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

Assignment

I had been told of the dangers of the assignment and assured my boss that I could handle it. Now on the dark, ominously quiet streets after curfew, in Nazi-occupied Poland, I wondered. I told myself I’m doing it for my country and for myself.

I hid the folded map in the secret compartment in the heel of my shoe. If I am captured, we will all be tortured and then executed.

I continued until I reached my destination and handed over the map to the leader of the resistance.

I finally let out a sigh of relief and wept.

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.

The Well-Tempered Clavier

Bach wrote a ton of beautiful music while he lived in Germany, or was it Poland? I’m not up on his heritage, though I wish I was. He was some kind of guy. Organs and harpsichords all over the place. Probably in the United States too, though now I think it’s mostly those big Steinways, and everyone knows they were the best for Vladimir. I mean the Vladimir who could actually play the piano. Not the Vladimir they have now, over there. The puppet master, the interloper, the one who poisons people. But what can we do? Bach is dead.

From Guest Contributor Linda Lowe

Linda wishes that the wind stop blowing.