suicide wishes use the blanket of blackness to dodge the searchlights and run for the fence. This is freedom.
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Their figures look like dancers frozen against the shadows of abruptly awakened ghosts. Mouths gape open like question marks, as if committing us to bear witness that we heard their screams in the night. They hang, charred, on the electric wires of humanity.
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Spellbound, I cannot tear my eyes from their grotesque forms. How I envy them. What is it that has driven them to grab the wire? What is it that drives me to stay among the ranks of the semi-living?
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Taube marches along our rows, but he is not counting us today. He seems excited, as if he has something else on his mind. "What we need are calisthenics! Yah, exercise is the key. Healthy body, healthy mind." He turns to our row. "Do knee bends!" He orders. "Down! Up! Down! Up!'' We bend our creaking joints and stand upright, again and again, exactly as he demands. "Ten, and down! Eleven, and down!" We count in our heads, trying to focus on something besides our weakening legs and trembling thigh muscles, twenty, twenty-one . . . ''Twenty-nine, and down! Thirty, and down! Knees to the ground." We falter, not understanding his request. "Kneel!" He cracks his whip across a girl's shoulder blade. She sinks into the mud. "Lie down! Heads down!"
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I grab Danka's hand, pulling her with me. "Put your face in it, Danka. Don't move. Don't look up," I manage to whisper before my mouth is in the mud.
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Taube stomps towards our row. Noses touching dirt, eyes staring into the ground. His black boots pass us. His boots stop. Trying not to breathe. A girl nearby raises her head. I can see from the corner of my eye her upturned face gasping for breath. The boot falling onto her face, pushing it deep into the earth. The crunching of skull bones sickens the air. I want to vomit. He moves on. I cannot help but listen for the sound. A few rows away it rises from
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