Crashbox

I fell asleep last night with an image rolling around in my brain, put there in part by the book I was reading, part by a very dark movie I saw not long ago, and the rest a mixture of imagination and blotchy black-and-white photographs from old books on the War. I'm not entirely sure why it assailed my tired mind or why I couldn't clear it from my head...

It was a still night in winter near the limits of a small town in northern Italy, during the later part of the Second World War. A scrawny adolescent girl was sitting in the snow by herself, leaning casually against a battered brick wall. A sleepy, thoughtful look hung about her half-closed, dark-rimmed eyes. Bundled close about her small body, held in place by obviously chilled fingers was a worn-out wool overcoat, all rumpled and smudged with age. She wore a tired but faintly contented smile and looked rather comfortable despite the harsh night air.
"'S cold," I commented, lighting a Camel. I wondered if she spoke English. She looked vaguely Slavic. She didn't answer right away and I took my first drag.
"Do you have a place to get warm?" I asked. I bent toward her, to hear her reply.
There were holes in her coat. Little tears or rips here and there, filled with rich red-brown syrup, frozen to ice in the bitter night. Slipping from my fingers, my cigarette went out in the snow beside me as I gently touched her face. She was dead.