Again

It’s happening all over again. How can this be?

The neighbors down the street are angry. They blame us for all their problems. But why?

In the living room, Dad sits immobile. I touch his arm but he won’t look up.

In the kitchen, Mom sits at the table. Is she remembering? Why is she up? It’s 2 a.m. Tears slip down her cheeks. They fall onto the plastic tablecloth. She doesn’t wipe them up.

I return to my room, alone. We are a family of ceramic statuettes. Frozen. Are we human?

Dad stares straight ahead. What does he see? The barbed wire of the camps? German guards strutting proudly, looking at their prey? Smokestacks pushing out the bodies of his loved ones?

Is Dad feeling the silence of parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, gone forever? Did they ever exist?

Is Mom thinking of the brick wall they built to close in the ghetto that gets smaller every week? How many times will she show her pass to the guards at the entrance gate? How many days are left? So many have left already.

The breeze against my ear turns menacingly into a roar. It shouts, “This time we won’t go so easily.”