Guard

The years went through the corn just as easily as the breeze, never felt for a moment until it had already gone past. Herman strained against his binds, the twine that bound his wrists had begun to cut into his skin sometime during the Eisenhower administration and while he wasn’t sure if there was much left of him to leak out, he could feel the blood well and truly sludged in his veins, he fought still, but for lucidity. Herman knew not how many more summers he would be awake for, each sleep had been longer than the last and each awakening a torture against atrophy and disuse. He knew there would come a time when the stalks grew tall that Herman would not open his eyes, a family of field mice might make use of his ear canals, an owl what remained of his skull, and teenagers the scraps of his limbs long since withered into strands of brittle leather. He knew he would not awake and this breeze, with hints of the year’s sweet corn harvest, would be the last he might taste. 

The breeze carried memories of Mauthausen, the frigid mornings that would stiffen his uniform, ice carried on the downwind from the quarry and cast a chill deep into his bones. He had been dutiful when duty came and contrite when emancipation arrived, but had never wavered. A guard need only watch. The faces below never changed, never ventured beyond sallow emaciation. It hadn’t mattered to him. They had only ever been numbers looking up at him, begging and quietly pleading for something well beyond his reach. He was just a guard.  

The irascible Jew had taken the best and given back years far more sour. Years tied to the same hunk of rotwood, stained by foul weather and solitude as atonement. Herman wondered if he could really blame the Jew for the loneliness? The post certainly, but loneliness less so. His was deep in the corn. Deeper than the tractor would till, where the sprouts were less planned and more a matter of nature’s routine. It was a cruel joke the Jew had played on him and had the Jew had his way with it, Herman was certain that decades would pass with his watch relegated to purposelessness, left to stew and rot amongst the harvest year after year. During the summer nights when the sun hung low until the chilled hours of the night, he could see them grow, the dim light of the farmhouse barely a speck against the lid of his eyes. He was there when their raven haired girl had lost her front teeth tripping down the porch step, been a proxy to their arguments as to her rearing, watched as their home became empty once more. Herman thought to all the pain he had witnessed in Mauthausen, without any of the beauty and in the dim summer light wondered if he had not taken that from himself as well. 

The numbers on the wrist had faded to insalubrious flecks of blue, nestled amongst ridges of wrinkled skin. Herman was without sensation in what he could in good conscious continue to call his limbs, but the rustling of movement brought him back to consciousness. His eyes opened to see the irascible Jew cutting through his twine with a pair of gardening shears. Herman expected that after all of these years, the last scraps of him had fallen apart and he was being retired to a burn pit with the rest of last year’s husks, he was mortified to see the encroaching sight of a farmhouse. 

The Jew had aged well until recently, photos lined the countertop featuring a much more portly version of the man alongside a stout red haired woman towering a few inches above, the raven haired girl tucked underneath the Jew’s arm. Herman had been positioned in an armed leather chair, years of post dwelling had made him rigid and brittle, as his weight settled he heard flecks of himself chip away. The Jew was thinner now, older, a veil of sickness carried over his eyes that in the dim light made it look like he had never left the camp. The two stared at each other for a long time, neither wagering a word until finally the raspy voice of the Jew began to croak out. Cruelty begets cruelty the Jew supposed, and had either of them been natured with the capacity for forgiveness, they both could have lived a life somewhat decent, although the Jew quickly caveated, he had been blessed with what life had cultivated for him until recently. Cancer had taken hold and he wasn’t sure if it was the treatment or Herman keeping him up at night. Even without you in my field he continued, you would have been a part of my life. The Jew’s voice was distant and Herman felt himself slipping away, lulled back into the sleep that strove to take away his lucidity, he fought to stay awake. The Jew leaned in, closely examining the scarecrow before asking if the man inside had any regrets of it all? Herman wanted to holler, to dispute it violently, but when the visceral need to retaliate abandoned him, a thought of purpose escaped, he questioned if he had truly found his? The seams of his lips tore to utter a response, but the only noise that arose from his mouth was the sound of rustling corn stalks. 

When he awoke next, the twine on his wrist had been replaced but yellowed and the farmhouse had long since been in disrepair. Herman wondered if this was the last, a final gasp of lucidity, a shudder before the beautiful. He thought to the old Jew and their conversation. He wondered if his purpose could be so small, a trivial thing unremarked upon but vital all the same? The corn wasn’t tall enough for the breeze yet, hardly even swayed.