The streetcar swims in a sea of flames. The people inside stand with faces against the glass, mouths open in soundless screams.

In the empty streets, the signs on store-fronts flutter. Their heavy gothic lettering, a language no one knows anymore. The sky is red with smoke. On the veranda, a man in a high-peaked cap gives the salute.

Together, the people trapped inside push their bodies against the burning bus. It rocks back and forth, like a man in a prayer shawl, his body swayed by the wind.

The smoke fills up our lungs. Coughing through the haze, I can see them, the silent men, the women with their hands on the delicate shoulders of their children. Eyes closed, mouths open, faces ash-white, as if they were already dead.

The smoke takes the form of a lion, fangs bared. It is rising up from its crouching stance: it is the lion of Samson, the lion that struck terror into the heart of the Philistine nations.

The man on the veranda sees it, and is afraid: the men with death in their hearts see it, and plead in supplication.

I am one with the dead. Together we lie, our charred limbs entangled, a mosaic of hate set free.
The streetcar burns into the night: the lion of smoke sits on the rooftops, its vision reaching past the guns, the stiff-armed salutes, the corpses piled into barrows.

Truly, our souls have been set free.

"Weeping may endure into the night...but joy cometh in the morning.
Destruction cometh, and they seek peace, and there shall be none."
He is my rock and my salvation. He..."

Note from the author:

"This piece was inspired by some reading I had done on the Holocaust," Rephun says, "in particular, a quote by a former member of the Hitler youth, who, reflecting on his participation in Kristallnacht, recalled thinking, 'It was great to bash some Jews. They did so much harm to our country, and now they were getting some of it back.' He'd expresed regret these many years later, but the quote captured the thought process that was so prevalent at the time."