OUTLINE
I.
Introduction
a. Isaiah
b. His town
c. His family
d. His religion
f. Imprisonment
II.
Isaiah's Room
a. The look
b. The space
c. The ones he lived with
d. The type of life he had
III.
Isaiah's Food
a. How it looked
b. Its consistency
c. The way it tasted
d. Memories of home
IV.
Isaiah's Clothes
a. Growth spur
b. Cloth's aspect
c. How he got new clothes
d. The tragedy
V.
Conclusion
a. Heaven
b. Waking up
c. Readapting
Descriptive Essay
Isaiah is 5 feet tall, and he is about to turn 14 years old. His skin is as white as the bright snow on a cold day, and his hair as black as any obscure cave near the mountains in his hometown, but oddly enough his eyes are a deep hypnotizing intense green that makes him stand out among the crowd. He lives in Germany in a little town in the middle of nowhere, where vegetation can be seen all around; from the tallest of trees, to the plethora of plants and flowers colorful and bright, steaming the sweetest perfumed and fragrant aroma. The voice of children can be heard everywhere, vibrant and full of life, screaming as they laughed out loud for all those things children usually laugh at. Isaiah lived with his parents in a loving family that rarely seemed to be sad; laughter and caring was abounding in his home. He is a very clever young boy who loves sweets, enjoys playing outdoors, and often talks to God. However, he can no longer do many of these things he used to delight in, for he is Jewish, and like many of his people he will soon be sent to a concentration camp to endure a harsh life simply for being who he is. Isaiah will spend his 14th birthday as a victim of the calamity that was the Holocaust. His cell will be his home, and the many people imprisoned with him will be his family for years to come, some of which will not make it past this tragic disaster.
Isaiah’s room, as he liked to call it, was quite small. The walls were gray, and there were no windows to allow the sunlight to access the freezing and dim atmosphere, or to warm up the gloomy and dismal environment in which the children played. There were several bunk beds in two rows along the walls, leaving but a tiny small corridor in the middle which he used to play with his 42 new friends, though not all of them were able to play. The many cracks on the ceiling would often filter in rainwater, and it served two purposes, albeit one proved to be fatal. Isaiah would sometimes use the potty basin to collect the rainwater and ration it among the youngest of the kids. It had a moldy and mildewed, rancid taste, but one kid had already died of dehydration last month. They could not take any more chances. Isaiah would often talk to God and ask for heavy rain, because that way he would be able to wash out the feces left stuck on the basin, or at least make that reeking putrid stench less noticeable. He had to manage to survive in any way possible. The water filtered in through the cracks, however, was sometimes absorbed by the dark wooden bunk beds. The moistened surface would become completely wet overnight, but it would dry out by morning, without leaving a trace of evidence. The residues of a used basin, and the damp environment caused many children to become ill, and were forced to stay in beds that had no mattress and were too small for them to fit in. Isaiah did not know what was wrong with them, but he asked God to make their pain go away, even if God himself had to take them to him. Isaiah preferred the day over the night and for good reason. During the day he was able to listen to the sound of joyous laughter emanating from all the children. Voices that, even within such barbaric imprisonment, were full of excitement and life. They reminded him of his hometown. Guards would sometimes come during the day and take some kids away, but he thought they were being freed, so he usually displayed a smile as wide as slice of watermelon from one ear all the way to the other. Isaiah was very naïve indeed. It was different at night. All that was sound was the grungy sore throats trying to grasp for air, the faint sound of those struggling to stay alive, and the soft moans of those agonizing in what would become their deathbeds. As much as he pleaded to God, there was no hope for them, Isaiah knew.
Eventually, there were but 15 kids left in the room. Isaiah was among them, and he was somewhat happy because some of his friends had been freed, or had passed away and were no longer suffering. He could not explain, however, why the food was becoming scarcer and tasted worse than before. There were fewer kids in his room, and in all the other rooms he had checked, yet the food supplies had been reduced to a mere piece of bread per day. Isaiah still kept to his old routine of rainwater to keep hydrated, but because there were more basins available, the water did not taste as disgusting as before. Isaiah had to sacrifice water for a couple of days because he wanted to wash one of the basins, and completely rid it of the raunchy stench of fecal matter, some of which had become so solid overtime that it was nearly impossible to detach from the surface of the cold metal. Luckily he had found a sharp stone from the work area that aided him in the hard working process of cleaning the basin. Visits from the guards seemed an awful less frequent than before, which worried him, it meant the children were also being less frequently fed than before. If they were lucky, they would get a piece of bread, or at least it seemed like it. Some of the times, it was hard as a rock, stale and flavorless. Isaiah used the same tool he used to clean the basin to grind the bread into tiny bits, and then use some of the rainwater to put over the bread, which would moisten it and make it easier to eat. Other times the food was already moist, full of green spots that were already rotten, it looked repugnant and tasted repulsive. It almost felt like he was eating manure. Isaiah tried to suppress the taste and smell of rat droppings from the floor of the room, and the pungent aroma of spoiled food, by remembering his mother’s cooking. He would imagine he was eating a spongy load of bread, dipped in warm goat milk, waiting for the sweet taste of a sliced orange and strawberries that was served to him every breakfast. He imagined his clean wooden table, covered by a colorless tablecloth that was as soft as silk, ever so slightly touching his bare lap as he smelled the fragrant floral arrangement in the center of the table. It was almost as if he was there. The feeling did not usually last very long, but just enough to swallow some of the putrid, spoiled food that was given to him. The food was cold, so was his room, and consequently he was freezing too. He wished he had his warm blanket and his favorite teddy bear with him, but instead, he had barely any clothes on him to keep him alive.
Next week would make it close to 4 years since Isaiah had been imprisoned. He was 17 years old, nearing 18, and he had grown up quite a bit. His clothes had become a problem, because as he was growing, his pants and shirt had gotten very used and torn. Isaiah had had to figure out how to get new ones. As more people had fallen dead from illness, he figured they would not be needing their clothes any longer, but he did. At night, we would sneak over to the mounts of bodies reeking of death and stench, and without making much noise he would take their clothes off. Some of the clothes stank of urine, some others of feces, and thus he smelled of sweat and unwashed clothes. From most of the corpses’ mouths came the stench of rotting teeth, from their bellies that of onions, and from their bodies came the rancid smell of cheese and sour milk mixed along with tumorous disease. There was nothing to halt bacteria from decomposing the bodies. Isaiah had no other choice, it was either that, or die victim of the frozen cold caused by the snow. His latest set of clothes was great. It was neither very torn, nor very ripped, and had very few stains of congealed and coagulated blood. The pants fully covered his legs, and the shirt’s sleeves covered his arms, with only two buttons missing from it. What was most important, though, is that it had the correct symbol that categorized him. He was extremely thrilled to have made such a find. He could barely believe it. Isaiah was jumping up and down, eager to lay down in his bed, excited and a little bit agitated by the emotion. He controlled himself to avoid getting the attention of the guards. Isaiah decided it was time to go back to his room. As he walked by the dusty road, looking to the sky at all those stars, he wondered if his parents were still alive. It had been 4 long years since he last saw them, and he was practically a man, but he remained optimistic. As he entered his dark room, he noticed everyone was watching him, with despair in their eyes. Some of them struggled to keep their mouths closed, shaking as if they were in the middle of December, and some had started to shed tears from their saddened eyes. Isaiah’s head suddenly felt very warm, and he felt an icy drop of water slide down his cheek, and time seemed to pass very slowly. He lifted his head up towards the ceiling, but he was sure it was not raining outside, since that is where he had just come from. He took his hand to his face to touch the cold liquid, placed it in front of him at eye level, and saw the red liquid glide down his hand into his arm. As he fell to the floor his body twisted, and before everything went dark, he saw the angry faces of the two guards that were standing right behind him. He knew it was the end, but he was ready, he wanted to see his parents.
Isaiah had often wondered what Heaven would be like. He figured it was not as cloudy as every one else imagined. He thought heaven was full of green fields, contrasting with flowers of every colors, and full of friendly wild animals. The grass was soft and warm, and the smell of his mom’s apple tarts covered the atmosphere, he could almost taste the sweet cinnamon taste. Children playing with angels, as they stretched their wings open to carry them into their warm and soft arms, to places they could have never imagine existed. He saw himself as a kid too, walking on home to resume his life where he had left it four years ago, and see his parent’s faces once again unchanged by time. He could almost feel it. He started walking towards his home’s front door eagerly awaiting to once again feel the soft blanket on his bed, covered up to the arms, and feeling the cozy warmth of the bedspread overwhelming his whole body. Drinking a hot cup of chocolate, while blowing the steam off the top of the foamy surface, in which tiny marshmallows floated and expanded by the sweet delicious liquid. He was there, ready to knock on the tall and hard frame of the door, and as it opened up he was swallowed by an infinite obscurity. Isaiah awoke from the darkness to see his mother’s face. He did not know whether he was still dreaming, or if he was already in heaven, but he noticed his mother’s eyes starting to shed tears. He could not help but do the same as he felt his mother’s drop down from her cheeks directly onto him. They were warm. He was confused, and so leaned up to see where he was, a bit clumsy from the long journey. He could not believe it; he was home. Isaiah had survived the Holocaust, and so had her mother, but her father had passed away soon after his arrival at the camp. The war had been over for over 5 months now, which he had spent asleep on his bed, and the Jew had been saved and taken back home. As the years went on Isaiah would always remember not the peril and suffering he had gone through, but the many faces he had met through all those years, and the hardships he had managed to survive through. He felt vibrant and full of life, excited to start anew, and that is what mattered the most.
