitely what happened. Otto was definitely kind, but not the kindness you’d read about books, but a kindness that smelt like blood and decaying wool.
I miss him, sometimes. He still visits dreams. Wears the gloves.
Page 3.
There’s something about metal left in the rain.
Clara changed over time. Not visibly, but I felt it in my shoulder. She seemed angrier, not like Clara. The trigger didn’t click right, even though I cleaned it every day, like we were told to do to stop it from stiffening, but rust is like memory. Creeping into corners you didn’t know were there.
I once shot a man whose eyes were the colour of sky right before lightening. He wasn’t holding a gun, just bread. My superior officer said “Collateral.” But I remember the way his mouth twitched, like he wanted to ask me something. Maybe “why?” I feel like I knew the answer to that was simple, but I never actually found out what I’d say back. Maybe if he actually asked I would have had the answer.
I still feel his breath on my hands.
Page 4.
My wife’s name was Elisabeth. Or is. She’s gone now though, I think. Her hair was made from salt and her breath was always snatched by the wind. We planted a tree once in the backyard; a pear tree. No, wait. I hated pears. We planted an apple tree. I tied a red ribbon to it, I remember; to remember something. Maybe Clara.
No. Elisabeth didn’t like Clara.
The tree had no fruit the first year, or the second. By the third year, I went to war again. Not for a country this time, but for the space in between my dreams; the blank, empty space that needed to be filled with memories I no longer had. All I remember from them is a kitchen, and a ticking clock.
I think we had a son.
His name was Rolf, or Paul. He had grey eyes like mine, but wider. Blond locks like Elisabeth’s, but softer. I remember he screamed once when I shouted at the stove. I wasn’t angry at him, but he didn’t know that. He ran out the house barefoot. Right into the snow,
Where is he now? Why doesn’t he write to me?
Page 5.
I live in a small white room now, where the nurses are nice. Her name is Clara. Red Clara. She gives me tea that tastes like apples.
There’s a man in the hallways with no face. He hums war songs backwards. I ask for his name sometimes and all he does is give me a tooth, but not his. Because he doesn’t have a face.
I think I was a soldier once. The rifle is under my bed. Clara was her name, I remember that. Or maybe she lives on my floor. Or inside me? Sometimes I still hear her smile.
The wall has a crack shaped like a bird. I talk to it.
I say “Do you remember Clara?”
It says “Yes I do.”
I say “Was she real?”
It says “What is real?”
I say “Exactly.”
There is rust on my hands. They aren’t callouses.
Page 6.
I remember now
There is a camp.
A fence
Ash in the air
A little girl with a blue ribbon and a striped dress who didn’t blink.
I was told not to look at her too long. I looked away
She had eyes like mine.
Green, maybe. Or brown. Or both.
I gave her bread once, but she didn’t eat it.
Just held it.
They shot me for that.
Wait no, they didn’t, I’m still here.
I think?
I keep hearing boots in the hallway. The pen is bleeding. My hands smell like rust.
Sometimes I pick at the skin on my knuckles just to see what’s underneath the rust. It’s not bone, or blood, or muscle. It’s
It
It’s war.
Page 7.
i saw otto in the garden
he had my face
we were young again
the mud was gone
clara loved me again
the gun was wood
and it never
never
never
nevr
This diary was found among the belongings of Heinrich Vogel, age 97, who passed away at a care facility in northern Germany in 2025. No known descendants. Military records confirm he served on the Eastern Front in 1945-47. Medical records show he had been suffering from Alzheimer's for several years.
The tree he wrote about was found in the courtyard of his final residence. A red ribbon was tied to one of its branches. It had no apples.