Those Who Forget History...

One might argue that the boy’s father was reckless. That he should have held something back.  That he should have known better…shouldn’t have put all his eggs in one basket…

Should have…

Could have…

Regardless of what you and I might think or say today from the safe perch of 'historical perspective'.... 

Regardless of how we reason and judge seated in our comfy armchairs...

... sheltered from

the noise and

the chaos and

the pounding of the heart and

the smell of burning

... that we can turn off when dinner is ready... the news receding into a dump-pile of oblivion with the rest for they reach us but they don't touch us...

...

But, the boy saw, and heard, and smelled, and his heart trembled at the fierce wind blowing down the slopes of his mountains, descending  with the roar of engines onto his village.

Piercing the nights with the rat-ta-ta-tas of machine guns.

Upturning his father's basket and everything contained in it. 

The same fiery wind was still blowing as the boy watched his father planted into the ground like one plants a potato.  With his dandy felt hat resting on his motionless chest.

Then he watched, numb, the clumps of dirt cover his mom too.

The money in the burlap sacks turned into ashes.  Overnight.

The little boys understand very little of the big man’s games.  Dangerous games that men with guns play. He understood even less of papier-Mâché  governments.

The new paper money was printed by the new paper Mache government, declaring all the old paper worthless. Simple as that.

No father. No mother. No money. No hope. No God. At least not the one who takes Christmas ham.

The year was 1942.