Hurtgen Forest

They soaked my floor in blood, they turned my limbs into weapons. I am known best for hosting the deadliest battle of a country I do not even know. I have sheltered and cared for those who have called my body home. I have had many names through the ages as my charges have slept under my canopy. Hurtgen Forest is the name I carry now.

My people have lived among my wood for centuries. They have built and grown more than any other humans I have seen in my long life. I hear the rumbles and splutters as metal boxes travel on rubber wheels through the roads they have woven through my valleys. I watch them come and go, the ebb and flow of time so much slower for me.

The one thing I know when it comes to humans, peace is not something they truly know. It was not so long ago another war had raged, I heard whispers that it had covered the world. In all my years I have seen such horror and tears as to fill the whole world with fear.

Stirrings from across the plains have reached me, they speak of the atrocities my people have committed; cruelties I thought long since dead. Tortured and destroyed, my people have turned on their own. They brand them as cattle with numbers on their arms. They have stripped them of their humanity.

My people come now to lay an ambush within my borders. Large machines roar through my plains, they break down my trees forcing their way through. Tanks is the word I hear used to describe these monstrosities.

My people spread out like ants from behind, they gouge holes into my floor, burrowing deep they plant doors. Bunkers they are called, my shelter is not enough to hide their shame.

I turn to the west as I feel the ground tremble, a row of teeth they create at my perimeter. They move large cinders, the earth shakes as its forced to embrace and surrender to them. I watch and wait, I know they are preparing. Too often have I watched the approach of war.

I watch as the “others” advance.They come swiftly. Their confidence will lead them to blunder. I feel the swell of my people as they move through my trees, they use the cover of my leaves.

BANG

BLAST

BOOM

The firefight has begun.

Who knows when this battle will be won.

Already the “others” have begun to regroup, they have moved from valley to gulley using what little cover I can offer. They too have brought tanks, but they find themselves blocked by those barbaric teeth. I see their men begin to dig, they stack the earth so high as to make a road all it’s own. They have conquered the teeth and now they come.

The “others”, like a raging bull, continue their advance. They will give no quarter nor surrender.

My people hidden in the bunkers unleash such hellfire and brimstone that I have not seen for a millennia. The bodies that fall I cradle and comfort; their pain I feel to the depth of soul.

Wave upon wave of the “others” attempt to advance, they dig in their hooves, and press their horns into my floor. They snort and they roar as they press forward. They bulldoze their way toward the bunker, their bodies lining the path. Then they reach the door and deal such a blow!

“Damn Americans!” my people scream, the “others” finally have a name

BOOM

The bunker destroyed.

Then comes the worst of all the horror. In this I will concede true destruction the likes of which I have never seen.

“Mortars!” cry the Americans.

They fall from the sky as if rain; even I myself cannot hold back my screams. They rip my limbs and uproot my trees, they blast and tear me! I watch as the Americans fall one by one. The explosions throw them from their feet, the searing metal fragments tears through their flesh. I watch as my limbs impale those bullheaded Americans to my floor.

Never have I been so wounded during a war, the gaping chasms roar as I feel the bombardments burn me. My cries rise and fall, as the battle rages within in me.

The explosions have stopped. I breathe in deep and tremble in the quiet. To know that my own people have wounded me so rends my soul.

I look at those who run amongst my wood, I have protected and watched over them for centuries but I no longer recognize them. They have become monsters to be feared.

I give what aid and comfort I can to the Americans as they tear their way through the depths and lays of my landscape. They cannot hear the shrieks and screams of the persecuted. They do not understand the terrors my people have inflicted upon their own, I can only pray these bullheaded Americans will conquer the day. They are the salvation of the damned.

Here and there I trip and snare until my people fall to ruin.

When it is all done and they have passed from under my shade. I survey the death that has been left in their wake.

The blood runs like a river through my curves, the jagged ends of my limbs like torn fingernails. The bodies left behind by comrade and foe sink into my muddy embrace. I shall be their final resting place.

I look to the east and listen.

The tortured screams have been reduced to but a whisper.

I send what comfort I can.

My whispers carried upon the breeze to my oppressed people.

They are coming.

Help is coming.