I squinted through crusty eyelids at my phone. 6.50 A.M. I groaned. Yet another long, dreary day spent all alone within my four walls with nothing but the internet, food deliveries and peeks through the window when the neighbourhood gathered to cheer on frontliners in the evenings for company. I didn't even have a balcony to wave and dance upon. Since lockdown began in March, I had probably only been out a total of twelve times for absolute necessities and by necessities I meant drugs. There was no way in hell I would be able to get through any of this without pills or smokes, and even that had long lost its flavour.

Lying immobile, my hands and legs splayed on either side of me, I stared up at the ceiling semi-planning my day in my head. Right, so I had one deadline today and two inane Zoom calls in the afternoon. Who'd have thought I'd be so sick of working from home considering how hard I fought for the privilege last year. Maybe I should get up to perform Sun Salutations like I've been meaning to for the past nine months.

There was a rustle at the foot of my bed. I shifted my leg and rolled over, glancing in the direction of the sound not expecting anything.

"JESUS CHRIST!" I shouted, jumping up. There was a shadow sitting there, hunched over, head in hands.

"Nein, Hitler."

I reached for my bedside lamp, accidentally pushing my phone off the edge of the bed. It clunked on the floor with a loud thud.

The shadow stood up. I switched on the lamp.

And I stared, mouth agape at Hitler. Or his ghost. He was barely there, almost transparent, his moustache even more comical in person than in History books and satirical depictions.

"Heil?" I choked out. He brushed it away with a wave of his hand. "Uh, sprechen sie, uh... uh... English?"

My shameful grasp of a language I do not speak petered out. What on earth did I smoke last night?

"What year is it?" he asked quietly, in English.

"Oh great, you can understand me. It's 2020. What year are you from?"

He smiled. "It is a new millennia. You are Asian?"

I nodded.

He looked around my room slowly. I noticed a sadness about him, perhaps all ghosts carried this aura.

Emboldened, I asked, "So, what's up Hitler. What can I help you with?" That's why ghosts appeared right? They needed help to go towards the light or whatever.

Silently he walked, no glided, towards the window. The cold light of morning trickled in but not much else.

"It is very quiet on the streets. I anticipated the new millennia to be much busier, noisier. Dustier."

His quiet voice cut through the stillness. I chuckled.

"We're in the midst of a pandemic. Coronavirus. COVID-19. Some animal-borne virus that is attacking human hosts. It mutates too. The whole world is in lockdown. It's doing wonders for the environment but the economy is damned."

"Is it the Jews or the homosexuals?"

Bigot.

"Hmm... Neither. There are conspiracy theories but none of them have much to do with Jews or homosexuals."

"Conspiracy theories?" His interest piqued, he turned to me earnestly.

"Yup, taking over the world is a little more advanced nowadays."

His non-reaction unnerved me, but I continued to speak.

"One theory suggests that we're stepping into a new era of the brown and yellow skins, China and Pakistan being the new bloc. Another thinks that it was to get Donald Trump out of the White House. Yet another believes it's Mother Earth striking back on the worst plague to mar her, human beings."

"Germany?"

"Oh, dude. Germany isn't even all that German anymore. Your Nazi-Reich-thing kinda put a weird chip on their shoulders so they're constantly overcompensating for the genocide you caused."

His lips pursed.

"Seriously, what the hell do you want Hitler?"

He looked straight at me. I raised my eyebrows.

"You."

I recoiled.

He nodded in the direction of my bedside table. I looked and it hit me.

"Right. Ah. Yeah, why not."

I reached over, pulled open the drawer and picked out a vibrator.

He smiled.

Why the fuck not.