I was made in France around the thirteenth century. I was the proud craft of the button makers guild and I remember King Louis IX of France, pointing to myself and my brothers, proclaiming loudly that we would be used to make his jacket. I was excited as I was sewn strongly and wth pride as the top button. I got exclaimed over by Louis’s mother Blanche de Castille, who wanted a similar button for her dress.
I went proudly with Louis to the seventh crusade, as I heard it, to reclaim the holy land. Unfortunatly, as the Crusaders were heading back to Damietta, the Egyptian armies approached the men and captured the King and many of his barons. As a result when Louis was captured, I his faithful button was to fall into different hands. I had heard he had been released, which was little comfort as I was torn from the beautiful jacket with golden hems and deep red, rich material. Then a pedlar called Bayan picked me up, wiped me on his musty, cheap, brown hessian robes and bit me to assure I was real then tucked me in his pocket and I journeyed with him to Cairo. I was traded to a woman, who added me as an adornment to a dress intended for a wedding. I shone brightly after being cleaned and proudly watched as they started their lives in their new home. After a few years the small home, close to the Nile river, was blessed, not only with one child, but three. The children slobbered on me and tried to prize me off with their chubby little fingers. I fell slightly in love with the lovely Kaamil and her patience and true love for her family. She seemed like a still reed within the floods, never wavering with the strength of the waters.
When Kaamil died, I was buried with her, thankfully, as I did not think about the pain it would cause me not to hear her merry little tune as she cooked and did various things during the day would ever fade from me. Somewhere in the 14th century, my peace was disturbed as I felt myself pulled off the robe and stuffed into yet another pocket. I became aware of talk about a silk road, when arriving in China, I was hand sewn onto a kimono of the most luxurious material I could imagine. It was brightly coloured and I held the neck piece together, with another button, which while like me, was slightly different, almost a mimic of my unique beauty, but newer. But when they had lost interest in the garment I was sold and became a part of a captain in Emperor Hongwu, founding emperor of the Ming dynasty’s armies uniform. The uniform passed along many people until the 15th century when I became loose and was placed in a draw until I could be sewn back on. I waited and waited and waited. The draw became cluttered with various things and slowly over time was not opened. I often gazed at the curious locking mechinism, wondering if anyone would turn it again…
During the 16th century I managed to hear a ruckas from my locked draw of a trader arguing about the cost of the item I was contained within. They were having a rather loud discussion when suddenly a European voice interceded, asking whether they were violating a trade agreement. I heard two people talking at once until a matchlock pistol fired and suddenly felt the item being lifted. It was not until a few weeks later when I noticed a metalic object being wedged in the draw. Finally the person broke the locking mechanism and all the random pieces, including myself fell unceremoniously out of the hole in the draw. I was attached to a feathered headress of the Susquehannock tribe. The Susquehannock tribe was one of the most formidable tribes of the Mid-Atlantic region. Europeans rarely visited their villages, and the Susquehannock overwhelmed the Algonquian tribes along the shores of the Chesapeake. I became a casuality during a massacre by the vigilante group known as the Paxton Boys during Pontiac’s War.
The marchers dispersed at Germantown after meeting with a delegation headed by Benjamin Franklin, who, finding me as part of the tribal leaders headset treated it with honor and carried me with him to his home where he served as President of Pennsylvania. At some points in his life, he owned slaves and ran “for sale” ads for slaves in his newspaper, but by the late 1750s, he had begun arguing against slavery, became an active abolitionist, and promoted the education and integration of African Americans into U.S. society.
Benjamin Franklin gave his coat, which he had sewn me as a reminder of the hardships of the native tribes onto, to an unknown man called Mathias who was of slave birth. Mathias yerned to be free from the suppression and enlisted with Military Service for the Revolutionary War to gain his freedom. During one of the battles he was killed after saving his command, by telling them to avoid detction using the marshes, and his hopes of freedom were dead. No one, but I realised his patriotism and sacrifice. He was forgotten and buried somewhere unknown. But his uniform was ironically, saved.
I somehow ended up in a jar of all things. I didn’t realise at the time that they were stripping anything off of clothing, which might have value. But then, instead of using me… they put me in a jar with other buttons??? How, when or why did I lose my value? What happened to the world?
I waited a long time, until I moved on a ship again and eventually got sewn onto a white shirt in Germany of all places, and started listening to amazing compositions from a young man called Ludwig van Beethoven who was ardently taught by his father Johann van Beethoven, and later by Christian Gottlob Neefe. When Ludwig started losing his hearing, he preformed in public less and had less the need for formal attire. I was later ignored and eventually handed to a poor house. The atrocities were quite too much and I was eventually lost, on the street, during a scuffle with another beggar. A young woman rescued me from obscurity while she was trying to find her son. She worked for a darning shop, which sewed socks. The button seemed like a good find as her boss, the seamstress was often looking for spare buttons.
A hundred coats, jackets and shirts passed trough with a blur until we got to William the 2nd. For those of you not knowing who I am talking about, he was the last German Emperor of Prussia 1888 until his abdication in 1918 which ended the empire. But unfortunatly the wars were not so quick lived. Can you see me as the top left button? I look pretty happy right? Wrong, Germany went through a pretty big dark patch and my visage of them was one of the darkest…
As said with the darkness, the second one was unexpected. This one, I was not part of a soldier, I was part of the massive and horrendous execution. I watched from the jacket of Fritz Löhner-Beda and witnessed the attrocities at Monowitz concentration camp, near Auschwitz which changed my impartial or non-caring nature. It sickened me. The fact humans could stoop to these horrors were beyond a hundreds years knowledge. We can call them, unnatural, but it is not normal or at all anything humanity should be ok with. This type of torchure was beyond unforgivable.
I hate myself being a part of the terrible Josef Mengele’s lower lapel button, he was nicknamed the “Angel of Death”. After the war, Mengele fled to Argentina in July 1949, assisted by a network of former SS members. He initially lived in and around Buenos Aires, but fled to Paraguay in 1959 and later Brazil in 1960, all while being sought by West Germany, Israel, and Nazi hunters such as Simon Wiesenthal, who wanted to bring him to trial. Mengele eluded capture in spite of extradition requests by the West German government and clandestine operations by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. He drowned in 1979 after suffering a heart attack while swimming off the coast of Bertioga, and was buried under the false name of Wolfgang Gerhard.
How did I get away? Well he didn’t go swimming in his jacket, which he had altered from it’s Nazi affiliation. I was placed in a war memorial historical exhibit, but over years the thread started to tear and needed constant maintenance, so they again placed me aside and replaced me.
A new owner of the mueseum didn’t know what I was and I ended up being a prop or piece of something not rememberd. This time after again being discarded into the button jar, in around the 20th century I was finally used for a suit. I was a cuff for a poor father working in a office and getting a small congrats for a tiny paycheck. He had four kids and kept going in, day by day to try support them. Unfortunatly the stress and fast food eventually made his heart give out and he keeled over with a resounding thud. I stayed in a trunk for a while. It was a pretty long time.
“Hey, look at this!” Mary cried.
“What?” The bored voice asked, her best friend Sue.
“It’s a chest. I’m going to open it!” Mary declared.
“How, dummy, it’s locked?”
“Don’t think so,” Mary wedged a butterknife under the lid and it slowly opened emittng a small puff of dust, “Look, it’s a button!” She exclaimed pulling it out with a smile…
…
[30 years later]
Maxine had a friend over and she was arguing the normal of being bored, when the possibilities were endless.
“I think everyone is bored, because there is nothing interesting anymore!” Her friend declared.
“With certian abilities, I can make anything interesting!” Maxine declared.
“Ok, then, how about a button…?”
“Well.. It was made in France around the thirteenth century…”
The End.
Maxine the Magnificent 