The cloak

My father had loved the cloak. His grandfather had passed it to him and my father passed it to me and now I no longer have it. The cloak was a beautiful garment of velvet lined with wool, which made it warm, with a hood which could cover the entire face. It could wrap around your body with ease.

It was given to my grandfather by a young woman whom he rescued from some wolves. They had injured her, severely biting her arms and thighs. My grandfather fought off the wolves and tended to her injuries. She lived in the forest, she said, and had been born there, raised by the forest elves. The elves had taught her many things and one was how to make an enchanted cloak. She gave one to my grandfather in gratitude for saving her life. He was taken by its beauty but, of course, didn’t believe in its magical properties until he was trapped by the Cossacks.

He had just married my grandmother and moved to a small village where he had purchased a little shop to start their lives. They were enjoying a lunch together when a tremendous commotion broke out outside. Grabbing the cloak, as it was freezing, they rushed outside to witness a dozen mounted Cossacks slashing at people with their sabers and tossing burning torches onto the thatched roofs.

Instinctively, my grandfather drew the cloak around them, to protect them from the bitter cold and went to seek cover, but it was too late. Two Cossacks raced towards them, waving their sabers in the air with blood dripping from the blade. The pair huddled together under the cloak, waiting for the blades to bite, but the Cossacks rode post, totally ignoring them. They stood still and watched the mayhem swirl around, with mounted men galloping past, but nobody paid them any attention.

After what seemed a lifetime, the Cossacks left and death and destruction lay about. Their little shop had been ransacked and partially burnt down, but was uninhabitable. My grand parents found a horse and fled with only the horse, the clothes on their back and the cloak. Overcoming harsh winter conditions, begging for food and working their passage, they made their way to England, where they gave birth to my father.

My father inherited the cloak, and he was very proud of it. Of course, he didn’t believe any of the stories about the cloak, but he loved wearing it whenever he could. He was a very handsome figure in the beautiful, flowing cloak and he would court my mother wearing it. She, too, admired it.

When World war one broke out, my father volunteered. It caused a great argument between him and my mother. She was very possessive of him and resented the war taking him, but my father convinced her he had to do his duty. Before he went, he said to my mother.

“Darling, if I don’t come back, will you promise to give the cloak to your son?”

I was not born yet but my mother promised and my father left.

My mother, however, was a woman of action and she became a nurse on the front line. She saw many horrible things. Men, mortally wounded with no hope of survival, lay screaming in pain, waiting to die. One day my mother, in pity, lay the cloak over one soldier who was screaming for his mother. He immediately fell quiet and lay peacefully waiting for death. A soldier who was near death when covered by the cloak miraculously gained strength and recovered, although badly crippled. And so it went on till the war ended and, thankfully, both my parents survived, allowing me to be born.

I was a weak child and barely survived. When illness struck me, my parents would wrap me in the cloak and I would miraculously recover, but I always remained weak. In spirit, as well as in body. As I grew older, I seemed to gain all those illnesses a weak child is prone to.

My father died of an old war wound and, as promised, mother gave me the cloak.

" This was your father’s cloak, and now it’s yours. Cherish it and it will make you brave.”

My mother knew me well. I cherished the cloak, and I sought its comfort whenever I was bullied, which was often. Sometimes the cloak protected me, but I couldn’t wear it all the time. I rarely took it from my bedroom as it had been my father’s cloak and I had loved my father, so I loved the cloak.

I needed the cloak even more when the bombs fell on London. I took the cloak everywhere, especially when mother and I fled to the bomb shelter. However, one day I became trapped outside, without mother and far away from shelter.

Thankfully, I had my cloak to give me courage, but I was petrified by the bombs going off around me, the noise, the heat, and flying debris. I raced for the protection of a burnt out building but tripped and sprained my ankle.

I struggled to my feet, then I heard the dreaded whistle of a falling bomb. I stood paralyzed with feet frozen to the ground and I wrapped the cloak tightly around me. Then the bomb went off in front of me. Even to this day, the sound of fireworks paralyzes me for many minutes.

A flash blinded me. The heat burnt the hair off my head and scorched my face. The blast deafened me and shredded the cloak I was wearing, but I remained standing, with all my limbs still attached. I couldn’t move. My legs refused to work and through the terrible ringing in my ears, I heard the shouts of the rescue crew. I don’t know what caused it. Maybe it was the remaining shreds of the cloak, but I forced myself to move forward. Minutes later I felt, because I could not hear, a tremendous crash where I was standing and I was engulfed in a cloud of dust, but my cloak was gone.

The ambulance people were amazed I survived. My face healed well, but I was blind and partially deaf. Now I have no cloak to pass on to my children, but then again, I have no children.