Another Silent Night

I want to make it home this year, knowing the chances are slim to none, but one can try.

Instead of fighting traffic and battling crowds trying to buy last minute gifts. I am fighting to stay alive and battling against others who are doing their best to make sure I never see home again. Such is the life of a pawn, in this game of political ambition and foolish pride.

Leaning against the frozen ground I huddle in the trench that has become my new place of residence. Slushy water seeps into our boots and clothing. Sucking what little warmth, we have left in us. Haunting dead eyes from the living stare back at me, few words are spoken as we robotically go about our day. The lines between surreal and reality blur into a meaningless existence. We search for anything positive around us, desperately trying to hang onto what little humanity we have lingering within our soul. Distant memories, and stories we tell ourselves work, but those too are fading into the fog of history.

One of our comrades found a discarded doll, he cleaned it up and cares for it like it is his child. How messed up is that?

We are ordinary people, forced into a bad situation.

I breathe in the smells of rich turned soil, blood, and the lingering odour of fear. The last of the sun’s rays fade into dusk, on the far horizon the rising moon glows like a beacon of hope. One by one, stars peek through the nighttime mist, giving us the courage to fight through the emotional darkness in our mind. Insecurities weave through our thoughts, like shadows lurking under childhood beds.

The heavenly lights from faraway suns, warms what little kindness we have remaining in our hearts. I wrap the blackness of night around me like a blanket, praying it gives me the strength I need to survive one more day, and the next and the next, until I will be allowed to leave this man-made purgatory.

Drifting back to happier times, I remember closing my eyes while listening to distant carolers singing outside our home. Now, I listen for the soft deadly footsteps of those trying to close our eyes forever. It is the eerie sound of silence at night that is the worst, I lay waiting and wondering when I shall be woken once more into this living hell.

There are times where I convince myself that to resolve this mess, all we need to do is talk to each other, soldier to soldier.

There was a story I read once. About another war, where on a crisp night under a full moon two armies faced each other. On Christmas eve back in nineteen fourteen a calm appeared, giving both sides time to reflect on the futility of their actions and madness. A temporary truce of sorts took place. In battered trenches, candlelight glowed, lighting the evening mist, voices could be heard from both sides, a realization at how close they were to one another. With an angels voice, a melody floated in the air, although the words were different, both sides knew the song. What started as a lone voice soon became a choir sung from friend and foe alike. One by one soldiers converged from both sides to join in and share a kindness once more. A simple truth, as the words of ‘Silent night ‘floated up and rose to the skies. A reminder that they were all the same, with hopes and dreams of their own, which did not include the madness of war. These same men that not long ago would have waved and smiled at each other, now raise weapons, and toss hand grenades instead.

For a moment they were themselves, the person their parents brought them up to become, the role model they wish their children to see. Individuals who love and wish to be loved.

Not these forced enemies created due to perverted politicians and troubled times.

Staring into the darkness, I wonder could we ever do that again or are those days of honor and respect gone forever. Can we set aside our differences and for one moment live as brothers? Would I be able to forgive so easily? In today’s war, would that person be greeted by a chorus of voices joining in, or a sniper’s bullet instead?

More than a hundred years later have we learned nothing?

I gaze upon the small makeshift Christmas tree we dragged into our hole. Nothing more than a shattered tree branch, decorated with a string of bullet shells, empty food tins and draped with first aid gauze. But it brings with it a little bit of home, a warmth we all crave.

In the distance, there is the sound of bells ringing out, for once no other noise disturbs the night. It dawns on me, tonight is Christmas eve, until this very moment I hadn’t realized it was upon us. My mind drifts to my children, my wife. I will not be there; I will not hear their laughter and giggles. There will be no embrace for me.

Looking to the darkened sky, grey blue clouds roll across a starlit backdrop. A cool dampness lands upon my cheek, I watch as flakes of white drift silently across the barren field, cleansing the filth we created.

Suddenly I feel a warmth within my soul, a calmness envelope my body. My comrade’s eyes grow wide with horror and fear as they watch me set my rifle in the mud and stand.

Smiling, I raise my voice to the heavens and begin to sing.

Thank you,

Jason

Rumour of a lone soldier in WWI, singing silent night suggest the truce began with this carol coming from the trenches. I chose to create a story that takes place nearly 110 years later.

In the early months of World War I, on Christmas Eve, men on both sides of the trenches laid down their arms and joined in a spontaneous celebration. Despite orders to continue shooting, the unofficial truce spread across the front lines. Even the participants found what they were doing incredible: Germans placed candlelit Christmas trees on trench parapets, warring soldiers sang carols, and men on both sides shared food parcels from home. They climbed from the trenches to meet in "No Man's Land" where they buried the dead, exchanged gifts, ate, and drank together, and even played soccer.

A narrative by Stanley Weintraub

Main photo by the New Yorker