My grandfather always eagerly and passionately recounted stories from the past, whether he had overheard them or experienced them himself. Most of these stories were tales from the war, describing how, as a young boy, he had felt immense fear, or stories about how he met my grandmother and raised my parents. Regardless of how sad or frightening these stories were, my grandfather always remained cheerful, his eyes reflecting the memories of the past with a smile. One evening in cold December, my grandfather settled into his armchair as usual and asked me if I wanted to hear a story from the old days. As always, I was very eager and couldn’t wait to find out what it would be about. However, as I got closer to my grandfather, I noticed how dark his face had become.
“My boy… today, I will tell you a story from the time of Great-Grandfather Karl,” he said with a hoarse voice.
He had never told stories about his father before, and I rarely heard anything about my great-grandfather. When I once asked my parents who my great-grandfather was, they told me he was just a confused and eccentric old man. And as they told me this, it almost seemed like they wanted to quickly change the subject.
My grandfather began with the story, and I listened even more intently than usual.
“Your great-grandfather Karl served in the war back then, you know? Not in the second, but in the first of the two world wars. He was stationed on the front lines of France as a young man in the winter of 1916. The conditions there were terrible and cruel, which changed many men at the time, leaving them no longer in their right minds when they returned. Like many young men, your great-grandfather Karl voluntarily joined the army and was immediately sent into his first battle, where he faced the harsh reality - no grand parades or celebrations, only men fighting for their lives, thanking God if they survived another battle. During his first battle, your great-grandfather Karl fell into one of the French trenches they had taken during the offensive and slipped in the wet mud. He fell and landed headfirst on the ground. He couldn’t remember why he didn’t have his helmet on anymore or how long he was unconscious, but when he woke up, it was already dark. In the darkness of the trenches, he found himself alone, with no trace of his comrades. He began to make his way and tried to listen to the distance, hoping to hear the shouts of the men or the squeaking of rats, but he heard nothing at all. When he told me this story, he said it was the worst and most eerie silence he had ever experienced, one that would never be matched.”
My grandfather paused briefly and folded his hands in his lap, staring at the floor until he looked back at me.
“Your great-grandfather Karl kept going and going, but even after more than an hour, he couldn’t find a single person. He became desperate and sat down to think when suddenly he saw a large, dark hole in the trench floor. He wasn’t sure why that hole was there, but he had the feeling that something was watching him from the darkness of the hole, so he decided to keep moving without pause. He climbed out of the trenches and walked across the battlefield, shrouded in gray mist, until he heard something… footsteps. He called out in the direction the footsteps were coming from, but suddenly, he couldn’t hear them anymore. Whatever or whoever had been there had heard him and stopped, which prompted my father to call out a second time. But this time… this time, someone or, more accurately, something answered him. It was an indescribable sound, a mixture of the cries of his dying comrades and words from many different languages. He was filled with fear as he heard the footsteps again, so he ran. He ran deep into the fog until he found himself in a forest and hid in a tall tree. The footsteps could still be heard, and as they came closer, they sounded less like a human in large boots walking on the forest floor and more like a goat with hooves taking a running start. Whatever had followed him into the woods was finally revealed.”
My grandfather paused again, and I could tell that this story had affected him quite profoundly since he first heard it.
“Be that as it may… the beast that had pursued your great-grandfather remained right next to the tree. He could barely see it because of the fog, but he remained still, not daring to move. He looked away from the beast so that it wouldn’t possibly hear him breathing, and when he thought it was gone, he looked back toward the ground. The beast stared directly at him and didn’t move an inch. It was as if time had stopped briefly, and my father could hardly move from fear. He tried to describe it to me back then, but I could never quite understand from his description… as he told me, it appeared to be like a large centaur with small horns and overly long human-like arms. Its head resembled a demon from an ancient legend. He could hardly believe what he saw and quietly uttered a prayer, causing the beast to hesitate. It emitted its shrill scream once more and disappeared into the dark fog. When he was sure the beast was gone, he remained perched in the tree for another three hours until he finally heard German soldiers calling his name. He ran to them immediately, but he was no longer the same as he had been before. They reassigned him to a different front, but when they found him crouching and sobbing in an old barn, they were certain he had lost his sanity. He was taken to a mental institution before the end of the war, and he remained unresponsive until the end of the war. After the war, he improved, and he met my mother, leading to my birth a few years later.”
My grandfather looked at me sadly but soon began to smile again.
“Believe me, my boy… nothing is worse than war. Where man encounters the beast, the true battle lies in healing his own soul.”
With those words, my grandpa stood up and grabbed a piece of cake. I felt that telling this story had done him good, and even though I wondered how true these stories really were, I couldn’t help but wonder if there might be a glimmer of truth in them after all. Perhaps Great-Grandfather Karl wasn’t just a strange and old man?