Choice

A bead of sweat trickles down my eyebrow. I feel the salt in my eye as it mixes with my tears. I have to blink a couple of times.

My hands are tied behind my back. The rope cuts into my skin, but I am used to the pain.

My knees are starting to hurt though. The chair that I sit on is far from comfortable, and its splinters are digging into my back. An old man like me cannot take much more of this.

“I will flip a coin,” a gruff voice says near me. It’s calm and measured, almost as if the words have been rehearsed. “Heads or tails. If you choose correctly, you get to live, but she dies. Choose incorrectly, and she lives. You die.”

I hear a frightened shriek next to me and my heart trembles faster than before.

I look to my left and see my wife squirming in her chair. I am certain she is about to take a tumble, but somehow the chair stays upright. Her red dress is so muddied now that it looks brown. I give her a reassuring nod, but that just makes her even more agitated.

I try to muster up words of comfort, but all that comes out is a frail mumble. The piece of cloth tied around my mouth is causing me to salivate, and I can feel spit on my beard.

Our discomfort causes the men around us to start laughing. There are two standing in front of me. The one who just spoke wears a long black overcoat adorned with various medals, the red band on his shoulder catching my eye. The younger man beside him wears a green field uniform that is a size too big for him and holds a rifle by his side. There are a few more standing behind us. I do not know how many there are in total, because I haven’t the courage nor the energy to crane my neck around.

We are in an abandoned factory a few kilometres away from my hometown. I remember cycling past it back in my youth. Back then, its purpose was to manufacture toys. The war put an end to that.

The sun shines through broken windows. The air is dusty, and there is a damp smell working its way up my nostrils.

The man who spoke leans down on his knee and pulls out a coin. Five Reichsmark. He holds the coin up to my face, and I see the familiar image of Paul Von Hindenburg. He turns it around, and I see the eagle perched atop the Swastika.

“Choice, my friend,” he says, as he spins the coin between his knuckles. He is low enough now that I can take a proper look at his face. A small scar runs from his upper lip to his nose, and his skin is blistered. Several of his cuts have barely healed. His black visor cap is so polished that it’s gleaming. I spy a pistol holstered by his side. He exudes an air of authority.

“Choice is what the Fuhrer has bestowed upon us. We choose to be what we want to be. Choice is freedom. And freedom is what you do not have.”

He gets up and puts his hands behind his back, almost as if he is standing proud. His mouth contorts into a sly smile. “But today, I will allow you to choose. I will give you freedom.”

I hear jeering erupt around me, but the man lifts a finger, and it is instantly quiet again. I can hear my own ragged breathing, and my wife’s chair scraping on the floor.

The younger man watches on. He has a smirk on his face, and there is a hunger about him. He bears a look that I have seen many times before.

I recall seeing it on the faces of similar young men as I wandered the streets of my hometown. I remember seeing it on the faces of those who burned it down, and on those who found us and dragged us to this godforsaken place. It is a look tainted with delusion, a primal thirst for destruction.

Ordered by the man, the younger one walks over to me and unbinds the cloth around my mouth. I try to spit on him, but my saliva is now either on the cloth or on my chin. He resumes his position next to his superior.

“Let my wife go!” I plead. “Take me, but please let her go.” My voice is coarse, and the words seem as feeble as my bones.

“That is not your choice to make, my friend. The only choice you have, is heads, or tails,” the man says calmly.

He holds out the coin and puts it in his palm.

A fifty-fifty chance. My life has boiled down to a fifty-fifty chance. My wife’s life, decided by a single coin. My forefathers came to this country for freedom, and here we are centuries later, hedging our bets on a piece of silver.

I think about my career. The book I was writing will probably never be published. My other work will most likely be burned by now. My wife’s dress shop is probably in tatters, just like her own dress. We never had children, and by God do I wish I’d had some now. Regret is powerful when death is so close.

The man walks over to my wife and slaps her across the face. I hear a muffled scream and the screech of her chair.

“Leave her alone!” I shout.

“Choose, or I will kill you both.”

I feel anger rising up inside me, but I tell myself to focus. I cannot know for sure if they will let one of us go. But I must do something. Anything.

My wife needs to live. I cannot live on without her, and I’m sure she cannot live on without me. But she must live. I have to make my choice.

I take a gulp, make a silent prayer, and say the word.

“Heads.”

“Well chosen, my friend!” Beams the man, and I hear roars of laughter from his lackeys. They are having the time of their lives.

I peer at the coin in the man’s palm. His hand is so steady, I almost envy him. He flips the coin and I see it flying up into the air. I see Hindenburg’s face as it tumbles back down.

The coin lands in his hand, and he closes his fist.

“The moment of truth.”

I cannot help but look over at my wife, who has been gaping at me this entire time. Her face is streaked with tears and mud. I see pain etched into it. But looking into her eyes, I see love, and I see compassion. I see a woman who has been by my side for decades. I take in her beauty for what may be the last time. I focus on the single streak of white that runs down her otherwise black hair, which caught my attention the first time we ever met. I think back to that time. Oh, how blissful it was. How innocent we were. But peace seldom lasts. 

“Ah,” says the man, as he looks at the coin.

I glance over to him, and summon the courage to weakly murmur, “is it heads...or is it tails?”

He doesn’t reply, and simply puts away the coin. He unholsters his pistol, which is greeted with cheers all around.

I had seen death before, when the first bomb dropped on our street, bodies lying lifeless just a few minutes away from our house. I had seen it when my friends were massacred, gun fire tearing them to shreds. We had fled from our town, hoping to make it to safety. We had somehow eluded death, bypassing soldiers as we ran as fast as our old legs would take us. A part of me thought we would actually make it out. But death caught up to us in the end.

I do not want to look at him. Or his pistol. Or the young man. I want to look at my wife. I do not know who he is aiming at. I just hope it is me.

My wife tries to smile behind her cloth. I try to smile too.

The gunshot rings so loud that the birds perched on top of the factory take flight and scatter.

My wife’s body slumps, and it takes me a few seconds to register what has happened.

I scream as loud as my lungs will let me. I squirm in my chair and fall over, my head hitting the ground with a thud. I do not feel the pain.

Two young men come over, lift the chair back up, and bind the cloth around my mouth. I feel numb, my body cold.

“You chose. You lived. Well done,” says the man.

I look at him, my eyes full of rage and contempt. He smiles, a smile so wry that it cuts right into my soul.

He walks over to me, hands behind his back, still holding his pistol. “But you see, my friend…”

He raises the pistol, and I feel the heat of the barrel against my forehead.

He looks me dead in the eyes.

“The truth is, you never really had a choice.”

He pulls the trigger.