Explaining the 21st Century to a Dictator

I woke up, as one does in the morning unless they are a corpse, to the one and only Adolf Hitler in my room. Now, most people would panic, but I....did exatcly that, because no matter how different someone is from the rest of society, it’s only natural to panic when Hitler is sitting at the end of your bed. Of course, I did it internally, because even though he was an undead jerk, I still had the sudden fear that he’d think me uncool, a concept that intimidated me frequently, but only then was it comedically unnecessary.

The first decision I decided to make after the shock had passed, was to kick him. He was sitting only a few inches away from where I had rested my foot, so it wasn’t hard for me to swat at him with my foot.

The fact that my foot had somehow managed to wiggle from under the covers over the course of the night was concerning but not at all surprising with the knowledge of how disorganized my bedding had been when I’d gone to bed.

My kick was arguably weak (I wouldn’t say it was weak, but of course the problematic German sitting at the foot of my bed would beg to differ) (what an ego that dictactor’s got, am I right?) but no matter how strong or weak the kick was, it flung through him, and I suddenly realized how I seemed to be able to see right through him to the oil painting framed on my wall. This, I decided, must be definitive proof that he translucent and not actually sitting at my bed. In fact, I hadn’t even noticed his weight on my bed.

After a brief silence, Hitler finally broke the silence with a comment which I wish I undestood, but sadly I did not speak German, nor do I now.

“Uh...” I finally said, looking around my room. I wouldn’t be able to speak a language that he understood, I doubted he speaked English, and I was incapable of speaking any other language. So I instead attempted sign language. I pointed to my mouth, shook my head, and took a moment to figure out how to say ‘German’ in sign langauge, also realizing that I wasn’t signing legitimate sign language, and if I were it would be the American sign language. So, deciding that it was pointless to figure out how to sign German (in ASL or whatever you call the German sign language), I traced a pretzel in the air. Offensive, I know, but I barely knew anything German, let alone something I’d be able to visually sign.

Hitler stared at me and nodded, apparently understanding.

“Hello,” he said, because apparently he could speak English.

“Oh...I didn’t know you could speak English,” I said.

He shook his head, “I never learned English. This is the universal translator. It makes the sense of communicating even without speakin the same language, into a literal sense. Only the undead can handle it though, for the live mortals it’s just ‘blah blah blah cheese blah blah blah’ ‘blah blah blah oh wait I think I understood one of those words’ ‘blah blah blah’.”

“You still have your accent,” I pointed out.

“Who said translating languages meant translating accents?” He asked, and I was about to contemplate that, but instead I decided to continue the conversation.

“So...you...are Hitler. Uh...and you killed people. Because of their religion. And other reasons, I’m sure. And uh....” I nodded, “tell me about that.”

I was suddenly sounding like a therapist.

“Well, it involved a great deal of murder,” he said. “Lots of death. I quite liked it, though. It felt good.”

I held back a gasp as I processed the last few sentences. So he really was as bad as he seemed in the textbooks. The non existant doubt that I’d had about him being bad was now non existant to the seventy eight power.

The gasp was released as a sigh and I grabbed my phone from my side table to attempt to ignore Hitler sitting at the foot of my bed and also, I was sure there were plenty of notifications.

“What’s that?” Hitler asked, making me realize that not only was I talking to a dead German dictator, but that that dead German dictator was also from the mid 20th century.

“Phone,” I said, to tired to explain anything to him.

He nodded as if he understood that. Which of course he didn’t, because the last phone that the man had probably seen was a landline.

I rolled my eyes and pinched my temple, “Alright, dude. Here’s the basic rundown for the technological and societal progressions of what’s happened since 1945. This is a phone now, you can also do other stuff on it like send letters and play games on it. Also, everything you did is considered immoral and bigotry, even more than back in 1945. Oh, and everything you stood for, really. Just everything. You, as a human being, are entirely pointless in this century. Honestly you’d be really annoying if you were alive now. You know? All religions are okay, all races are okay, not being blonde is okay, just...most things are okay. Except for you. You are not okay.”

Hitler glanced to the ground, looking somewhat hurt. Like I cared. Again, everything about him isn’t okay now, so why would I have felt bad?

“What do you mean, ‘if you were alive now’?” He asked.

A collection of stammers and unfinished sentences tumbled out of my mouth before I eventually said, “What do you mean.”

He stood, setting his hands at his hips, and looking around. “You’ll understand soon enough.”

And he was gone.