Aurora 2024

Madeline Davis

Although, admittedly we don’t have them as often as we could. Maybe that’s because I don’t write like I should. I don’t do a lot of things that I should, it seems like. I guess I write because I have nothing more enriching to do with my time. Or perhaps I find comfort in knowing that this is confidential. I can write and say things that have only appeared to me in the form of thought or a memory. The episodes have become far more regular, and more intense. It is as if I am stranded on an island, and though I am surrounded by people, I can find no way to communicate with them. I am on another planet, it seems, at times. People, the world, is so very different now. I am different. During that same winter of ‘43, I nearly lost my foot. Trench foot was our enemy as well as the Germans, perhaps even more so. I say this because trench foot was a never-ending threat that was impossible to escape; in much the same way that the Germans were. However, this plagued us without bullets and perhaps that was worse. We sat in trenches all day and unless you had time to change your socks every couple of hours, and I did not, you ran the risk of losing a foot. In my case, I had been so preoccupied with surviving that I had neglected the warnings of my superiors and nearly lost my foot as a result. I still have problems with that foot even though I was fortunate enough to not lose it completely. But that’s not what was a wake-up call for me.

My group of friends, which I think is the proper term for them, because I mourned each of their deaths much

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