Silent Night and Stille Nacht met over No Man’s Land. We’d be shot if we acknowledged the lives, loves, and dreams of the men we shared chocolate and football with, or apologised for the bullets to come tomorrow.
“Merry Christmas, Hans.”
“Frohe Weihnachten, John.”
That would have to do. #WriteCBC

The hotel lobby had been so normal, I was surprised by the large portraits of angry faces around my room. I fell into a restless sleep, disturbed by the hateful gazes of the paintings.

Dawn came, sunlight streaming through the windows that surrounded the room. No paintings, only glass… #WriteCBC

<3 thank you!

In the back cover of the book, a faded promise outlived the hand that had wrote it. His handwriting was soft and blurred now. Words of love, whispered in ink, drowned by the scream of war. The man she married slept beside her, never aware of the inky ghost of the boy who hadn’t come home. #WriteCBC

Thank you! Really strong entries this month, it was fun to read them all.

She lingers by the telegrams in the war exhibit. Tiny paper bombs, each creased square once splitting a life in half. His is still in her drawer, unopened, yellowed at the edges. She reads the others like scripture, searching strangers’ grief for words she couldn’t bear to read about him. #WriteCBC

“I’m you,” he said. “20 years from now.”
I laughed, one hand holding the door. “Very funny. Steve put you up to this?”
He pulled up his sleeve. The scar. *My* scar. I looked at it, then
at my own. Impossible.
“I remember what you’re planning…and how it ends. Let’s not do it again.” #WriteCBC

Her grandson had almost finished the puzzle. She studied 5-down. “Double cipher, not a clue.”
He laughed, confused. She just smiled. She hadn’t meant to say it out loud. 70 years, and the habits still stuck. They’d trained her to spot patterns, but when the war was over, not how to stop. #WriteCBC