I Can Still See

After one particularly difficult day in Holocaust and psychology class last week, I left the room like a zombie. I know I did not actually see it happen in front of me except on screens and in the recorded voices of witnesses. However, somehow, I felt like I had intimately witnessed sadism and horrifying events that no one needs to know about - except for those who do not think the Holocaust happened, those people should see it and feel a fraction of the pain I was feeling after this class.

I knew the zombie syndrome would not last forever, but even that fact seemed an injustice in the world and was confusing to me. The world outside class seemed an ignorant and ridiculous image, something like the photos of the killers at Auschwitz laughing and enjoying life together with the smoke from chimneys in the background. These two were taken around the same time in the same place:
  

The world seemed a lie. And yet I submitted to the knowledge that in a few hours, I also would meld with this absurd world going on in the face of should-be-world-stopping events.

I stared straight ahead as I tried to remind myself that regardless of the evil around, it was my duty and blessing to feed the frogs at the Wilk and love them. So I took it one step at a time, amazed after every step that the step had actually been taken. Each step seemed impossible until I was past it and moving to the next one. My mind seemed to be in slow motion, but my body didn't seem phased. I felt disconnected. I was disconnected from my life and I didn't think I could possibly belong in this world, in this body ever again - yet knowing, just like my steps, somehow I would, and it would happen as if by some grace, I'd find connection again. But it felt impossible to me in the moment despite my knowing.

Then, among the crowd of people that existed between the library and the Wilk at that time (with EFY going on) there was a young mother and a little girl, not quite two years old. The little girl had just got the hang of walking on her own. Out of the many other people walking by outside, the little girl stopped walking and let go of her mom's hand. She just stood there, staring at me, a zombie. With my frame of mind (being an artist, I experience emotions quite visually) she looked like a ghost, like everyone else - blurry and far away from me. But as the little girl raised her hand up beside her face, the blurry world stayed blurry and gray, but the little girl came into focus and I saw her. I saw her in color, dull color, but color. She opened and closed her little fist in that innocent child-like wave.

I stopped walking and turned to face her. I slowly moved my hand up to my chest and opened and closed my fist in the same way. Neither of us smiled as we did this, but our eyes were locked.

The mother grabbed her hand and pulled her away, anxious to get to the library totally oblivious to our moment. And my feet felt pulled the opposite direction towards my frogs. No words. But all of a sudden the impossible had happened. I had connected to someone. As if by grace, I found connection, a lifeline. The color didn't come back to my world for a while and it was still a blurry gray. but the memory of the little girl stayed with me and it was enough to make me feel alive in the death that threatened to consume me. But it could not consume me!

As the phantoms roared at me with frightening questions and accusations, "Why live in a world like this!?" I stared it firmly in the face and raised my hand to my chest deliberately, hovering beside my heart, and I opened and closed my fist at him... And with that, the devil shrieked and fled in anger. Despite the devil filling my world with death, I can still see life. He left my world dark and gray and blurry, but I can still see even if only in my heart's memory.