EXALTED NIGHT

It was a cold winter night. The days grew darker as the Polish forest creeped closer towards the Winter solstice. Aleksandra strolled out to the grandfather fir tree that sat behind her father’s cabin. It was there that she conversed with her small friend the pygmy owl.

Aleksandra pushed past the full and bellowed base of the tree to reach its inner ladder of branches. She climbed towards the top, where her friend awaited on an upright pinecone. The owl was finishing its dinner of a small striped field mouse, when Aleksandra reached him.

She took off her wool mitten with her teeth before straddling the branch between her legs, and hooking her foot on the thinned out trunk behind her. This supported her weight as she leaned out with her bare hand towards the owl. The little owl rubbed her finger with its head before climbing onto her finger from the pinecone. The two sat on the branch giving each other the warm gift of friendship in such a cold time.

The enchantment of the night was soon broken by a pair of bright lights piercing the snow topped canopy of the fir needles. Aleksandra put her friend back down on the pinecone to climb further up to see where the source of the light was coming from. As she reached the top, she poked her head out like a gopher from its hole. In the distance she could see a pair of spotlights coming from the sky. Then as the spotlights drew near, the silhouette of two large zeppelins appeared in front of the moon.

The appearance startled Aleksandra, and the ice infused brittle limb gave way under the shift in her weight. SNAP! Aleksandra fell down to the lower limbs nearly landing on top of her friend, the owl. As she gathered herself, the two zeppelins came to a hovering stop over the tree. All of a sudden grappling hooks were fired from the flying machines, that anchored them to the ground. Before Aleksandra could call for help, Nazi lumberjacks had repelled down the line and began cutting the tree down with diesel powered saws.

The commotion received the attention of Aleksandra’s father, who grabbed his hunting rifle before pelting outside. The notion to check on his daughter’s well being came a little too late as the tree was strapped to the zeppelins and cut free, right as he made it outside. The father was left with watching the large fir tree be lifted away with his daughter inside it. Aleksandra looked down upon her shrinking father looking hopelessly back as she cried out, “Papa!”.

Little owl was terrified as the tree was flown through the night air. The fluffy winged predator hopped into the jacket pocket of Aleksandra, who was bear hugging the trunk of the tree. Three tears on the side of her face had turned to frost in the chill of the night. The free ride although not far, seemed like the longest event of her life.

Eventually the Northeastern forests of Poland gave way to what Aleksandra would later find out was the beginnings of a sprawling mechanical cityscape known as Berlin. Aleksandra wasn’t afraid of heights, but everyone has their limits. She looked down past the basket of branches below her to see the roof tops of the German neighborhoods.

The outskirts of the city transitioned to a more commercial scape that sprawled for miles. Metal pipes protruded the from the rooftops of brick factories. The black and grey smoke plumed out the tops like a crowd of men smoking pipes. The streets below were empty. Then near the center of Berlin, the snow topped structures gave way to a Main Street lined with lights, cars, people, and podiums adorned with swastikas.

The crowds below erupted in cheers as they saw the zeppelins appear in the night sky with the Christmas tree in tow. The snow flurry blurred out the the individuals standing in their grey and black overcoats on the ground below. Aleksandra felt the zeppelins lower in altitude as they were approaching a large stone gateway in the middle of the street. Just beyond the gate was a roundabout lined with the red Nazi party flag. Around the stage, that was set for the tree was a group of young kids. All blonde by the look of them. They were singing a song that seemed oh so familiar to the “Silent Night”. As the tree was lowered into place in the middle of the roundabout, Aleksandra could hear the lyrics to the song being sung.

“High night of the clear stars, which rise like wide bridges over a deep distance, pass over unfrequent hearts…”

It was Christmas Eve and Aleksandra, who was used to seeking warmth during the cold winter holiday whether through cheerful song or a steamy mug of hot cocoa, had chills run up the back of her neck. This cold mechanical city was singing along to a song drenched in national socialist propaganda, that made them seem like a hoard of blind mindless sheep void of the creative diversity her little village of 400 people used to garner from the pits of their souls. She was alone, desperately wanting to reach out to the warmth of her village.

As the song ended, one of Hitler’s youth turned around and pointed to the tree.

“Schau, schau, da ist ein Mädchen im Baum!”

The little girl’s heart froze like the ice on the ground as a Nazi solider approached the tree. The limbs of the tree were pulled back like a curtain at the cinema. Except this time, it was the end and not the beginning of this story.

www.redwriter.org/story/exalted-night