A Long Sob of Sorrow (standard:drama, 2072 words)
Author: Alexandre Schulenkov	Added: Jan 14 2001	Views/Reads: 3864/2296	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A tragic tale of unfulfilled love and war's harsh embrace

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

by the other occupants of the ‘hole’.  Meant to protect them, that very 
hole might end up as their grave with the hit of another shell. 

‘It’s not like Russia was the aggressor, it’s not the Japanese war
again, the Germans  attacked us — it’s not our fault this time’ blurted 
out Sasha to the consternated Vera.  ‘No nation is at fault when it 
comes to such stupidity, it’s mankind’s fault, we butcher each other, 
and for what?  So that one side can gloat over the other because of the 
gain of territory, the victory of their arms over the other, it’s all 
crazy’, yelled back Vera.  Sasha knew that no matter what he said Vera 
would find fault with his reasons, but he knew that with every word he 
convinced himself further still that his course of action was the best 
and that Vera was completely unenlightened as to honour, glory, and 
fatherland.  ‘The defence of the fatherland...the Tsar calls on us to 
save our homeland, am I to shirk my duty and have the Kaiser run this 
country, nay, I shan’t have it!’  Sasha volleyed back in response to 
Vera’s arguments.  ‘The old and decrepit Tsar, you speak of him as our 
glorious father, he is a despicable despot, you said so in 
university...now you will die for him?’. Vera saw that Sasha was firmly 
entrenched in his position and could not be coaxed out of what he 
planned on doing. Vera cried out as tears streamed down her face, ‘I 
love you can’t you see, please don’t leave me’. Sasha felt betrayed by 
this girl who stands before him and who thinks that by her love all 
will be fixed, ‘the gall that she thinks that what she wants is right, 
how dare she’, thought Sasha to himself as he witnessed the breakdown 
of one of his closest friends.  ‘I won’t have it woman, (Sasha placed 
special emphasis on woman) you can’t control me, my nation needs me and 
I won’t have you blubbering all over me trying to convince me 
otherwise!  I won’t have it!’ shrieked Sasha in such a fervour of tone 
that even he was surprised.  Turning quickly, Vera ran out from under 
the awning and away from her torment; she ran sobbing with tears 
running down her face to the amazement of bystanders who did not hear 
what had transpired between her and Sasha.  Sasha dropped his papers 
and ran after Vera, he didn’t know why he ran after her, what would he 
say when he caught up to her, what could he do now to make things 
right? 

The air was becoming stifling inside the dugout; the reused air was
being circulated once again for what seemed the thousandth time.  The 
shelling continued unabated and the sound became deafening; no one 
could tell how much time had passed, ten minutes, or hours.  Many of 
the conscripts were trembling, one who had caught the attention of the 
non-commissioned officer was chattering his teeth and crying to himself 
and was heard repeating to himself, ‘mother, mother, moth...’.  A loud 
shock wave shattered the hushed stillness within the dugout as a 
‘heavy’ hit close by; the reservist quickly stood as erect as he 
possibly could, he then suddenly lunged for the entrance.  The skilled 
non-com quickly had him on the ground; he knew that the young recruit 
would snap, it was only a matter of time.  Piercingly, the young boy 
bawled and screamed, he was an uncontrollable beast suddenly awaken to 
a nightmare by the firestorm of shells.  His eyes looked inhuman, his 
instincts had overtaken him; the human instinct to run from danger is 
one’s worst enemy during a barrage. 

‘Please stop, please I need to talk to you’, Sasha blurted out between
pants as he raced after Vera.  Vera stopped her flight and turned 
around to face her pursuer, ‘You don’t care about me, you don’t care 
about anyone but yourself...who needs you anyway!’, screamed Vera as 
Sasha stood dumbfounded in the street.  Vera stopped walking, bent her 
head, and began to cry anew.  Sasha put his hand to Vera’s face to wipe 
away her tears and to console her; quite uncontrollable tears began to 
well up in his own eyes.  He realised that for all the time he knew 
Vera she had loved him and he never once thought about love for her 
even though it was blatantly obvious to anyone what was going on.  
Sasha, bent down and took Vera’s hand, he looked deep into her eyes and 
he understood what he needed to do.  On that dirty street corner in 
Tsaritsyn Sasha asked Vera to be his wife. 

A sudden crash resounded in the tiny dugout and for an instant all was
quiet.  Suddenly Sasha found himself in a dark world; he couldn’t see 
anything, he panicked, he tried to move his arms but they were 
paralysed; he tried to kick with his legs but they were frozen where 
they lay.  ‘Am I dead, is this death?’ wondered Sasha, ‘Could this be 
the end?’.  The darkness continued and Sasha couldn’t breathe.  A 
second explosion rocked the earth and Sasha was suddenly in the light 
again.  He could feel his arms and legs, he could breathe again!  Air, 
that plenteous mercy that Sasha greedily filled his lungs with after 
his incarceration in the dark subteranian world, felt like an elixir to 
his hot and burning lungs.  Sasha wondered what had happened.  After 
surverying the ground around him and remembering what had occurred few 
minutes previous, he quickly recognised what had occurred.  Sasha had 
heard of such things happening before; a shell must have scored a 
direct hit on the bunker in which he had sought shelter.  He was then 
buried by the debris and earth surrounding the dugout; the explosion of 
a second shell dug him out of the black moist earth into which he had 
been interred by the first.  Sasha lay upon the newly overturned soil 
and the sky beckoned to him.  Sasha experienced an overwhelming sense 
of peace and security that day as he lay upon the battlefield staring 
at the clouds.  They appeared to him as little poofs of cotton that 
crept across the sky completely unaware of the carnage below; the 
death, the violence, the destruction.  Looking up to the clouds that 
day Sasha felt that he understood the meaning of everything, of life, 
of happiness, of sadness, and of death.  Memories flooded back of Vera, 
his wife, and of his small cottage outside of Svolednye Drasko.  He 
remembered the letters he had received from his wife, he dreamt of his 
newly born son that he had never seen with his own eyes.  It all seemed 
very clear to him, he saw before his eyes dreams of the domestic life 
he knew he would never be able to live.  If he survived the war he 
would be scarred forever, he would never be able to forget the sights, 
the smells, the sensations of being a soldier fighting a war, an 
inhumane war, a war of death, destruction, not of honour and glory.  
Sasha could see as clearly as if he were home, the scenes of life he 
wished for.  An apparition of his wife and child appeared before him.  
They called to him, Sasha arose and stumbled towards the phantasm. 

A German sniper carefully braced himself against the wall of his
entrenchment.  His...rifle....aimed.....with.....marksman’s......skill. 


C R A C K! 

Down, into the mud sank the body of Sasha Dubrovetsky. 


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