Königsberg: The Remaining Remnants (1946)

Near the ruins of an opera house around the city of Königsberg, which has been renamed Kaliningrad—I found two bottles of drink and a drunk. The drunk appeared to be of semi-orthodox descent. He wore old clothes, unfortunately the bottles of the drink I longed for were empty.

At that time I was wearing a typical Slavic jacket, complete with a red star logo on my hat. "Sorry, comrade ... I don't know anything about Samland, Poland, Lithuania or even Prussia," said the drunk, looking down until he almost lost his balance. "But is there something to relieve the cursed pain of this bastard war? All the brutality of World War 2, resides in my head." he added.

"All I have is a bottle of vodka without vodka and a rifle with one bullet for me to kill myself." I answered, with a bit of disappointed because the bottles near the drunkard were empty. Suddenly the drunk measured the caliber of my gun with his finger.

"No, it's too small to get a hole in your head, not even enough to finish a goodbye to the madness in my head," he said, shaking his head. "I thought that bullet would just make you feel like in a Gulag, and that little shit would make me feel even more pain instead of dying happy." he concluded.

The drunk leaned his back against the rusty lamppost and slid into a sitting position, then tried to stare at the disfigured opera house with a gaze. "If I had known ... It would end up like this, I really would have killed the goddamn Hitler from infancy," he insisted.

"I lost everything, all I got was pain, pain and pain." he said softly. While I was gripping my empty bottle in my right hand and my rifle in my left.

"I don't care ... to the Wehrmacht or the Red Army! O carpe diem I need you right now, to return everything is impossible." he continued in a fiery tone and then embraced melancholy.

Frustrated, I slammed the Vodka bottle in my right hand onto the ground, then crushed it. "There's nothing left in this dead city!" I shouted, looking at the drunkard. "I also lost everything, even I lost my wife and children ... The Soviet victory was only a Soviet victory, not mine." I added.

"Sorry comrade, you seem to have to Amorfati (love the fate) ... Or maybe we, not just you," said the drunk, who looked like he was in a trance with Nietzsche.

"Excuse me? You mean to go on with this meaningless life?" I asked, looking straight in his eyes.

"Yes, after all, suicide will not fill the void of meaning in this life ... Ars longa vita bre ..." Before he could continue, he suddenly grabbed my left hand and grabbed my gun.

"DUARRRRrrrrrr !!!!" the drunkard fired my one and only bullet, right into his forehead. Before long, his frail body collapsed. Collapse. The drunkard is dead. Her blood filled the shards of my Vodka bottle.

"Ah shit, in the end, it turned out to be me who was really dead." I chatted to myself, staring at the city of Königsberg which is now completely without remnant.