I stopped loving trains


 

I used to love trains.

Everybody said so.

They called me the Jew kid they always saw sitting by the Krakow train yards watching the trains come and go.

I went there whenever I could, sneaking out of school whenever could, always scolded later by momma when I got back to the schule.

I loved the way the wheels moved, show at first, like some great beast gathering strength before a leap, the chug, chug, chug of the coal-burning steam engine and wheels struggling to drag away the rest of the train.

I even loved the way the black soot settled over me, filled with sparks I always saw as eyes, living beings staring out at me from some unimaginable darkness.

I breathed deep air scented in coal and grease, a smell poppa hated because we had to breathe it in all day, living as close to the tracks as we did.

When I was very young I sat at the tracks side and dreamed of all the places those trains might take me, counting down the months, hours, weeks and days to when I would be old enough to take one, places my vivid imagination painted inside me like the scratchy photos I sometimes used to look at in books.

I didn�t really care where those trains went as they took me someplace else other than Krakow.

Momma always scolded me about being such a dreamer, telling me I ought to learn to learn the Torah, respect my elders and take comfort in following in poppa�s footsteps � who she said was an honest man.

Now I don't dream as much.

I don't breathe too deeply or stare too hard at the ash that falls.

And now, I don't love trains.

 

 

Published
Because some professional actors said they could not use the work unless they were published; I have finally published these monologues and others -- and these are available at Amazon.com. This collection includes other material not originally available on this site -- slightly over 40 monologues.
Holocaust Monologues: the real and the unreal

holocaust menu



email to Al Sullivan

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bad blood

Image
  The problem is in my blood. I was born with it. It keeps surging through my veins making them hate me for it. Somehow, it makes me inferior to them like some disease for which there is no cure. But they are always trying to find a cure anyway. We wear stars on our chests or backs We see notices of doom on our doors. We go to ghettos to keep from spreading what we have to people who cannot catch it. They try to starve it out of us, work it out of us, beat it out of us, when they know like we know it is something in our blood. So they spill that, too, herding into this place where we might be kept safe from hurting anyone, stealing away the weakest of us so as to leave the rest of us for work. And still that is not enough, sweat and tears unable to rid us of this thing that stirs in our blood. And I think as I take this razor. If I let out all the bad blood will they finally let me live?     Published Because some professional actors said they could not use the work unles...
Read more

Passing for Christian

Image
Published Because some professional actors said they could not use the work unless they were published; I have finally published these monologues and others -- and these are available at Amazon.com. This collection includes other material not originally available on this site -- slightly over 40 monologues.   My landlord is convinced I am a Jew. No matter how much I study being Christian, something small always trips me up. I need to leave Germany, but Christian guards are savvy to every trick, grilling people like me to make certain we really are the Christians we say we are. Each time I think I am ready to take that test, I panic. I pray for guidance, not as a Christian, nor even as a Jews, but at a desperate girl, having faith that God didn’t mean for any of this to happen and that he will eventually help save me. I am luckier than most in that I look German. On the street people nod at me as if I was one of their own. This has kept my landlord in doubt. He fears that I might re...
Read more

Kind Eyes

He has a nice face, and kind eyes, and very soft hands. So I don't understand how hands so soft can cause so much pain? He wakes us each morning and tells us how unworthy we are, striding up our lines to look closely at each of us for something none of us can see. If we could see it, we might change it before he sees it, we think a flaw in our faces or a look in our eyes he does not like. Sometimes, he even smiles before he frowns as if to tell this person or that all will be well when it won't be. We all know this person or that person in this line we stand in must die today. After so many times, we know someone must die, we just don't know who. And we understand we die because he wants us to die, and it is up to him to decide which one of us he wants on which particular day. So when he wakes us up each of us wonders which one of us his kind eyes and soft hands will kill next, and how many days it will take him to kill us all, and if in the end, which ones of us are really...
Read more