The Final Moments

The sky was bright and the day was young. The morning sun shone from afar and illuminated everything that was below it. The leaves of the trees rustled gently as the light morning breeze of spring passed by them.
           
            I was about to end my visit with Lina and the children. Little Silke clung to my arm. She did not want me to go to Berlin, but I had to go. It was important for me to go, a mission, almost. Part of me did not want to leave either. I stayed for a bit longer just to calm Silke down.

            The time for me to leave had come. I said my farewells to Lina and the kids then went to summon Klein so that we could depart. I wanted to get there as soon as possible in order to tell the Führer about my success as Reichsprotektor. The savage Czechs had finally been taught how to behave like civilized Germans, and it was all because of my efforts. I had given order to a people that had lived so long without it and that, I felt, was worthy of mention.
       
            “Klein!” I summoned. “Klein! It’s time for us to go!”
           
            I waited as Klein pulled over. I got in the car and we drove off.

          Klein and I drove past the quiet, unpopulated streets. We took the customary roads, the ones that we had always taken. They had proved themselves to be reliable and the fact that we were familiar with them was also of appeal.

        We drove for some time, but not for too long. We were still in Prague, after all. It was late morning. It was somewhere between 10 and 11 o’clock because the sun was prominent, but had not yet reached its maximum capacity for the day.

        Klein kept driving at a steady pace until he slowed down in order to prepare for the turn ahead. I was relaxed; nothing seemed out of place so far.

      Then, out of the corner of my eye I noticed a man. He was quiet, his face filled with terror and he had a Sten submachine gun, which was a British type of weapon. He was pointing it at me, but it would not fire when he tried to use it. I was immediately angered. Who was this little Czech and whatever convinced him that he could dare to try and shoot me?

      I ordered Klein to stop the vehicle. I wanted to teach this senseless rebel a lesson. I wanted to make him regret getting up from bed that morning.

    “Lowlife little Czech!” I thought. “I’ll have you strung up by your feet and beaten to a bloody pulp!”

    Just as I was preparing to go after him, confident and calm, something went horribly wrong.

    Unexpectedly, a grenade exploded in the right side, near the back of the car, too close to where I was at the moment.

      I felt the full impact of the explosion. The metal and glass shards went inside my body like the blades of a thousand sharpened daggers. Most of the damage was done to the area where my lower rib cage was. The car itself was a wreck, its windows shattered and the back was completely totaled.

      Shock was my reaction to the explosion. It was immediately followed by an intense mix of pain, desperation, fear and anger. I felt an anger that rose beyond the limitations of an Earthly rage. I knew that I had to die, it was solely inevitable, but if I was to die, I would take these men down with me.

    Without even thinking, I pulled my gun out. In a rage, I tried to shoot back at them, but the damn thing wouldn’t work. That was the worst moment of my life. What a horrible position to be at. To move but to be incapable of motion at the same time. It was pathetic, meaningless motion. I could not shoot back. The gun refused to fire.

    My anger had made me chase the cowards for a distance that was incredible to reach for a man who was in such great pain, and was bleeding profusely.

      Realizing where I was, I decided to go back to the car. I walked as if in a dream, aside from the fact that my uniform was drenched in my own blood, a sight of gore. My movement was no longer the quick aggressiveness of anger; it was a sad and twisted motion that could only be produced by a dying man.

      I reached the Mercedes, where I reposed in hopes of regaining some strength. It was a lost cause, to say it with all honesty. In reality, what I thought was “I’m going to die. I’m just crawling up in here like a wounded animal waiting for its death, which was inevitable.”

      The last thing that I remember before losing consciousness was entering the back of a vehicle that was supposed to take me away from the scene of the ultimate disaster.

      Some time later, I regained consciousness. Slowly, I opened my eyes to see what was occurring. There were people around me, dressed in uniforms. They were just images and noise without significance; my mind could not fully comprehend what had just happened.

      Time passed and it seemed to be an eternity. There was no manner in which a day and a month differed. It was just time, and it passed away slowly, painfully.

        Most of the remaining time was spent between consciousness and unconsciousness. It was a volatile state of uncertainty. There were times that I would be under gruesome pain. It would be all over my body, but especially where most of the bits and shards had gone in. The pain was intense during the moments in which I was awake to feel it.

        Other times, I would feel nothing at all, as if I were completely disconnected. It was a strange sensation, as if I were floating in an empty space. I was there, but I wasn’t all there. I couldn’t feel anything, it was as if I was trapped, but eventually I would come back.

        There was an ever-present smell, and I would perceive it at the times in which I was conscious. It was a sick smell that seemed to mix with the already horrid aroma of the hospital. Whenever I awoke, the smell was present and strong. It seemed to come from me because it was especially concentrated around the area that I was at. It made me nauseous and unable to properly focus. It was difficult to make even the simplest of motions. I could do nothing else, I was entirely incapable of meaningful motion, much less of a full recovery.

        I awoke in a state of distant drowsiness to see my final visitor. Himmler, who had always been somewhat of a two-faced man, had come to see me. Although we had never really been more than comrades, he had taken the time from his day to come to this awful place. He was the one that had welcomed me to the SS, the one who had looked for the doctors to treat me, and he was the one who would dismiss me from this life.

      At this moment, I felt nothing but appreciation for the Reichsführer. All previous animosity just seemed to fade away; those were feelings that belonged to another time. They were alien to this moment. I was too weak, frail and old for such things.

      The Reichsführer’s face looked morose. He looked at me and I looked back at him; his eyes were full of sadness. Pride would not let either of us shed a tear, even under the present circumstances.

      I was growing weaker with each passing minute. The Reichsführer said goodbye to me. I knew he had to leave, though I did not want him to leave. I watched as he left, softly closing the door behind him. It was the sorrowful sound of abandoned hope.

      Truly, I wanted to tell him I was sorry for not getting better, but such sentiments are better left unsaid. He had left, after all, and I was sure that he would not return.

      I closed my eyes, they were tired. The pain that I had been experiencing since the day I got here was beginning to cease. It was replaced by a strange longing and a sense of something being imminent. I could feel myself beginning to drift away from it all. Slowly, the hospital began to fade as the objects in my periphery were replaced by darkness.

      I knew it was time for me to go, I had held on for too long. I felt as I rose up from my now unmoving body, and left everything I had ever accomplished and loved behind. I moved towards a light, a blinding white light, and that led the end of my suffering. Although this light signified the end of a life, it also led to a new beginning.