Fiction: [Untitled]

"All that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity"
Hamlet, Act i, Sc.2

I was twelve when I died.

My father owned a bakery and doughnut shop next to the local movie theatre on the south side of town. He woke up each morning, before the sun even had a chance too, and drove across the bridge to 245 East Riley Street where our bakery was. Occasionally, on the weekdays a small gathering of people would be clustered around the door waiting for my father to arrive and open. These were the dedicated customers whom he enjoyed, and knew each one by name. There was Henry Kessler, a businessman who could not begin his day without a tall coffee, extra cream, and a glazed vanilla-filled long-john; or John DeWind who came in wearing torn patched-up jeans ready for a day of construction. His usual was coffee, no sugar, two plain doughnuts and one loaf of French bread, to go, for his lunch.

The usual waiting each day for my father brought upon a unique friendship between those two unlikely pair. Henry would convince his company to hire the construction company John worked for, and in return John helped Henry add a four-season balcony onto his house that his wife always wanted. They chatted away as my father opened up the shop and got the usual bakery products out.

He didn't always own the bakery, and in fact, he could have pretty much any job he desired. Years ago, fresh out of college and in his first job working as an engineer he walked into the bakery on 245 East Riley Street, just like any other customer that morning. He ordered his coffee, pick a doughnut or two he wanted, and began to talk to the counter girl. Within five years that counter-girl was his wife. When the bakery was up for sale, he bought it so no one else could. Every morning, as he walked into his bakery and greets Henry and John, he himself would get the same cup a coffee and the two doughnuts he ordered so long ago. It reminded him of how he met his wife and he wanted to relive it every day he could.

My father had an older brother who lived a few towns over. After completing high school he moved away to California to study medicine. Upon completion of his undergraduate studies he got accepted full-ride to medical school in Chicago. As a medical student in his first year on rounds he noticed something peculiar on a patient's X-ray, which his advisors had missed. An abnormality. No diagnosis could be given, and before he had "M.D." after his name he had already had an illness named after him. No one knew the significance of that find until many years later. A connection would be made, not by my uncle, but by someone greater, between his illness and another disease. Another doctor, still greater than the both, would make a leaping conclusion while examining a patient between the previous connection and liver cancer. Within three generations of that last find cancer was eradicated worldwide. My uncle never saw any of this and the original X-ray was misplaced somewhere some long time ago.

He had a son that was a trouble-maker when growing up. During High-School my cousin got suspended once for writing graffiti on the sideline bleachers of the football field. If a school administrator found him it would have been just a detention to clean it up, but instead Officer Andrew Wiersma, a rookie, got his first arrest. No one answered the call to their home and my uncle had to get another doctor to finish his surgery while he picked his son out of jail. The next day my cousin was suspended.

As the years went past the rebellion grew out and he settled down. In the middle of his second year at The University of Ohio he switched majors. The change itself did not surprise us, what he changed it to did. He graduated with pre-law and went on to law school. The previous experiences of jails and getting caught inspired him to become a lawyer. His biggest case, when he finally settled down in Lincoln, IL and had his own practice was convicting a child molester and having him serve the maximum sentence.

I was twelve when I died.

My grandfather met my grandmother in a small Austrian town of Bregenz, near Bodensee; the lake that separates the boundaries between Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. Some people call it the Lake Constance, especially if you're not from Europe. In our family we still call it Bodensee. Food was limited after the war and half-starving my grandfather managed to cross the border to Austria from southern Germany in the middle of the night, before collapsing in the main street of Bregenz. Upon awaking he stumbled block after block trying to find something to eat. Desperate, he broke a window to a shop and, hand in the process of stealing a loaf of bread, a scream reached his ears and a blow to the head stopped his hand. He awoke to find his future-mother-in-law telling his future-father-in-law that they should call the police and have this half-skeleton arrested for stealing. He listened to their arguments, not understanding a word, but instead looking at the girl on the other end of the room who would be his future-wife.

That half-skeleton of a man worked every day he could, including Saturday the Sabbath, and saved enough money after three years for two fourth-class tickets on a boat away from Europe, away from Germany, away from everything and to start anew in the United States.

When my grandfather was young he was forced into a big room with kids and adults alike. Everyone was naked. The guards said they must be clean, but why were the laughing when the door shut and no water came out of the shower-heads? The gas started to fill up the room and everyone started to cough. People were banging on the door pleading the guards to let them out. They only laughed. Each scream was louder than the previous. Each plea was more begging. The gas started to take affect. Panic. The throats started to constrict. In their mind every sound they made was louder and more powerful then the sound before. In their mind someone would surely hear the deafening screams and save them. In reality the screams were getting softer to the point of almost being inaudible. As they individually collapsed to the floor they gathered every amount of energy they had left, every bit of strength, and yelled for mercy. The yell was so loud it resonated in their mind like an echo. The scream they heard and the scream they produced were not the same. Their deafening yell of help was just a wordless breathe of air that was their last. No one heard their most pleading and most powerful cry for help as no one could hear it. That cry, like the others before, went unanswered.

My grandfather was one of them. He was twelve.

As I said before, I was twelve when I died; so were my father, my mother, my uncle, and my cousin. We all died when we were twelve. We were given no names, as we were never born. We were given no memories, as we never lived. The only thing we were given was what they took away. We only died.

I was twelve when I died.

-Mike Sheppard