A TERRIBLE SOUND

Was it someone using a saw in the wood? A shriek, a rasp, a yell? What was it? She looked at the trees. They were perfectly still, but still the sound travelled towards her. Into her. It hurt her ears. It was like a razor blade cutting away inside them. And yet there was something almost human about it. Agony. Sharp, coarse, dangerous to her health. And then she saw the tannoy strapped to a tree, and remembered where she was. The wood at Bayreuth, 1936. The Ring. The interval. She’d escaped the ranting in the foyer but never expected it here in the wood – Hitler screaming his hatred through the trees.

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