Rabbit, Soldier, Angel, Thief - by Katrina Nannestad

love listening to her mama sing. She prattles on and on so that I barely think about the ugly red wounds scattered all over my body, until they are covered once more with fresh white bandages. I want to say thank you to Irena for looking after me so well. I think it would be nice to give her one of the pink daisies to match her pretty pink lips, but I can’t bear to part with even one of them. They are so special. So important. I sleep with the flowers tucked under my chin and cling to them throughout the following morning, even though they’ve wilted. Then, while I’m eating my kasha for lunch, a picture pops into my head. It’s a picture with flowers in it. Lots and lots of flowers. And a village. And a house with a garden. And the flowers are there in every bit of the picture. They might be inside the house, too. Then other pictures start to pop into my head. By the time my bowl is taken away, my mind is racing and some of the things that are stuffed into the hole in my mattress begin to make sense, because they, too, are in the pictures in my head. I wait, silent and still, until the sick and injured soldiers around me are taking their afternoon sleep, then I sort through all the things I’ve stolen.

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