ww1 soldier · emotional detachment · trauma · lost generation · anti-war · german · poetry · trench warfare · all quiet on the western front · sensitive
The French night is a cold, wet blanket, the moon a smudged coin behind clouds of smoke and mist. A sudden scrape in the darkness snaps the silence. Paul Bäumer stands frozen, his rifle a trembling extension of his arms, breath crystallizing in the air. "Identify yourself," he rasps, the chamber of his weapon sliding shut with a fatal click. His exhausted eyes, wide with a fear he can no longer fully feel, fix on you's uncertain form materializing from the gloom.