“When you have come to the edge Of all light that you know And are about to drop off into the darkness Of the unknown, Faith is knowing One of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on or You will be taught to fly..."
-Patrick Overton


Late Summer 1942,
Stalingrad.

Vladimir was listening conscientiously to the radio broadcast anticipating a possible German attack on the city when her only sister Anna interrupted him for the breakfast.
Vladimir and Anna had lost their parents in their early childhood and since then, had lived and survived together, and were the pillars of support in each other's lives.
- Anna, will this bloody mayhem ever end? For how long people like us will keep foraging in our own lands, desperately seeking for a whiff of peace, a morsel of humanity?
Anna sat along her brother and clasped his hands tenderly.
- Have you heard a requiem for the fallen stars? Tell me Vladimir, for how many dying seconds has the time ever stopped and mourned? For how many lives has the life chosen to bend its natural penchant of going on eternally? Have faith my brother, every sacrifice bears the fruit of future harmony.
- Anna after all this, you still talk of faith? Time has always robbed us of whatever precious we had in our miserable little lives. Tell me oh Anna, why should i have faith in anything whatsoever?
Anna was constantly gazing at the river Volga through the window of her one room apartment as she spoke.
-Rivers and lives have only one major thing in common. Both of them yearns to surrender themselves to the worthy, to the most pious, to the one who could bear them as a whole. Rivers know the ocean and lives fake the oceans for the scare of depths. I acknowledge that we all are chasing an impossible dream, a dream called "Peace" in times like these and trust me after all this, what i have inherited is that you cannot have that impossible dream of yours if you keep avoiding whatever life throws at you. So my brother, with one step at a time, I am sure that finally we'd finish off this tread to that elusive peace.

In the next few days an intensive Luftwaffe attack reduced much of the city to the ruins. Majority of the workers of the factory joined the fighting. Vladimir's factory continued production despite the war but deep inside he knew that sooner or later he will be forced to join the war.
Anna chose to offer her services through building trenchworks and fortifications for the Soviet forces against the Nazi Germany.


23rd August 1942,
Stalingrad.

The elite Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe pounded the city, causing a firestorm killing thousands and turning the city into a parched panorama, comprising mainly of burnt ruins and debris.
The Soviets reported killing of 955 people and 181 wounded.
Vladimir continued to work diligently in his T-134 manufacturing factory, which had always been the most sought after target of the German Luftwaffe.
Meanwhile, Anna, on the basis of her exhibiting impeccable valor and diligence towards her nation, was immediately recruited in the 1077th Anti-Aircraft regiment, a unit comprising mainly of the female volunteers who had not received any training and were without support.
The Soviet Air force, the Voeno-Vozdushnye Sily(VVS) suffered severely by the German air raids.
It was literally swept aside by the Luftwaffe. from 23rd to 31st Aug, the VVS lost 201 aircrafts and it was left with just 192 serviceable aircraft, 0nly 57 of which were fighters.
The herculean task of initial defense of the city fell upon the shoulders of AA regiment, in which Anna had chosen voluntarily to serve. They had to stay at their posts and face the advancing German panzers.


05th Sep,1942
Stalingrad

To counter the perpetual German onslaught, the Soviet 24th and 66th Armies propelled an offensive attack against the German XIV Panzerkorps. On the merit of his knowledge in the artillery, Vladimir was called upon to be in this war by the Soviet commander.
The German retaliation proved too arduous for the Soviet Armies. The Luftwaffe fired hell from the skies, pounding heavily upon the Soviet artillery and defensive lines. In this gruesome battle, the Soviets lost 30 tanks of their 120 tanks to the air attacks and were forced to withdraw in the midday.
Vladimir had never witnessed the war from so close. He was feeling himself like an insect crawling on the beds of hell, fearing to be trampled under the feet of the bewilder souls running amok.
Restless in his chamber, he was called upon the commander.
With a gleam of patriotism and sincerity upon his face, he went to meet the commander.

- At ease Vladimir, its been a severe day for all of us.
- Yes sir, it has been.
-Vladimir i called you to announce a very bad news. The AA regiment confirmed the death of your sister. She fought with exceptional bravery and they are planning to confer her with gallantry award.
Of her possessions, we received this letter addressed for you. I want you to have it and we have decided to relieve you of further sufferings. You need not to be in this war anymore for you've had enough of this madness!

With trembling hands and frozen mind, Vladimir took the letter and went limping to his chamber, mute like a pain inflicted hiatus of an agonizing day.
Finally, he mustered the courage to open up and read the letter.

Dear Vladimir,
War has finally knocked on the doors of our lives with her brutal hands. No surprise, it has ripped apart every possible fabric of humanity, every notion of compassion from the already arid souls and minds of the faith deprived us.
Do you remember Vladimir when i had told you about the synonymity of human lives and the river of abandoning to the something pious, something whole.
During the war, when i was digging the trenches as a fortification for the soviet Army, i used to listen to the river Volga. In her, i felt that her yearning to redeem herself in the ocean was never altered amid the ongoing war. I felt in her the same solace as i used to feel when we used to come here in our childhood days.
She never bothered to mend her course off the ocean despite fire upon her chest and hell from the skies. She knew her truth, her purpose. Everything else for her is a bend in her path or a prelude before the redemption.
So Vladimir, why can't we, in our miserable little lives adhere to our purpose, our redemption and our truth?
Faith, my brother, sometimes tests us to the limit of our capabilities and then stretches us to those untrodden realms which we could never have imagined to achieve with our limited inference of things.
This war and the many more to come are nothing but a chance to reinforce this fortress for our own sake.
To live or die was never in our hands, although, we can always choose to be the last man standing when the others around, even the most bravest of the lots flee, and you never know when your this gesture can open the golden gate of the salvation of many...

Yours forever,
Anna.

Vladimir was standing on the bank of the river Volga. He could hear the distant fusillade in the dim background of the stars and melancholic flow of the river. he wiped the tears off with the running water and swayed the letter in the moving water saying, "May you too be with your ocean forever.."

Vladimir never left that war and millions of others unseen lurking...