Half Sick of Shadows » Band of Brothers [2]

26: Will I Never Rest

"Will I never rest in sunlight again - slow, languid & golden with peace?" - Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

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That's it. The end of my confessions. I've run out of time.

It has taken me four months to write everything out. I have now been here for five, or thereabouts. It feels like an absolute lifetime, but due to the nature of my confessions I think they let me outstay my welcome.

I am so afraid.

The doctor is coming tomorrow, which means I've run out of time on that front, too. I have a plan for how I'm going to knock myself unconscious but I'm really not sure it'll work. When the hauptsturmführer tried to drown me in that bucket of icy water it felt like my lungs were on fire. It was pain almost too much to bear. And yet, somehow, I've managed to convince myself that I'll be able to force myself to hold my breath for so long it knocks me out.

God, I'm hanging onto a really bloody thin thread of hope here. But I really, really hope it works. I can't imagine the hauptsturmführer won't send me to the KZ otherwise. This really is my only hope.

I haven't seen the French Resistance woman in a while, and that is mostly because I've been a coward. I've been writing in English. The hauptsturmführer has been particularly ruthless with his punishments lately and I just couldn't help it. That's no excuse, I know, and I feel rotten for it. But the smell and the burn and the taste of carbolic acid haunt me, every waking moment and every nightmare. I can't escape it, and that kills me. I really, really fear the carbolic now.

I really can't believe I've confessed everything now. It feels surreal, having written out the entirety of a year of my life. It seems strange to think that everything I wrote took place over the course of a single year. So much changed. Oh, if I could only turn back time. I resent the previous Juliette for feeling so hard done by back in Aldbourne when she had decided to stay away from Gene. That was such a stupid thing to do. God, that girl was so stupid. So stupid. She had no idea what she had. She was so caught up in complaining about everything she never realised that those days in Aldbourne were some of the best of her entire life - that they would be the last good days of her entire life.

I'm making myself cry again. That's one thing me and her have in common: the seeming inability to ever stop bloody crying. At least now I actually have things to cry about. God, this is so horrible. It's so horrible. This is no life at all.

I've spent the last few hours going over the final few pages of my confessions, writing over the words that have become illegible through my tears before Hauptsturmführer Becker sees them; he'll only be furious if there are words he can't read. The problem is, when I was writing over the tears there were fresh ones pouring back down onto the paper, so it wasn't really very worth it at all. But it made me happy to reread it - well, both happy and incredibly sad. I like to live in my memories now, but even some of those are sad.

I miss my boys so much. God, so much. More than I can even say. I miss Tom and his jokes, and Will and his obliviousness, and Martin and his sarcasm. I miss everything about them, and about being with them. I wonder if they even know that I'm still alive. They probably don't. There would be no way for them to know that, and I've been here far longer than they usually keep a spy in for interrogation. Bloody hell, do I miss those boys. I miss them something fierce. I would give anything to see them again, anything, but I'm not sure I could stomach it if they saw me.

I can hear the guards talking and apparently all of the prisoners are being forced to wash before the doctor comes - to keep up the appearance of humanity, perhaps. Oh, and apparently we'll get to change our clothes too. How generous. I wonder what they'll put me in. Something red, perhaps, so the doctor wont see all of the gushing blood?

Regardless, I am sick to the back teeth of this bloody maid's uniform. Sick of it. It was white when I got it, and now it's brown. That's so disgusting, I know, but I've been living on a floor for five bloody months. Five months. Jesus, that's a long time. That's such a long time. Feels like a long time, too.

Part of me hopes this doctor will just take one look at me and put me out of my misery. Actually, that's such a big part it's the entire thing. All of me hopes that. I know he won't, but I hope for it so badly.

I can't believe I ever thought my life was hard before this. How naïve, and stupid, and downright arrogant I was for thinking that. So bloody arrogant. But I miss being that way. I miss being naïve, and stupid, and arrogant, because at least then, when I was like that, part of me was happy. Part of me was so happy. I miss Aldbourne. No, you know what? I miss home. Actual home. London home, where I last saw my parents. I miss my parents. God, I want to go home. I want to go home so badly I can't even tell you. I know that makes me sound like a child but I don't care. If I could have one wish granted for me in the world it would be to go home and forget that any of this ever even happened.

I want to go home.