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A sudden bang, and he was off to the hard and rough mud. Twitching, turning, and coughing, feeling his soul slowly and painfully drip from his body. Now, there was nothing to think about other than the war! Intact, his death was not a great tragedy—as the ones in fairytales—but it was simply a part of human history.
Bach and Mozart pieces circulated in his head, harmonizing with the harsh beat of bullets in the air. He wasn't going mad from the adrenaline, He had simply nothing else to think for, there was simply nothing else to think about, other than his inevitable death in the passing seconds. He counted: one, two, three, four.. each time getting shorter and shorter as the alphabets got longer and longer. In the old days at Copenhagen, after a long day's work he used to retire to the small piano at the corner of the local church. Back then, there was nothing to think about other than academics, practicals, experiments, and academics again. One gets caught up and entangled quickly with these things.
And even now, he imagined sitting on the antique, creaky chair and playing the some-what out of tune piano. Now with blood all over the keys, the viscous substance sticking with the fine sheen of dust that built up over the months and years. What new melodies will be composed after his passing, what new methods of music, what new instruments were to be invented in the following decades and centuries passing his death? He wanted to play all of them in his final moments. Music was his lifelong companion after physics, and he yearned to rid himself of his filthy uniform, and imagine the particles and atoms being visible in front of him as the notes continued.
But the pain increased as the seconds passed. A sharp pain started from his temple, continuing its way down to his leg. Where it oscillated, like a wave. Coming in harsh beats of anguish and then disappearing, then repeating, repeating, until his breaths no longer continue. He coughed, he yelled, he screamed with such great extremes that his already sore throat became unbearable to speak with.
And yet, he didn't yell for his parents, he didn't yell for his mother to come pick him up from this hell, he yelled for the man who played the role of his far away father. A professor, from Copenhagen, who saw him as his own son. Who didn't yell at him as a result of a mistake made, who didn't see him as inferior with a decrease in performance, who saw him as how he was. And how he yelled for this professor, with tears streaming like a waterfall, seemingly never ending. How strange it was, he yearned to be held in the arms of the older man and sob his heart out. To wet his tie with his tears, like a small child with his father.
Henrik Zersetzen, destined to be a great physicist of his time. Destined to be one of the great of the greats, to belong in the same group as distinguished physicists and chemists of his time. But how life does play cards and gambits. How life does cheat in its own game, often unfairly. This is what his life has come to. He volunteered on his own, he willingly chose to leave the safety that came with the position of a student, he chose to be brave, he chose to be cowardly, and now he's lost. He's like a lost child, tired of running and being reckless.
And now, all he wants to do is to come back to his home, his dear home, the lab, and do what he loves best. All he wants to do is to follow his professor, to be like him, to receive praise from him. He who believed in him when even he couldn't, he who saw the potential in this German boy from Bavaria, he who saw him as his own lost son. He reminisced of the times he sat in his house along with his colleagues, and listened to him speak of impossible theories.
It was only a matter of time before the professor got the news of his favourite student’s unfortunate tragedy. His second son, now lost. Will he ever find a pupil as brilliant as him? As silently brilliant as the Henrik he had? His soft voice oscillated in his head like a wave, continuously going in and out, in and out. He should've been there for him. He should've been there to keep him stable, to stop him from doing something foolish that would result in a crucial mistake in the calculation or setting up an apparatus. But now he wasn't here, no further foolishness to be committed, and no further mentorship to be given.