Blondi would have you for breakfast

2020

I’m chasing this hunchback woman who doesn’t look like she should be able to run as fast as she is right now. Her hair is flying like wisps of smoke behind her like it’s taunting me: eat my dust loser! I have a partner in this fond chase, a boy my age who can’t keep up, but for some reason, I need to catch this speady hunchback woman, so I leave him behind. His calls follow me growing ever quieter. “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”this anomalous woman shouts over her shoulder. “Though she be but little, she is fierce!” she calls mocking us with her own superiorities. I swear I’ve heard those somewhere though...

And now I’m in the Midsummer Night's Dream movie, the older one. I am one of the characters, Helena, waking from sleep, magical flower drops still fresh in my eyes. The light behind my eyelids grows brighter and brighter, but I don’t want to open them. The sun peels them open anyway, and now I am awake, in my own bed, under my own covers, with no one here but me, myself, and...

“AHHH shit!,” I scream, what some might call, dramatically but it seemed natural in this instance. A man dressed in an old-fashioned blue and white striped two piece pajama set sat on the side of my bed, staring toward my closet. At the sound of my yell, he also yelled and jumped to his feet.

“Ach du meine Güte!” he hollered, competing with me for the most ear-splitting shriek. I think I won though, just barely.

I swish my short blond waves away from my face and pinned some of them back.

“Umm, I’m not very bi-, tri-, or what would it be, quadra- lingual? I’m very much monolingual, and even the one language I’m supposed to know well, is a little faulty at times. Could you repeat that in English possibly?” I gabber. I’ve been told I like to hear the sound of my voice. I often counter that comment with something along the lines of, That’s not true! I don’t just talk to hear the sound of my voice. Although, it is sometimes why I talk, but other reasons include informing people or finding out imformation from other people... ok I see what you’re saying.

I recognize this man from somewhere, but where, and who is he? The mustache is definitely familiar. I’ll give him that. The PJ’s are confusing though.

“Oh, you’re English,” he spat, “And where did my bedroom go?” The accent was very audible now that he wasn't screaming, and he kinda sounded like my great grandmother did when she was upset or really excited. I bet whoever he is, he’s German.

“Um, well, I can’t answer that one for ya, but I have a question of my own.” I sit up. “Who are you? Like, I recognize you, but at the same time, I don’t. Also, my name is Bethy.”

He peered, or rather stared, quizically at me for a moment or two before answering. “I am Adolf Hitler. You do not know me?”

“Oh sheeeet.” I grin.

“Why do you smile, so?”

“Dude, it’s the year 2020!” I laugh, “You’re in the future.” I roll onto my side, and I continue through gasps for air and giggles, “Overall, I’m not too suprised you’re here. Hell, everything’s messed up this year. First there were wild fires in Australia, next there was the start of a huge pandemic, which by the way is still going on. If I thought you were a regular stranger right now, I’d have a mask on, but it’s so much more likely that I’d give anything to you than you giving something to me,” I ramble on.

I make sure to cough extra hard, kind of hoping for a moment that I actually had a little corona to give to him. I could go on listing negatives, but the list is too long, and I don’t know how well I could compete with the man, the one who kept WWII going. Adolf’s face grows greyer and more offputting as I ramble. Talk about a resting bitch face. I don’t tell him this though, because although this guy is in his PJ’s, in my house, and near my very own bed, he’s still very intimidating, especially when I knew his past.

I giggle some more as I remember a conversation I had with my friend on the bus. She was learning the alphabet through sign language, and I had memorized it several years previously, but I was a bit rusty. We began talking about regular things, and as we got along, the quetion was asked: Who is your crush? We were teenage girls, bored on a bus, what can I say? I started signing His name is Jack, but as neither of us were superb spellers or translators, I got through the letters H - I - S N - A - M and she frowned, shocked.

“You have a crush on Hitler?!” she whispered rather agressively. I explained what I meant to say to erase the mistake, but it stuck as a running joke between us.

Back to the present, Hitler sat down on a chair across the room.

“Autsch!” he yelped.

“Oh, my bad, sorry. I forgot about that. There’s a nail that sticks out on the side. It has actually ripped holes in some of my favorite clothes before.” Oh geez, I keep telling Hitler about my personal life. Oh well. What's the harm?

The silence that ensued was one of awkward glances and quite a few mustache twitches. My cat came in, and he eyed it cautiously.

“Blondi would have you for breakfast,” he sneered at Charli when the cat walked fearlessly up to his shins.

“Heyyy,” I scolded, getting out of bed to pick him up. The grey fluffball, purred into my ear, and his long-haired fur tickled my cheek. “Charli doesn’t like your bad attitude mister. You may be a mass murderer, but you are in my house right now, and I will not have you dissrespecting my cat like that.”

He had the look of what-did-you-just-say? I was curious now as to whether or not he could hurt me if he wanted to. Pillows are dispencible and light enough that they shouldn’t hurt him I thought. My arm extended. The baby-blue pillow made an arch across the room and hit the unexpecting guest over the head. I sprinted out of the room and peeked my head around the corner. His face, a massive thundercloud was at the door in seconds, and his hand reached through the crack. I winched and closed my eyes. No pain came. I opened them, and he was looking at me and back at his hand.

“I slapped you. Why do you not shout?” he barked.

“I-I guess that’s a limitation of you coming to the future.” My relief was immense, but I had a follow up experiment ready. As he stood there looking at me with squinted eyes, I looked back at him curiously. I slowly raised my hand and quick pinched his cheek.

“Autsch!”

“Hhmm,” I hummed as I puzzled this alltogether. “Adolf,” I then whispered,“I’m going to call you by your first name because I think we have gotten to know each other some, and I know you from my history books,” I added then proceeded to talk in a regular voice, “You may sit back down in the chair. I want to ask some questions.”

“What makes you think I will answer your questions?”

“Fine, we’ll take turns. I’m sure you have questions for me too.”

I filled my lungs with air and blew the air out noisily, sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the bed. Just earlier I had hundreds of questions for this man. Now I could think of only one, not even a good one either.

“Do you like sushi?”

“Sushi?”

“Yeah. That’s what I said. Do you know what it is?”

“I’m not sure. Is it neccessary that I answer?”

I calculated the weight of the question vs the other questions I probably had and decided, “We’ll skip that one for now. We can come back to it. Your turn then I guess.”

“Which country is named after me in the future?”

“Excuse me?” I let out a choppy laugh. What kind of a question is that? I thought mine was a bad question. Fine, I guess they’re both bad.

“Is there no Hitler country?”

“Do you mean like a Hitlain or Hitlermany or a Hitlanistan or Hitlan?” A giggle escapes me at the absurdity of these names, but he answers with a straight face without knowing I’m joking.

“Certainly not Hitlanistan or Hitlan. There is no country I named Elysianischer Staat?”

“No, certainly not,” I mimicked.

He frowned at this, but I moved on easily. My only problem of the moment was thinking of a decent question to ask.

“Sooo, do you have any illnesses or allergies or issues...” I trailed off. I knew this man had issues maybe not ones he’d tell me about or even knew about himself, but he had issues or else what reason would he have for killing hundreds of thousands of people?

“My physician, Dr. Morell, says I have many issues and ilnesses. I take pills for them.”

“Follow up question - How many illnesses? I meant like what were they and how many? And...” I left the ending open again, truly curious as to this man’s personal health, mostly mental.

“He does not tell me what they are, but the pills make me invincible. ” He seemed to inflate with confidence as he spoke, and I had to wonder what drugs this so called physician gives him. “He tells me to take many every day. In the whole week, I take maybe 70.” He said it so matter a factly. So confidently. So sure.

How was this man alive? My grandmother who is 67 doesn’t even take half that many! I had to google this. My phone was slipped from my pocket, and I began to type. I could feel Hitler’s questions.

“This can be your next question, but save the thought till I’m through with this quick search, please.”

Dr. Morell and Hitler’s medicine I typed in the google search bar. Sure enough, Dr. Theodor Morell And The Untold Truth About Hitler’s Drug Habit, right near the top. I opened it and did a quick scan. Geez, it was even more than he said! “Dr. Theodor Morell turned Hitler into a full-fledged drug addict, prescribing him everything from opioids to bull prostate." Gross! "Hitler became increasingly dependent on the approximately 80 different drugs...”(Rennie, 2018) I was amazed. I was shocked. “Did you know about this?”

“I knew he made my injuries less. That is all that mattered.” I had a feeling this was not the full truth, but I chose not to question further.

“Your turn.”

“What was that rectangle of light that you controlled with your fingers?”

“Its an iPhone. Bassically just an improvement of the thing you called people with. Now it’s more like an all-knowing person stuck in a tiny screen!” I said cheerily.

I finally thought of a good question, so before I forgot, I blurted it out, “Why’d you kill so many people? What was the purpose?”

He sat there for a moment. If he was the all-knowing person stuck in my screen, I would see the circle of lines turning around and around, signaling loading. His mustache twitched, and he looked out the window. I began to question whether or not he would answer. Then he began to talk. “I kill not for pleasure,” each word spoken precisely and slowly, “I kill not out of hate. I kill for a future without blemishes. I kill for the feeling it gives me. When I have someone else’s life pinched between my fingers, I feel a power. I am driven by a madness inside of me to feed this power, so it does not eat me instead.” After each scentence, he would pause slightly, so his meticulously chosen words would be enveloped in my mind. “Have you not felt this power?”

“If you’re asking if I’ve killed before, then that would be a no.” I blinked an innocent blink, and he went on.

“Power comes when you have a choice.” He grinned at me durring a pause. “If I give you insult, and you stand there with eyes at your feet, would you feel powerful? No, there would be no power in that. If I gave you insult, and you stood and whipped your hand accross my face, leaving me speachless and with throbbing skin and muscle, would you feel powerful? Yes. You would feel more powerful than me. You would have relinquished your anger and pronounced yourself dominant. Powerful.”

I understand now. The obsession and the destruction. A pursuit for power and perfection. Men and women strive daily for power, but few warp this pursuit of power to the level Hitler did.

I look back at the chair, and he’s vanished. Was I talking to myslef the whole time? Charli leaps onto the chair as gracefully as any cat and bats at a piece of material. On the nail sticking out of the chair, there is a small scrap of half blue, half white cotton material. So I wasn’t dreaming afterall...

* * *

1929

Heinrich Hoffmann takes pictures of me. He tells me I, Eva Anna Paula, am a young and pretty girl who ought to be kept pretty in photographs. My short gold waves and blue eyes matched the ideals of Hitler, the man he worked for he’d told me. I had not seen this Adolf Hitler yet but often heard about him through the things Heinrich talked about as he took pictures. I did not feel the want, nor the need to see this man, but Heinrich spoke fondly of the man, and promised we’d meet soon enough.

Several weeks later, Heinrich entered through the door, following a statue of a man who looked in his forties. The man entered, and began inspecting the shelves with mild curiosity. The shop felt small under his gaze and finally that gaze fell on me.

“Have we met before?” he asked.

I would have known if we met before. The mustache bounced on his face. “No, sir. I have never seen you.”

He pretended to be interested once more in the shelves as Heinrich instructed me and began to take pictures. Hitler watched me with a curiosity that Heinrich later told me, he had never seen before on Hitler’s face.

As Heinrich gave me new instructions, Hitler turned and he must have found an answer to his puzzling.

“You have Bethy’s face.” A small smile spread acrossed his face, one I knew, without proof, was rare.

Also, to at least sort of cite, the one website I used in the story:

https://allthatsinteresting.com/theodor-morell

Dr. Theodor Morell And The Untold Truth About Hitler’s Drug Habit

By Daniel Rennie

Published April 2, 2018