The Dreamweavers...

Well, no one's shared any story-like things, so here's my Hindenburg 'report.' Feel free to critise, edit, whatever with it. ;)

A Life Never Known
A Short Story by Alyssa H.


Grandfather Jack Egon Andreas was so proud that day, long ago as it seems. I’ll always remember watching him strut down the lane, looking very much like a peacock lacking feathers. The Hindenburg was coming, and on it my father and mother were, they having stayed behind in Germany after sending Grandfather Jack, Grandmum Flora and myself here to America. I will never forget that day. I will never forget the horror, I will never forget my mother and father, and my new life lost with them.


The sun had gone down already, though I hardly noticed, fearing the damage the Hindenburg might receive from an earlier rain as I was.

How little I knew.

It was six thirty by our New Jersey reckoning when, in one hand in my grandfather’s and the other in Grandmum’s, we arrived in the viewing field we could watch the Hindenburg’s landing from, that day, May 6th, 1937.

“Grandmum, when are they going to get here?” I asked impatiently.

“Soon, soon child,” Grandmum smiled, her silver-blue eyes gentle and happy. She had been waiting three years for this day, to see her daughter again, and, as she later told me, had spent many a night imagining Mother stepping down from the blimp, her long brown hair and golden-like eyes searching the crowd for us, her pretty lips curved up in a smile, and Father, proud as a man could be, with her arm in his. “Like a king and queen, they were,” she’d often said, “so perfect for each other, like two puzzle pieces put together to make a beautiful scene.”

“Egon,” she said now, addressing Grandfather by his German name, as she liked to, “tell the child a story while she waits—something about her father and mother, maybe?”

“Yes! Yes!” I cried, pleased. Grandfather rarely told me stories, but when he did, it was like Christmas all over again.

He chuckled, “Very well. But what to tell? There is so much!”

“When they met!” I requested. “Tell me how they met.” This was—and is—my favorite tale of all the rest, and I often recited it to myself when Grandfather was not nearby.

“All right.” He smiled and ruffled my short hair. “Well, Erna,” that’s my German name, “as you know well enough your papa was over in Germany on business—which to this day he won’t tell me what it was.”

“Because it’s a secret,” I interrupted.

“Must be a big one to keep it from his own foster-father.” Grandfather Jack gave me a wink.

“Egon, on with the story!” Grandmum demanded, impatient as I.

“Right, right, the story. See,” Grandfather was looking back to me, “whatever his duty, your papa found himself one day lost in our town’s market.”

“The one with the hunny rolls?” I asked, excited.

“What—? Oh. Yes. You got sick on those, now, didn’t you?” His laughter was sweet and merry, even to my young ears. “Yes, it was that one. Anyhow, he finds himself lost, can’t speak hardly a word of German, and needs to get to his camp or whatever he was to report to within the next day. He thinks to himself, ‘I’ll just go and see if one of these merchants has a room I might stay in for the night, and if any know the way to Kassel.’ Up he strutted to the nearby stall—but there saw a poor girl getting harassed by two men. Now, not knowing German fluently, he had no inkling what was the men’s reason for it, but he saw the injustice. With a grim look he walked over to them and demanded to know way they did this. ‘You have no need to know that,’ says they. ‘Go mind your own business.’”

Grandmum shook her head at Grandfather’s interoperation of the men’s words.

“But, being a strong man in body and mind,” Grandfather continued, “your daddy would listen to none of it. The thieves—for thieves they were—threatened to take him into an alley and there teach him a good lesson, but still he stood firm and warned them to leave the girl be, or it would be they that would get a beating. Not being used to being talked back to, and knowing your dad would do it, by the look in his eye, they threw the girl down and ran off.

“Like a true gentleman, Frank helped the lass up. Now-a-days he says often that the first time he saw those golden eyes of hers he fell in love, and I rightly believe him, since it was the same with me. She thanked him kindly and, as was our custom, invited him to come to dinner at our house. He excepted, ‘Wanting to see those eyes just a little longer,’ and soon as he knows where she lives, begins to visit once a week, as long as he’s in Germany. Then, just before he left for his home in America, he came one last time, and did it!”

“Did what?” I gasped, though I knew the answer well.

“Well,” Grandfather lowered his voice for an ere effect, “after dinner, he took her outside to talk. When they were walking, he began to tell her little things, hints that he loved her, like, say, ‘Your eyes are so gold, like the sun rising on a clear morning,’ or, ‘I will miss hearing your sweet voice, when I leave.’ To these Anna blushed and smiled. Finally, when they’d been walking nearly an hour, he led her back and, in sight of your grandma and me, as I had requested earlier, he stopped her and took her hands in his. Neither of them ever told me what was said, but from Ann’s face they were pleasant words. And he slipped a ring onto her pretty finger and they raced into the house to tell us.” He laughed. “Like young school children, they were, so joyful and excited.”

“And he took her to a church,” I finished the story for them, “and they were married before the week was over!”

“Which they do not recommend doing,” Grandmum put in, shaking her head with a smile.

“Look!” came the shout from across the field, interrupting our small talk. “Look! Look! There it is!”

I gave a gasp and cried, “Where? Where is it, Grandfather Jack?”

“Oh, I don’t see it yet—” he cut himself short and took up the yell. “There, there, child! See it? That speck on the horizon!” He pointed, but I couldn’t make out anything against the dark, cloud filled sky, and the light drizzle that had started did not help.

“Oh!” I cried nervously. “Oh, I can’t see it anywhere!”

“Pick her up, Egon,” Grandmun suggested. “Help her see over the crowd.”

Grandfather had me on his shoulder almost immediately. “All right. Look over towards that tall tree. See it? Good. Now look a little above it and to the left… See that circle, just a shade lighter than the sky?”

I strained my sight until I could make out a rapidly growing blotch of silver-gray. “I see it!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “I see it! I see it, Grandfather! Look—it’s coming! It’s almost here! The Hindenburg is here!”

The crowd took up a loud cheer as it approached us, all of our voices mixed as one, loud, merry-making group, eyes lifted to the skies. The Hindenburg flew over us once, and then turned sharply and came back. Never since I have been able to capture its glory in neither drawing nor writing, but let me try once more.

It was a silver bird (rather, a very fat one), with the sun rays playing on the polished propellers time and again. It was proud in that it was huge. Nothing could destroy it, it would live on forever as a mark of history, a turning age in which we would fly in these from place to place instead of taking boats or trains. It was to us what dreams are made of. It was the accomplishment of our hard work with our brains and two hands. It was proof that magical things don’t always just happen in fairytales, but also in real life. It was the knight returning to his castle after winning a joust. It was the soldier returned from a victorious war. It was the sun after a never-ending night. It was the dawn of a new age, and even I, at my young age, recognized it as such.

The field became alive suddenly as workers moved to their places to help bring in the Hindenburg down. Orders were given and last minute preparations were completed to ready the moment I had waited for since I was three.

The ship turned again and rode towards me and my field, the landing dock. I felt a smile grow on my face as I heard the shouts from the ship float down to us, undoubtedly orders from captain to crew. I thought—or imagined—I could see the passengers, my father and mother among them, come out on the deck to watch for the friends and family who waited below.

“Oh, Grandmum,” I whispered suddenly, “it’s so pretty…”

Grandmum smiled gently and reached up to take my hand in her own. “I know, dear.”

Grandfather’s eyes shone with pride, though I could not see them very well from my perch on his shoulders. He must have been thinking of my mother and father.

The Hindenburg—nearly above us now—seemed to stop in midair. Then ropes fell down from the nose of the plane, hurtling down, down to be caught by a number of men waiting. The rain began to fall once more, though I hardly noticed, my heart beat so quickly. It was almost time. Soon, soon I would see Mother and Father again…

Suddenly, though, as if by the Devil himself, my dreams and hopes vanished, and instead all I could feel was fear.

It was afire.

I can’t remember where or when the fire started, how long it had secretly burned, all I recall is a scream as a woman nearby witnessed the whole back of the ship burst into flame. I looked up and felt my breath leave me.

It was afire.

I must have screamed, for I remember clearly the chaos in my mind.

Father. Father was on that! And Mother! No, this isn’t real. No, this can’t be. God, what is happening! What are You doing? My father is on that! Stop it! Stop it!

Grandmum was crying also, and now I was in her arms. “Come, child, hush now,” she whispered, pressing my head against her wet cheek. “Shh, don’t fret. Hush, child…”

Grandfather was standing erect watching it. His face was of stone, a mix of confusion, fear, and horror. The red flames made him look red as well. A single tear streaked down his face, and his lips moved soundlessly.

Grandmum’s arms clucked me then as she looked up. “My God!” she cried. “My God, it’s crashing!”

I looked. Up in the sky I watched, as if in a slow-motion film, my beautiful silver bird sink down, down the last five hundred feet to the hungry ground that waited below. A bit off I heard a man cry out, “Oh, the humanity!”

I could not watch long. With a sob I buried my head in Grandmum’s jacket, braising myself against the shake in the earth as the Hindenburg collided with earth. Father… Mother… both of them gone. And the noise. Screams everywhere. Cries for loved ones, yells to get off the field, to clear the area. Women morning loudly, the men gone silent. Grandmum holding me against herself. The roar of the flames not far off, the yells of burning passengers. It was too much—too horrid. I wanted to disappear, I wanted my mother, I wanted papa.

“Flora,” came the voice near my elbow, “Flora, get the child out of here.”

I felt Grandmum’s nod and Grandfather’s hand wrap around hers, which gripped me. Then we were moving, ever with Grandfather’s hand holding hers so we might not loose ourselves.

But we couldn’t go! We could not leave my father and mother! “No!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, trying to push myself free. “No! We can’t go! Grandmum—no! Go back!” I made fists and began to pound at her. “No—we can’t leave them! Grandfather—take me back! Take me back!”

“Shush, now, Erna,” Grandmum whispered.

“NO!” I cried, pulling her white hair. She was no longer my grandmother in my eyes, but a beast that would tear me away from my parents. A horrid beast that would kill them. A beast that would stop me from saving them. I had to get free! “Let me go!” I yelled. “Let me go! Take me back!”

It was now Grandfather’s strong arms that held me—I could hear Grandmum’s gentle sobs at my side. “Child,” said Grandfather. “Child, listen now. We need you to calm down. They’ll be a time for sobs soon enough. Hush now.”

I collapsed against his arms, too tired and overwhelmed to fight him. And my sobs engulfed me, became all I knew, and I let them sweep me away... to a life I might never have known, without my father and mother. And I sobbed, for it was to me that I had died, and not them.