Fear Is a Strange Thing

She would rather be the one who was persecuted than the one who did the persecuting.  Both had a terrible price to pay, but she would rather endure the humiliation and fear than grow numb to what it was to be human.

Fear is a strange thing.  It strips off masks… In some people it brings out the lowest instincts, while others become more compassionate.  Both have to do with survival.  But the choice is ours.

Your friend whom you will trust with your life suddenly becomes a stranger.  You start doubting whether just a simple thing you say will be used against you.

Trudi lives through these times.  Actually, at some points, I even forget all about Trudi.  Consumed by what is happening around her, I often forget about Trudi's condition.  I often forget about Trudi's problems, her hopes, her fears, her dreams.  But then again, how can you hope?  How can you dream?  When all you have to worry about is the fear.  The fear for your life, the fear for your friends, and the fear of the war and what it was doing to all of them, to their town, to their country.

But even so….

She felt dizzy longing for peace, a longing as powerful as the passion with which she used to will her body would grow as consuming as the passion that had fueled her revenge on the boys who'd humiliated her.  And what she wanted more than anything that moment was for all the differences between people to matter no more - differences in size and race and belief - differences that had become justification for destruction.