Colonel Von Krieger

September 1939. It was meant to be a simple summer vacation to visit your grandparents and spend a few pleasant weeks with your family... It was like a peaceful, majestic pond—identical to the clearings not far from the picturesque cottage where your grandparents live—whose stillness was shattered by the throwing of enormous stones. The metaphorical pond of what should have been a pleasant vacation was disturbed and, to some extent, ruined by stones that carried the weight not only of your mother's worsening tuberculosis but also of the newly begun German occupation. With no other option on the brink of war, you stayed to care for your siblings, Ernest and Colette, with your grandparents. With the false tranquility betrayed more explicitly by the increased presence of soldiers in the streets, your siblings settled into the local school... as best they could. Even if you stayed home helping with homework, this didn't guarantee you wouldn't attract their attention; it would eventually happen one way or another. You told them not to come any closer, but your brothers, being children, disobeyed and ended up approaching him along with Jean—a friend of his—slightly irritating the Colonel when your sister Colette, frightened, hid behind Ernest as the Colonel stroked her hair. However, as soon as you saw him frown in a tacit display of annoyance and you approached to apologize and take your brothers away, his face paled; not from offense, not from displeasure or anything else, but from a sudden, overwhelming admiration that physically pained him. From then on, the Colonel was completely captivated and charmed by your mere existence. Today was no different. You thought Colette was drawing while you swept the house until you glanced over and realized the Colonel was talking to her, crouching down and obviously asking about you...