leg and press down to plunge the clear liquid into his unresponsive, deformed body. “What is it?” he asked her. She pretended not to hear him, removed the syringe, and quickly left the room. Perhaps his avatar hadn't spoken.
A bell rang overhead, four dings, and Daniel woke up, so to speak, seated inside the dark box; he would never again be able to awaken the avatar. Shaken, he took the headset from his head and placed it on top of the desk as the monitor slipped back into its horizontal position, now hidden away. The gloves he placed in the side cavities beside his knees. He left the box and approached his backpack resting against the back wall. It was a bulging black mesh bag covered with skulls and the name of a band spray-painted in red. He joined the other shuffling students as they emerging from their boxes and headed towards the doorway, grabbing their backpacks from the back wall as they left. Most of them were silent and slant-eyed when they reached the bright hallway light, with a few giving low remarks like “insane . . .” and “Beast!”
A German nurse took a syringe and smashed the point into a wooden beam along the wall. She was angry. The avatar's counterpart almost collapsed into a crying fit, seated in the dark in her big cardboard box.
The Doktor returned. He was a bespectacled German, tall and old, carrying a wet towel into which he smeared the foul contents of his hands, tossing the towel into a metal canister on the floor in a corner.
“ Anke, das ist deiner kiste ,” that is your box, he said, pointing to a small box on a metal shelf of dark boxes and glass beakers. She turned to the wall and reached for the box. She opened it. Inside were more syringes, some small vials of different-colored powers, one of a clear liquid. She shut the box and squeezed her eyes shut.
“ Ein Problem ?” suggested the tall, graying doctor, putting a fatherly hand on her shoulder.
“ Nein. Kein Problem ,” No. No problem , she responded, not knowing where the actual words derived but knowing that they were certainly a reflection of what she did say, or wanted to say, or thought. She wasn’t sure.
Emerging from the Provisorische Krankenhaus , Karen stopped before one of the three large, makeshift tents inhabiting a square within the small network of administrative buildings. The tents resided nowhere near the regular prison barracks but rather near the fence at the side of the camp. It was starting to rain. Karen clutched the dark box tightly under her arm, knowing that to turn around and walk the other way would be to commit herself to a similar camp, if not the same one, as an inmate. A good German did what she was told. Ask no questions, except to clarify and then do your job. Otherwise, you are perhaps a collaborator, an enemy of the State, the worst scum residing at the bottom of the prisoner pile.
She stood before the door of the large tent. The avatar, Anke, was about to collapse. . . From exhaustion? Fear? . . . when a soldier opened the tent door on the left and motioned her in.
She followed into the tent, seeing several cots, two of which contained women. One in the far cot was unconscious. The woman in the closest cot was staring at her, wide-eyed, talking desperately in another language. She sounded somewhat Russian. Probably Lithuanian. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew.
She was to administer euthanasia to this dark and very beautiful woman, beautiful though extremely thin. On any other woman, the features wrought by the emaciation would have been corpse-like. Her belly showed her to be about five months pregnant. The woman knew why Anke, Karen's avatar, was there. She stared at the German nurse, backing up on her cot to its furthest corner, ready to strike with her feet. Clutching the side of the tent nearest her head, she began to scream. As if this were meant to save her life--hers and
A bell rang overhead, four dings, and Daniel woke up, so to speak, seated inside the dark box; he would never again be able to awaken the avatar. Shaken, he took the headset from his head and placed it on top of the desk as the monitor slipped back into its horizontal position, now hidden away. The gloves he placed in the side cavities beside his knees. He left the box and approached his backpack resting against the back wall. It was a bulging black mesh bag covered with skulls and the name of a band spray-painted in red. He joined the other shuffling students as they emerging from their boxes and headed towards the doorway, grabbing their backpacks from the back wall as they left. Most of them were silent and slant-eyed when they reached the bright hallway light, with a few giving low remarks like “insane . . .” and “Beast!”
A German nurse took a syringe and smashed the point into a wooden beam along the wall. She was angry. The avatar's counterpart almost collapsed into a crying fit, seated in the dark in her big cardboard box.
The Doktor returned. He was a bespectacled German, tall and old, carrying a wet towel into which he smeared the foul contents of his hands, tossing the towel into a metal canister on the floor in a corner.
“ Anke, das ist deiner kiste ,” that is your box, he said, pointing to a small box on a metal shelf of dark boxes and glass beakers. She turned to the wall and reached for the box. She opened it. Inside were more syringes, some small vials of different-colored powers, one of a clear liquid. She shut the box and squeezed her eyes shut.
“ Ein Problem ?” suggested the tall, graying doctor, putting a fatherly hand on her shoulder.
“ Nein. Kein Problem ,” No. No problem , she responded, not knowing where the actual words derived but knowing that they were certainly a reflection of what she did say, or wanted to say, or thought. She wasn’t sure.
Emerging from the Provisorische Krankenhaus , Karen stopped before one of the three large, makeshift tents inhabiting a square within the small network of administrative buildings. The tents resided nowhere near the regular prison barracks but rather near the fence at the side of the camp. It was starting to rain. Karen clutched the dark box tightly under her arm, knowing that to turn around and walk the other way would be to commit herself to a similar camp, if not the same one, as an inmate. A good German did what she was told. Ask no questions, except to clarify and then do your job. Otherwise, you are perhaps a collaborator, an enemy of the State, the worst scum residing at the bottom of the prisoner pile.
She stood before the door of the large tent. The avatar, Anke, was about to collapse. . . From exhaustion? Fear? . . . when a soldier opened the tent door on the left and motioned her in.
She followed into the tent, seeing several cots, two of which contained women. One in the far cot was unconscious. The woman in the closest cot was staring at her, wide-eyed, talking desperately in another language. She sounded somewhat Russian. Probably Lithuanian. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew.
She was to administer euthanasia to this dark and very beautiful woman, beautiful though extremely thin. On any other woman, the features wrought by the emaciation would have been corpse-like. Her belly showed her to be about five months pregnant. The woman knew why Anke, Karen's avatar, was there. She stared at the German nurse, backing up on her cot to its furthest corner, ready to strike with her feet. Clutching the side of the tent nearest her head, she began to scream. As if this were meant to save her life--hers and
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