Contents
Chapter 45 - Death’s Diary: Cologne
Overview
Death describes the May 30 bombing of Cologne, collecting roughly five hundred souls amid ruins and a yellow, newspaper-like sky. While survivors wander, a group of children watch and then gather empty fuel tanks falling from bombers. The dissonance between mass death and childish curiosity underscores the war’s grim absurdity and Death’s mounting fatigue.
Summary
In the early hours of May 30, Death notes that Liesel is asleep as more than a thousand bombers head for Cologne. The strike leaves about five hundred dead and tens of thousands homeless, wandering the rubble, while Death labors to gather the fallen, cradling only the children.
Under a sky like burning newspaper filled with headlines, Death moves through the city, describing the instant and lingering deaths. Exhausted but compelled to continue, Death returns after the final planes to witness an unusual scene.
While carrying the charred soul of a teenage girl, Death and nearby children watch a black object drift down. The redheaded girl asks what it is; another girl guesses a body, another a bomb. A bald, disheveled father emerges, explains it is an emptied fuel tank, and points out more falling containers.
Excited, the children search and claim the tanks as prizes, despite the father’s refusal. Just beyond Cologne’s ruins, children collect the enemy’s discarded fuel containers while Death continues collecting humans, ending with a weary acknowledgment that the year is far from over.
Who Appears
- DeathNarrator; collects approximately 500 souls in Cologne, observes children gathering empty fuel tanks, and laments mounting exhaustion.
- Redheaded girlCurious child who first points out the drifting object and questions what it is.
- Girl with pigtailsSuggests the falling object might be a body, joins the search for tanks.
- Bald fatherDisheveled, bomb-shocked parent who identifies the objects as empty fuel tanks and tries to rein in the children.