Elementary

Albert picked a louse from his moustache and squashed it against the wooden sole of his clog. Franz sighed and scratched beneath the striped canvas of his uniform.

‘Tell me again, Albert. Do I have it right? They do not exist – I mean – occur naturally on Earth?’

‘Occur naturally is better,’ Albert looked down the row of bunks. At least there was no crying just then. When the dreams came, well, that was another matter.

‘But...’

Albert held up a hand

‘They can be created. Man can do anything God can do, given time.’

Franz laughed,

‘But how? How can you make an element? You cannot make your own atoms, that is foolish.’

‘They made Technetium in 1936. Do you have a cigarette?’

Franz held out a cigarette at arm’s length. It was easy for Albert to reach for it, no stretch at all. He lit it with a precious match and held the match toward Franz, who managed to light his own roll up without burning his fingers. He put the tiny stub of unburned wood in a cloth bag, with the others.

They both blew smoke rings into the gloom. There were coughs from the bunks above, but no complaints.

‘Made them? How?’ Franz liked to worry a bone, even a metaphorical one.

‘The missing element number 43, they found it on some Molybdenum foil. Later they bombarded Columbite and found another isotope.’

‘Ha! So they found it?” Franz sat up and banged his head on the underside of the upper bunk.

‘Not exactly, you could say it was transmutation.’

‘Like Alchemy?’

‘Why not?’

The door of the hut swung wide. Both men pinched the end of their cigarettes. The Gefreiter came in with a Kapo behind.

‘’Raus! ‘Raus! Outside, Rappel.’

Franz stumbled as he stood up. Albert held him steady, hoping that neither guard nor the Kapo had seen his friend fall. Two figures remained motionless in their bunks. Albert looked away, Franz tripped a little.

‘Watch where you’re going,’ Albert hissed.

The Kapo struck the still-occupied bunks with his pick-axe handle. Then he struck the bodies under the blankets. The noise was sickening, the snap of bone and cartilage.

The men shambled into filed ranks, five rows of twenty scarecrows all dressed in the same stripes.

‘You two!’

Franz and Albert acknowledged the Gefreiter by straightening their backs a little.

‘Bring out the bodies!’

They re-entered the hut. Albert whispered,

‘Gott sei dank, we can avoid whatever entertainment Gefreiter Schulz and his lackey have thought up.’

They took the bodies one at a time to the sanatorium. Meanwhile Schulz had the others doing calisthenics. When they returned, Schulz had become bored and ordered everyone back into the hut.

‘Do you have another match?’ Franz asked.

‘No.’

‘What do you think makes them do this?’

‘I think they are made of different stuff.’

Franz counted all the prime numbers between 11 and 9293.

‘Do you think it might be Hitlerium?’

Albert laughed until he coughed and the hut seemed a little less dark.