A Memory of Death
By Chris Sharp


In the very early days of the war, before even a shot was heard, we young soldiers had no idea what Death looked like. We had no inkling that Death had trained with us, traveled with us, bathed and ate with us. We had not even thought about anything like that. We were then still joking around like we were in a kind of school together.
In our regiment, it took almost a month for Death to make its presence known. His presence took us by surprise at our very initiation into combat, the first battle of Ypres as soon as we had stepped into Belgium.
What can I say about Ypres today, but that it was a huge crazy soccer game, where tens of thousands of young and inexperienced troops ran around a big playing field, getting killed and being killed with whatever bullet or bayonet was available. It was truly “the Massacre of the Innocents,” as the pundits described it later. Yes, it was that kind of war.
The night after the battle, I had a nightmare that replayed the whole bloody scene. In the dream, we were all running around the field once again, trying to play some new murderous version of soccer. This time Death was very visible and personified while running with us. In this dream, we were all gray, while Death was brown.
In my trench the next day, I spotted a soldier among us who looked much like the Death that was in my dream. It was an older soldier pressing a conversation with four younger men in a group. The effects of my nightmare pushed me closer to hear what Death was saying.
“And who are you?” Death asked.
“And how old are you?
“And what city or town or village did you come from?”
Then he looked at me, and I turned away.
I didn’t see Death again for a while but within a month, all of the four younger soldiers of that group were dead.
Then a few of months later I saw him again, talking to another group of younger soldiers.
“Who is that lance corporal?” I asked a friend of mine.
“A messenger,” my friend told me. “You’re not the first to ask that question. Do you see he’s wearing an Iron Cross? He found an officer, our own Lt. Gutterman, to recommend him for our highest medal to carry some of our position’s messages in the trickiest terrain. On the other hand, this fellow is very tricky himself. Being a messenger, he’s missing all the direct combat we’re getting, while his job has made him the pet of our key officers.”
“You sound you don’t like him.”
“I don’t know the man. But he looks like someone no one would want to know. Look at his face.”
Then a little later, I got a better look at the man himself. One day he stepped right in front of me.
“Hail,” he said.
The first thing I saw was his eyes, if you would call them eyes. They actually looked like some kind of blue bulbs. They were eyes that you couldn’t enter, guarded by a glassy film. They were inhuman eyes, and his questions reached around me to make me his entity.
“And who are you?” he asked.
“I’m a soldier who has to be here, just like you.”
“And how old are you?”
He smiled when I didn’t answer, showing bad teeth that were not only rotted, but somehow they seemed like beings he had abandoned.
“And what city or town or village are you from?” he asked.
I coughed and used the distraction to simply walk away from him. As I looked back, I saw him turn even paler than he already was.
That was about fifteen years ago, during which I had avoided Death so successfully I began to think I had gotten rid of him.
But today, in Nuremberg, I saw him again.
It was at one of the huge political rallies our nation is now producing, seemingly to kick some life into us again after we had ignominiously lost the war. I was able to get a good start so that I got one of the best seats that a war veteran was allowed. In fact, my seat was so choice that when our new leader stepped to the podium, he walked right by me.
The first thing I noticed was his walk proceeded so slowly, even though our leader is only in his early forties. Then as he stepped by me I saw his face, which I had often seen in pictures, but in full life, he face is very different. It is the face of Death.
He no longer wears that brush mustache he sported in the war. Now the mustache has turned into the square block under his wide nose that has become a trademark of his national presence. But he still prominently wears on his brown uniform the Iron Cross he had connived to earn so undeservedly from the officers he served and yet manipulated.
Then when he took his place on the podium, he stood still and silent for what seemed like an eternity. At last he began his much-awaited speech slowly, in a low voice with his thick Austrian accent. Then he turned up the volume.
Everyone in Germany is afraid of him now. They give him everything he asks of them. And I am probably more afraid of him than anyone. I am so afraid that I will never reveal my real fears anywhere outside this journal that I am now writing, and then I will soon hide this journal carefully. Because today, at the podium, I saw Death give everyone at this Nuremberg rally the look he once gave me in the middle of a war that was totally needless and insane. The look asks:
“And who are you?”


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Chris Sharp has had several flash-fiction stories published in Daily Love, Linguistic Implosion, Weirdyear and Yesteryear Fiction. His book, “Dangerous Learning: The New Schooling in California” is being distributed by Barnes & Noble and Amazon.