I need chicken noodle soup and a ton of NyQuil

Being sick sucks so I am keeping it short because I can barely keep my head up. My head feels like it is being compressed between two giant hands, I feel like someone punched me in the nose, my throat is sore and my body feels like it was in a car accident (don't worry I wasn't).

The last two stories I wrote are stories documenting events that happened in history on 27 and 28 January. I did not write about a particular person but rather I wanted my readers to view an event through the eyes of a nameless observer of the event. I hope I captured the emotion involved in both stories. Okay I am off to sleep now and hope I wake up not feeling like complete and utter shit.

27 January 2014

The Day I Saw Liberation

We stood at the fence and saw our triumph. With all the joy we felt in our hearts about leaving Auschwitz, our grief and trauma were just too strong to allow us to enjoy being freed. We were still too afraid and too weak to even feel the weight lift off us. We knew the Red Army was coming because the Germans who kept us here had taken every able person away.

“Those who are able are marching from here! Anyone who can walk needs to come forward!” yelled the officers to the camp. They had already begun killing small children and some of the weak but the Russians were coming and they had to leave with their captures. I should have gone. They had stopped using the crematorium because it was broken. The bodies piled up as they tried to destroy us all from memory. My sister knew I was “healthy” and able but she wanted me to be saved because no one knew what they were marching into. Mama was lost to the gas chambers when we first arrived. She was pregnant and pregnant women were useless to the camp. Father was taken away. We saw him sometimes but it had been a while since I saw his ghostly figure.

As they called everyone to the front, my sister hid me amongst the bodies. She told me to stay there until they were gone. I was not to leave or move or cry until all the Germans had left. I stayed there all day. I was too afraid to cry, too scared to be concerned about laying with bodies. The camp grew nearly silent and I waited. I waited until I saw another child walk from a hiding place. All the children left behind walked to the fence and that is when we saw the flag. The large red soviet flag coming over the hill. So the rumors were correct, the Russians were coming. Many children lined the fence now. We all had extra layers of pants and striped shirts draped over us. We had clothes given to us by those who were leaving. Clothes left behind from the dead and sick. The striped outfits were large on us because we were so young and frail.

With our heads covered, we watched as the Russians tore through our fences in our jail. No one said a word. It was too bittersweet to think of all we lost in this time of freedom. No one knew what would happen next but we knew the Nazis were on their last breath. What would happen to our lives Could we grow up normal? Probably not but we survived Auschwitz and on this day of the 27^th of January 1945 we were given our lives back. We were able no longer starved beaten and terrified. We no longer had to fear being shot or gassed for no reason. We held hands that day and walked out of our death camp together. None of us looked back, we only looked forward.

28 January 2014

The Death of Henry VIII on This Day in History

Henry lay on the floor. His breaths were getting fewer and far between. The great and large king wanted to die on the floor with his arms stretched out to resemble Jesus dying on the cross. He was always known as a man of excess and this was no exception. When he was born he was never meant to be king but he would become the greatest if not most notorious king England would see.

As we watched our great ruler fade into abyss, we had to look back on his reign. In my youth I did not know much about Henry VIII except for what was told of me. He was a tall handsome man all his life. He had anyone woman he wanted and he never let anyone get away with speaking ill of him, even if that meant killing his own wives and friends. An athletic man, Henry VIII injured his leg jousting as he was known to be great at. The injury became a festering ulcer that never healed and caused the room we stood in to smell of rotting skin.

His reign was marred by religious discord and health problems. Now he lay on the floor with only a few of us to watch. He a putrid smell emitted from his body. He was too large and too sick to bathe. Weighing well over 137 kg, the once robust and fit king is now an obese and wretched soul. Everyone has paused. A gasp of breath from the king!

“Monks! Monks! Monks!” yelled the king. His dying words and one last breath as the priest closes Henry's eyes and gives prayer. The king is dead. His dying words a possible declaration of his transgressions against the former clergy and monks of the catholic church that he drove out of our country.

We will not inform the public of his death, we need to secure his succession. The great monarch of England is dead and all we have left is a body too fat to move, a sickly son and two daughters whose legitimacy is questionable. We cannot even give him a proper coffin he is too large. A man of power, rage and determination left on his floor to rot. May God rest his soul and may the people remember their once loving king.