BYLINE: On
October 16, 1919, in Munich, Germany, the world was changed
forever. Just how that change was
made possible has never been known until today.
“Come
with us.”
They hooked
him under his armpits, dragging him through the sawdust of the beer cellar.
None of the Munich laborers looked up from their long tables. He was invisible,
even as he screamed; he who had done so much for his country.
He drove
elbows into his captors to no avail, their abdomens like slate.
“Where
are you taking me?”
Through heavy
oaken doors and down the cellar. His shins slapped against the steps. They
entered a stone hallway, using his head to open the door.
“Unhand
me!”
No
answer from the men. Their faces remained emotionless in the brief pulses of
light. He lifted his eyes down the torchlit hall. A banded steel door stood
open at its end, a naked bulb hanging over a steel table in the room beyond.
“No…” He
had seen such rooms, used to pull confessions from the Marxists, places stained
by the memory of screams.
They
threw him in without a word. He stumbled to the floor, scraping his knees. By
the time he gained his feet the door was already being barred behind him. He sat
and stilled his trembling, thinking of his brother’s grave, the view of the
Leondig cemetery outside his window, the wet earth calling like a hungry
creature, first for Alois, then their father.
“Now
me…”
His
sadness lasted only a moment. His existence had been a collision of failures. Were
his heart a stone it might have cracked. Death was not half so frightening as inadequacy,
a passenger he had carried all his life.
“Let it
end,” he whispered. “I long for silence.”
The bulb
flashed white-hot above him. There was a pop, and a burst of sparks cascaded
into the darkness. He screamed in surprise, pulled himself up, the adrenaline
slowing the world, confusing his senses, until it seemed as if he were moving
at half-speed, while shapes billowed around him. He could see nothing. The presence
was wholly tactile: a wisp of hair brushing his lips; the sniff and chuff of breathing.
He felt it press closer, a thing with teeth, the funeral stink of wet earth
clotted in its fur.
Then the
bulb flickered back to life.
He
turned around, disoriented, and jumped when he saw the suited man sitting in a
chair across the table.
“Have a
seat, Adi.”
He shook
his head, trembling at the sound of his childhood nickname. He rushed to the
door and tried the handle.
Still
locked.
He
turned back to the man. “How did you get in here?”
“I am
everywhere. Now…” He inclined a hand, the fingernails thickly calcified. “Sit.”
The
chair slid on its own, swinging in a wide arc and scooping his legs from under
him. The screech of wood on stone was deafening. And then he was at the table.
The man
smiled. “That’s better.”
“I’m no
traitor,” he barked. “I’ve bled for my country.”
“It is
not your country that interests me.” The man steepled his fingers, the nails
clicking playfully. “It is your tongue.”
“My
tongue?”
When the
man smiled his eyes rippled, traveling outward through the tight flesh of his
face. “You live in the remnants of slaughter. The bricks of industry have
collapsed beneath their own weight. They litter the streets like fodder,
waiting for hands to reshape them.”
“Who are
you?” he asked.
“I am
yesterday and tomorrow. Who are you, Adi?”
“Stop
calling me that.”
“How was
it seeing your father dead on the veranda, his wineglass untouched? You cried
like a babe, but half of that was pageantry. Something hotter burned within you,
something in need of tinder. Without the proper fuel, it’s chewed through
everything you’ve ever loved. Your mother, your dreams. So I’ll ask again, Adi.
Who are you?”
Adi
suddenly understood. The invitation was still in his pocket. He pulled it out
and reread the looping cursive.
We’ve filled one hundred seats. Be sure you are
prepared to revel them. Ask yourself: Who are you? A Tueton, certainly. But a
leader?
We shall know tonight.
“You sent this?”
“Does it
matter who sent it?” The man grinned. “You are not fit to inspire them as you
are.”
“How
dare you?” He bolted straight, ready to scream, to fight. “I am the wolf of
Austria.”
“You are
a cub, at best, weak without its mother’s teat. But there is greater strength.
Greater power.”
“What
madness is this?”
“I lay the
power at your feet. Madness would be to look away. Nations will bow at your
whim. Plotters will die by the millions. Your name will be chiseled into the
wall of time. Your death will be lonely, surely, but you have always been
alone, and in the interim you shall lavish in glory few men in history have
ever tasted. There is a price, of course.”
Adi
licked his lips, staring at the man’s eyes, which seemed blacker now, like
pools of spreading ink. “What price?”
The man
smiled and licked his fingers, tittering to himself. “What price, indeed?”
The same
two men opened the door a moment later. Adi pushed past them, feeling taller,
wider, stronger than he ever had. His presence seemed to fold out ahead of him,
filling the hall, the beer cellar, the world. He climbed the stairs by twos and
shouldered the swinging doors open.
The hall
was filled with men and women, more than he had ever seen gathered to their
cause. And where before trepidation would have quailed him, only confidence
remained. He broadened his chest as the room quieted, stomping heavily as he
ascended the wooden stage.
Drexel
was standing by the back doors, nodding for him to start.
Adi
cleared his throat, smelling the stink of wet earth, no longer his pursuer, but
his beast. He bored his eyes into the free men of Munich and gripped the
lectern as if he meant to tear it from the floor.
“Children
of Germany, my name is Adolf Hitler…”
[NOTE FROM AUTHOR: This was entered into the NYC NIGHT FLASH FICTION CHALLENGE this August. I was tinkering around with Madisyn (age 6), wondering about the contest I had entered over a month ago without receiving guidelines or deadlines or Jack. At 2:00PM I searched my email again and found it down in there in the JUNK heap. The due date was in six hours! I cracked my knuckles, burned some sage, and anointed my forehead with the tears of Vladimir Putin--an exceedingly rare commodity. The italicized assignment read thus: LOCATION: An interrogation room; GENRE: Historical fiction; PROMPT: A hand written invitation. Witness below the impromptu beastchild hatched from my neocortex, while Madisyn watched cartoons on the recliner behind me. It was painful; but it was worth it. I love the little guy!]
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