The son is finally ready for his morning walk, it is three in the afternoon. The son is a teenager, one that works best at night. This is not unusual.
Walk through the deserted town, take a short cut down by the river, look at the oddities that the town has to offer. There are not many, but he says interesting things about the war monument, errected just before the second world war. He has learned about it in school.
It depicts an oak tree, a so called "Deutsche Eiche", which has had all of it's branches sawn off. Out of the stump various Germanic human figures grow. The symbolism was that, though defeated in the first war, Germany will recover.
Pathetic.
The text around the monument has been changed, a more modern and historically correct text replaces some pre-war sentimentalism.
A relief on the base shows a man, naked but for a coal scuttle helmet, loins covered by a cloth, lying on the ground, probably dying.
The son agrees that the street would be nicer without it.
Walk down by the river, for a couple of hours.
Until the light fails.
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