A Common Enemy
Words by Laura Besley
Art by Ann van der Giessen
Posted on October 21, 2021
Forced to take him in, the man hates the boy: young, foreign, alive—unlike his own son. With German too good to toil in a camp, the boy translates documents for the Nazis.
Each day, the man and the boy eat a meagre evening meal in silence. “Danke,” the boy whispers, after.
One evening, when the hue of clouds promise snow, the boy is late. The man paces the kitchen until he returns, face split and torn.
“Sit,” the man says.
Cleaning the wounds, the man talks, the boy too, words of a common enemy uniting them.
Outside snow falls.
The boy knows the man hates him, knows he is a forced reminder of a son not long dead. Fluent in German, he is spared the camps, spends his days translating documents for the Nazis.
The man’s house is steeped in silence, except for the boy’s “Danke” after each meagre meal.
One evening, the threat of snow low in the sky, a hand grabs the boy, splits and tears his face. He stumbles back, arrives around midnight.
“Sit,” the man says.
Cleaning the wounds, the man talks, the boy too, words of the common enemy uniting them.
Outside snow falls.
About the author
Laura Besley is the author of the micro fiction collection 100neHundred (Arachne Press, 2021) and flash fiction collection, The Almost Mothers (Dahlia Books, 2020). She has been listed by TSS Publishing as one of the top 50 British and Irish Flash Fiction writers. Her work has been nominated for Best Micro Fiction and her story, "To Cut a Long Story Short", will appear in the Best Small Fiction anthology in 2021.
Having lived in the Netherlands, Germany, and Hong Kong, she now lives in land-locked central England and misses the sea.
About the illustrator
Ann van der Giessen is an author and artist living in Wales. Her work has appeared in several publications both online and in print. She is the author of four poetry books under the pseudonym Juliette van der Molen. You can connect with her via Twitter @ann_vdGiessen, Instagram @ann.vandergiessen or through her website at www.JulietteWrites.com.