Recluse

This piece is especially important to me. I wrote it on November 14, 1995. As with my other old written works, this still haunts me in the power of it's message. It's rather short, mind you, but it will take you to another time, another place, and challenge you to lay bare your understanding of the strength of the human spirit and hope.

"In darkness and silence they eagerly listen to her singing. What little light that may fall on the withered and broken slats showing still figures hunched in corners revealed a human tragedy. The horror of it all cannot hide the beauty of her voice, transcending to the heavens. So they listen to her sing. From afar they couldn't quite make out the words to her song but her nightingale voice they welcomed greatfully.

The women and children on the far side of the barracks wept whenever her singing was heard. They were reminded perhaps of bitter memories of happier times unlike the cruel realization which they must continually face and live with. Times, perhaps, when life was simple and the war so distant. Of course, to the prisoners of Auschwitz, any sign of hope is wasted effort. Hope was a dangerous thing to hold on to because it waylays what little strength they may have. Still they listen to her song. Her voice makes them forget. To forget is better they say. Pay no heed to your hunger, to your pains, to the bitter cold, to the stern possibility that the very next moment may be your last, they say.

The men shuffle their way to the tiny cracks on the wall or between haphazardly nailed wooden slats to hear, even only for a brief moment, to hear the beauty of her singing. Their worn and torn bodies offer little protection to the knife-edge cold. So she sang. She took them to prairies filled with summer flowers and butterflies. She showed them the many beauties of her little french cottage in the south of France. So together they journeyed and together they forgot where they were. For a brief moment with parched lips they smiled. She has awakened in their hearts the undying power of the gleeful spirit. In that short instance, in that flicker of eternity, she gave them what they have longed for-RECLUSE."