Elijah's Story

Elijah sat quietly by the window. The rain pelted the window like fear pelted his heart. Elijah’s father was sent into the war two years ago. Yesterday, Elijah’s mother received a letter. Her husband had been killed. Elijah and his mother are a Jewish family living in Warsaw during World War Two. Elijah’s family has many problems. His mother is dyslexic and paralyzed from the waist down. Elijah has been diagnosed with depression and has a bipolar disorder. Elijah just sits and watches the rain pelt the window. Then, Elijah hears a scream and gunshot. He runs down the rickety staircase that his father built to find his mother, lying at the bottom of the staircase in a puddle of blood, dead. Elijah felt as if someone had taken a dagger to his heart. He slams the door and runs upstairs, with tears following his footsteps. He lays down on to his cornhusk bed and starts to cry like he did when he was three. About thirty minutes later he hears a knock on the door. He walks down stairs and opens the door. He is greeted by an old woman. “Hurry. Gather your things and leave no traces. With haste we must go.” the old woman said. Elijah ran up the stairs, threw his clothes into a pillow sack and hurried out the door. The old woman led him to a truck with a wooden back. Elijah saw three other people. What seemed to be a married couple and a boy a couple years younger than Elijah. The truck started and moved off.

The sun was setting. This brought back pain to Elijah. He loved to watch the sun set with his mother as she would stroke his dark, black hair. Darkness crept over the painted sky, like the artist just spilled his paint water onto his beautiful masterpiece. This brought a tear to Elijah’s eye. He looked around as the cabin got darker and darker until it was as dark as the infection mark that Elijah could see on the picture the army sent back with the letter. He could see the young couple pulling out some cornhusk from under the slats of the cabin. They started to shove them into their jackets to make some pillows and cushioning. They used their other jackets as blankets and fell asleep side by side. Elijah looked over at the boy and saw him lying down with no blankets, pillows or cushioning. He felt sorry for the boy and offered him a pillow. “ I couldn’t take from you. I will never take from anyone anymore!” The boy broke out in tears. “ What do you mean anymore?” Elijah asked with a great sorrow. The boy stopped crying and answered,”One day I was walking home and I saw a bar of gold in a gutter. We were very poor so I picked it up and ran back home. My mom took the bar and for the first time since I was born, she smiled. Then, two Nazis broke down our door and started shooting like crazy. He looked around a saw what he was looking for; the 24 c. bar of Nazi gold. He picked it up and was about to leave when my mom stood up and yelled for him to stop. He just turned around, pulled out a pistol and shot my mother through the eye. She fell down and died right at my feet. All this time I believed that it was my fault and I vowed I will never take anything from anyone or anywhere again.” The boy then cried himself to sleep. Elijah lifted the boy’s head up and laid a pillow under his head. He shouldn’t be blamed. Elijah then made himself a pillow and cushion, then lied down to sleep.

Elijah woke up to a horrible sight. The top of the cabin was torn off, and the married couple lay next to each other, decapitated. Elijah looked over at the boy and found him with a much different fate. The boy was tied up and strangled to death. Elijah was so horrified that he jumped out of the truck right into a nightmare. British soldiers fighting Nazis, Nazis bringing tanks, and a ten-year old Jew right in the middle of it all. Elijah sought the only refuge, a seaside cliff. He ran to it, avoiding shells and bullets. He peered over the edge and saw what must have been a five hundred foot fall. Elijah knew that in his own mind, the only way to get rid of his problems was to commit suicide. He was about to jump when he saw something that put a tear to his eye. The clouds moved together and formed an image of his mother. He knelt down and began to cry. His mother’s image started to tell him that he was not to commit suicide. That he was a very bright, brave boy. Elijah then realized what he was supposed to do. He stood up, put out his chest, and marched into the battlefield. He stood dead center of the field, faced the Nazis and screamed at the top of his lungs,” Here I am! Elijah Posnanski, an official Jew of Warsaw, Poland.” This was the last statement Elijah ever said. The Nazis heard his statement, and took him down. He was taken by British soldiers and was buried with his mother and father. Finally, after ten hard years, Elijah could rest in harmony with his parents.