A Breach In Berlin

Six - Sechs - Findings Of The Future

7 :00am December 17th 2014, Berlin

Today I elected it to be a day of history. Much to my dismay, once I'd finished breakfast in which my mother had joined me (I actually enjoyed it), Jared was up, yet he was eating from room service and glued to his laptop like a little kid who needed to finish a level on his video game. He was hunched over a furiously typing away, every so often he would stop to stretch his hands of cramp and crack his knuckles, and then return to work. I watched him long enough to notice and long enough for him to not even notice I was in the room.

The hotel had a service where I could hire a car, and it had all been arranged in the early hours of the morning when I woke up at half three. I'd found myself in desperate need to find something, but my tired, dizzy self could only remember the assumption if wasn't in the city, and a car would be needed. It was only at breakfast that I remembered what I was looking for.

Mother Vermont was taking Dad back to The Story of Berlin, a museum that provoked a lot of irrational fears on my behalf. Therefore, I decided to skip it, saying I had plans of a historical kind of my own. It seemed to please my mother that I was deciding to embrace the past culture of the city, just like a privileged daughter should do.

So I strode into the lobby, greeting hero with a friendly smile that still seemed to scare him. His trembling white hands handed me the car keys for my rental, telling me it was in parking post 914 which was just coincidental of course. Sleet was falling outside, a horrible mixture between snow and rain, and as much as snow made me happy, seeing sleet instead depressed me.

In parking spot 914, however, was a sleek black Mercedes Jeep. I didn't know who to blame. Either fate was following me, or these coincidences were getting out of hand. As I unlocked to driver's side, jumping up into the seat, I felt like Kurt, or Thomas, or any of the other soldiers, climbing into a vehicle that would take them away from a place that kept them safe and sane. Or, to a place where you never knew what was lurking round a corner.

This morning I had acquired a list of World War One memorials in the city and surrounding countryside. There was so many of them, I didn't know where start. Nevertheless, I was happy to get out of the city, get on the roads and explore. But I knew every time I pulled up to a memorial, looking for those familiar names, I was taking somewhat taking a risk. A risk of emotionally breaking, a growing part of my heart shattering, shattering at the thought he will never see normal, peaceful civilisation again, and that his last moments will be amongst the mud a thousand feet have travelled.

The downside to most War memorials in Germany is that the bodies buried there are in mass, thousands of bodies in a single grave. Many I found within the city were exactly that. It was tragic, I could only imagine for the parents and families, who would want their brave son, husband or father to be remembered individually, but what the German government could afford wouldn't match their demands. The German government I knew to some extend had splashed out so much on guns and canons to try win, they were left with little to remember the fallen by. Hence, mass graves.

The weather reflected my mood, like pathetic fallacy, gloomy dark clouds hung over farm fields and village churches representing how depressing this day could get. The sleet was turning into rain as I travelled further out into the country side, falling lightly yet infrequently. It stopped and started at least ever hour while I was on the road. The rain was like my tears, salty hot tears that ran down my cheeks each time I left a memorial. Jared was right, I got emotional over almost everything. I didn't know these men, I wasn't a family relative or friend, but I felt for them, I would fall to my knees in despair and couldn't even begin to comprehend how the mothers, wives and lovers of these men coped after this Great War ended. I couldn't even keep myself composed now, a hundred years later.