By Aparupa Chakraborty
While the greyish sheet of air devoured the sky,
the parched man revamped his starred badge on his stained olive attire.
His bruised eyes and crimson nose riveted the glance of many
Though he shrugged them off with vanity.
He limped with radiating valour with his newly attained lieutenant stratum-
Was it an emblem of envy or pity as his fractured joints cracked beneath his lower limbs?
Was it a moment of respite when his fragile anatomy was conveyed to healing tents?
Indeed, as his eyes scrutinized his rusted badged honor positioned at the desk,
Futile, as it seemed, the disclosure of his amputated leg however halted its motion.
Numbness cocooned his oblivion as his words reached desiccation.
Like a balmy autumn, her tender hands soothed his blazing agony
In such a moment, she emerged like the Virgin Mary
With her down casted sight, she mended his defeated spirit
She never caught his glance as her hands nursed only out of unpleasant duty,
With several dozen other infirms and their decayed odour, 'he was just like another'.
Days nurtured into weeks since his darling attendant worked on him incessantly
Though she seldom spoke or exchanged glances, she was his deity.
But who was he to her?
A fleeting memory, as her melancholic gestures barely caught his provocative glares.
Her mundane purpose of survival did not radiate any rim of pride
Where did she live? How did she arrive in this realm of affliction, he knew not.
The thick smoke of the death camps did not suffocate her more,
The place where her parents were asphyxiated to death.
His cognizance might have won her, his readiness to share her grief
Hundred miles away from his home accentuated his fuel of passion
He craved for her touch, to recite poetry, to brag about his status.
Their rare mutual glances did induce hope
For she was aware of his advances-
Too masculine to refrain from, to repudiate.
'Was he unlike the others'?
Often at intervals when darkness swallowed every lustre of humanity,
She pleaded for her precarious state which he guaranteed;
Similar dimmed night that seized her sister's honour by olive men
Wasn't that notion enough to induce trepidation in her too?
But his every approach wrecked her former resistance.
He did promise her matrimony and prosperity
As his stupor unperceived his prosthetic leg and her faith in Judaism.
Would he still persist to glorify his gained honour?
Would he still embrace her when his service loyalty be tested?
As he still was capable to butcher his hostiles.
Dawn casted on the horizon before his discharge
But she was nowhere in his vicinity.
His subordinates saluted his gallantry with concealed smirks
Hundreds of contemplations passed through his conscious river
As he observed the camp's smoke with forlorn eyes;
Impotent to claim her as his.