Without Regret

Snow crushes beneath my dark leather boots and hold the imprint of my shoe until the next guy in line treads in the same spot. My dark grey eyes lock on their target and don’t show the slightest bit of fear. The scent of baking ham, seasoned potatoes and sautéed onions and mushrooms fill the air as hundreds of Russians sit down with their families to eat, completely unaware of the marching soldiers just outside their city.

June 22nd, 1941 was a sunny, yet bone chillingly cold day. My nose was bright pink and my cheeks were almost crimson. My sandy blonde hair was plastered to my face by my skin-tight toboggan and my body was wrapped in my thick uniform, made for withstanding the mercilessly bitter breeze of Leningrad. My tattered swastika flaps lightly as I march but I could care less; my focus is completely on a small house with a fire blazing in it’s chimney.

I separate from my regiment and sneak up to the window of the house. I knock lightly, letting my glasses fall to the ground as I press my right eye into the scope, and I aim my Gewehr 1941. The little Russian girl is dead on the ground before she can register the sound, her bleach blonde hair, now scarlet with blood, is the last thing her family sees before they meet the same fate.

I march off without a trace of regret in my steel colored eyes.