Traitor

The streets were eerily quiet, and I knew Nazis were lurking around. I stood in the woods and listened to the animals’ noises until I heard footsteps. It was the contact. He said the code word and I handed him the papers. He was gone as quickly as he came.

I was about to make my way back to the resistance when I heard another set of footsteps. I braced myself and reached for my weapon, but it was gone. Traitorous monster, I thought. He swiped my knife.

A Nazi appeared pointing a barrel of a gun to my head.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Resistance

The Nazis arrived in Poland stomping down the street showing their authority. My mother was in the kitchen cooking dinner, the smell of vegetables wafting in the air, and my father had the radio on listening to the broadcast of the invasion. I sat next to him and stared out the window. For no apparent reason, one of the soldiers kicked a man that stood on the sidewalk with I’m assuming his young daughter. The girl screamed when the man collapsed in a heap. Was this the world now? No one was safe.

The next day I joined the resistance.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Nothing To Lose

When I flung open the door and saw my father’s body in a pool of blood, I collapsed, screamed and cried in a fit of rage and sadness. I knew I shouldn’t have left him. He said it would be safer at Aunt Ania’s, but nowhere is safe in Poland. I had no idea the Nazis could be so brutal. He was protecting his friends and now he is dead, and they are in the hands of the Nazis.

There’s only one thing I can do. I will join the resistance and make a difference.

I have nothing to lose.

From Guest Contributor Lisa Scuderi-Burkimsher

Document

The rain pelts my face, the umbrella useless. I walk quickly, but not enough to draw attention. I must get to my destination and back before curfew.

The document I carry may save countless lives. If the Nazis stop me for a search, they’ll never find it.

“Do you have it?”

I place the umbrella down, dripping, release my shoe and pull the document from my heel, handing it to the contact.

“Good work,” he says and hands me a paper that I neatly place into the heel of my shoe.

I leave and make my way home before curfew.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Search

I scramble the room for the file. Many lives depend on the information, including mine. When I accepted this job, I knew the risks involved and didn’t care. Now I just want to go back to my life.

Where is it? I search the desk drawer and every cabinet, but nothing. Major Thompson may be wrong. I swear quietly. It is not here.

Outside the sirens roar and car doors slam. Yelling soon follows.

I slip out onto the ledge and wait for their destruction to end before entering the room again.

The Nazi’s didn’t catch me. Not this time.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

My Father

My father says it’s okay to be scared, but now it’s time to be brave. I trust and look up to him, so when he tells me to hide under the floorboard because the Nazis are coming, I do so.

There’s banging at the front door, and then it bursts open. Footsteps and yelling are what I hear. My legs are cramped and I’m sweating from my forehead to my cheeks.

My father is crying, pleading with the Nazis and I feel helpless hiding. I want to show myself, but I’m too frightened.

Gunshot, thump, silence.

My father is dead.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Life Misspelled

Intelligent machines probe not only my words, but also the silent spaces between words, searching for hidden doors to secret rooms. As a kid, I won a goldfish at the county fair by tossing a ping-pong ball into the fish’s bowl. My mom flushed Goldie down the toilet while I was at school. I think of it sometimes when I see Nazis invading Poland on the History Channel. “Last name?” the woman behind the counter asks, eyes on the computer screen, hands poised on the keyboard. “Good,” I say. “How do you spell that?” “Like God, but with two o’s.”From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author most recently of Stick Figure Opera: 99 100-word Prose Poems from Cajun Mutt Press. He co-edits the online journals Unbroken and UnLost.