Kitchen
Another story from my creative writing class, again from a picture. This time it's from https://lisson.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/attachment/image/body/875/ABRA090003.jpg by Marina Abramovic, which is hung in my school's art gallery.
It takes place in Serbia in 1946, both of which were taken from the placard next to the photo in the gallery.
The Kitchen
He used to stand right here. I would sit like this next to him and play while he made and shaped the dough. At least that's what I'm told. My brother said he died in the defense of Belgrade while I was still very young, and though I don't remember I have no reason to disbelieve him. I grew up. I met and married Bogdan, a wonderful man and a baker like my father. He had started his own business and was running it out of his kitchen. It was crowded there, especially after we had Boris and Jasna. When Mira was born we had run out of space, and Bogdan's business was growing too large for our small kitchen (we started making soup, too). My mother was thrilled with our three children, and with Todor(my brother) having emigrated to America she saw no reason to leave the house to him (he never wrote). She needed company and a family to inherit the place, so she eagerly invited us to move in. Bogdan lost no time with father's large kitchen, turning it into a factory of wonderful smells and children's laughter.
Then the Wehrmacht came.
There was no warning. Momma was sitting in the living room by the stove, reading a story to Boris, Jasna, and Mira. Bogdan was standing in the corner over there, pulling cooked loaves out of the ovens. I was in the doorway to the house, teasing him. He turned around to give my a sly smile and wit, and just like that my gift from God was taken back. There was chaos. The ovens exploded out of the wall and all over the kitchen, dispersing Bogdan with themselves. I was standing there, stunned and in disbelieve, as if it had happened so fast it couldn't be real. I remember just standing there, staring at the hole where the ovens had been just seconds ago, covered in soot, flour, bread, and blood until momma came to see what had happened. I'm glad the children listened for once and didn't come. We managed to bury him after the front passed. The next day the rest of us were arrested and... and I shouldn't have made it back, but I did. I returned to find out that the Nazis had taken everything I had loved. They murdered my children, my mother, my husband, and my home. A shell had even unearthed Bogdan's grave, leaving only his skull. So now I sit here, in the husk of where I used to live, with a bone of the man I loved and the ghosts of my children, wondering if Stalin will come and take those too. If he takes me with them, the way the Nazis have taken everything else, maybe it won't be so bad. At least we'll be together again.