I had been restless, turning side to side and constantly turning my pillow over to the cooler side. I had eaten a slice of pizza right before bedtime, hoping the spicy sauce and gooey cheese wouldn’t keep me awake, and also knowing that was too much for which to wish. I sat up and kicked the covers off my legs no longer able to ignore my full bladder, and I slid my legs over the side and padded to the bathroom. I walked the short distance with my eyes still closed. Everything was exactly where it was supposed to be, sink, trash can, toilet, roll of paper. I peered through a slit in my eyelids at the round window where the bright full moon shone through in tones of blue and silver as it blazed a trail across the bathroom floor leading back to my bed. I followed the path back to my bed and tucked my feet back under the blankets. I pushed them to the end of the bed searching for just the right place for them to rest, when someone said, “Excuse me.” I pulled my foot back as it touched an obstacle at the foot of the bed and froze. After a moment I kicked out my foot and again met resistance with a thud and, “Ouch! If you need me to move just say so.” I sat up in the bed and reached for the lamp, fumbling with the switch until I was able to flood the room with yellow light. There at the end of my bed sat a man of average to less than average height. He was fit and neatly dressed with khaki pants and a red polo shirt buttoned to his chin. His well-manicured hands were folded unthreateningly in his lap. When he looked up, I first noticed his gray – blue eyes. Though the color was unique and striking, they had no depth and showed no emotion. Then I noticed the small black moustache under his nose and his bottom teeth chewing nervously at its ends. When his icy blue eyes turned to me his posture straightened adding a little more to his smallish stature and he tilted his pale face so as to look down at me.

I was frozen, not knowing what to do next. There was a man at the end of my bed. That in itself was so far out of the norm for me, not to mention that this man looked a lot like the long dead Adolph Hitler, himself. I wasn’t sure if I should grab the baseball bat under the bed and swing for the fences or run or scream. So, I sat there still and unmoving. He looked at me with disgust and said, “I wish you would go ahead and make up your mind what you are going to do. If you are going to scream or attack me, then let’s please get it over with. I hate indecision.” He paused as if I was supposed to answer him, but I was truly stunned into a silence that I couldn’t seem to break. He continued, “If you are afraid that my intentions with you are, well, impure…” He stopped and actually shuddered as if the thought of even touching me turned his stomach. He went on, “I assure you that is not what I am here for.”

Suddenly, I surprised even myself and found my voice. “Well, what are you here for?” He looked at me with a slight smile that only reached one corner of his mouth. I sat back against the headboard of my bed and pulled the blanket up to my chin. He looked at me and said, “You do know who I am, correct?” I stared. Did I know who this man was? He looked like every picture I had ever seen of Hitler, but I was still sane enough to realize Hitler had been dead since 1945. As I stared into his dead eyes, he became antsy and squirmed there on the end of my bed. He looked uncomfortable and a little unsure of himself, but then he became angry. He balled up his dainty fists and pounded them into a pillow. He screamed, “I am the Chancellor of the German Reich! I am der Fuhrer! I am Adolph Hitler!” As quickly as the wave of rage had crashed over him, it ebbed back out to sea as calm washed over him. He straightened his shoulders once again, looking to the right and left. I didn’t know what or who he was looking for. I surely hoped there wouldn’t be any more dead dictators joining the party tonight. “I have once again defeated the inferior enemy. Death cannot keep me in captivity”, He pumped his fist in the air emphasizing every syllable. The light bulb flickered and the little Nazi became quiet once again, looking behind him.

He turned back to me and spoke a little more quietly, “I have only a short time before I must return. I have come to ask you for one thing.” He leaned in closer to me and I tried to back up further but my back was against the head board already. I tried to disappear into the oak. What could the most evil man of all time possibly want from me? Did he have me confused with someone else? Finally, he whispered into my ear, “I hear that you have a great recipe for making tofu crispy and not spongy.”

Silence filled the space between us and grew to fill the room. I had to have heard that wrong. The demon who had tried to exterminate an entire race of innocent people had returned from the grave after seventy-five years to ask about a recipe? A recipe for tofu? I don’t know what I had been expecting. There was absolutely nothing predictable about this night at all. If I had ever given any thought to the question at all, I might would think Mr. Hitler would return to ask for forgiveness or to maybe ask someone to follow in his evil footsteps. I never would have guessed he needed the recipe for tofu. He raised his voice and stood to his feet, exclaiming that it was his right to have the recipe and that I must comply with his wishes right away. Then he paced and murmured more quietly to himself, “How could an inferior being have been trusted with this knowledge? I am the Fuhrer, and I am entitled to the crispy tasty vegetarian delight.” I looked at this man or ghost or whatever he was. For years, this little man terrorized the world. His cruelty knew no bounds, and his arrogance was infuriating. After death, all he needed to rest was a good crispy tofu. I did, indeed have such a recipe. So, I went into the kitchen and grabbed a pen and paper and wrote out the very simple instructions. I handed him the index card and made him promise to never return. He exclaimed that with this recipe he could change the afterlife and that he could rule for eternity. He swore never to return to this inferior place and time. With a quick snap of his boot and a raise of his hand he disappeared.

Once again, my room was silent. I was alone in the dark of the night and confused about the visitor. Did I just imagine all that? Maybe I was dreaming. I pinched myself and I remained there on the edge of my bed wide awake. I looked down at the pen in my hand. I had written out the recipe for tofu for Adolph Hitler. It seemed like such a small and insignificant thing, but the little megalomaniac thought it held the power to ruling the afterlife. He was sure it was all he needed to be happy for eternity. What he did not know was that I had left out the most important step for drying out the spongy cube of protein. I made sure he would spend eternity with soggy tofu.

My first thought was to run, however, as he made no attempt to harm me in my sleep, I assumed it’d be safe. It’s odd. He seems so peaceful and calm while textbooks have always made him appear cruel.

“Hello?” I whisper.

His gaze grazed mine before falling. There was a certain sadness in his eyes, eyes that told of war, regret, and misery.

“Sir, what are you doing here?” I demand, my voice quivering. It’s not everyday the ghost of one of history’s greatest villians visits you.

“I wish to speak to someone of the pain I’ve felt since my death.”

He wishes to vent... An odd concept. Perhaps humanity has been too harsh on others. They’ve painted an image of Hitler so he is nothing but a monster, but he is equally human as I.

“Okay,” I once promised myself should anyone need to vent, I’d allow them, why should I break it now? “Go ahead.”

Surprise fills his eyes. “The world hates me and my soul is forever tormente by the deeds I committed. I wish to be forgiven but the world depicts me as a monster.”

“The first step to having anyone forgive you, is to forgive yourself.” I decided to keep God out of this as I wasn’t sure if Hitler was a believer. “What you did was horrendous, leaving millions scarred, but that doesn’t mean you’re unforgivable. The next thing to do is to apologize to those you’ve harmed, even if they can’t hear your apology, it’s better than nothing.”

“How do I forgive myself?”

“Answer this, why did you do it?”

“I though I was doing the right thing. I thought the world needed to be cleansed.”

I cleared my throat, “Do you regret it?”

“Yes.”

“Completely?”

“Yes.”

“You know it was wrong, you probably knew your methods were wrong before but believed that by cleansing the world via genocide, you were fixing everything. Correct?”

At first, he said nothing. “Yes, you’re right,” He finally says.

I nodded. “Your intention was to do the right thing however your belief of the right thing was way off. This can make it easier to forgive. However, the process of forgiving anyone, let alone yourself, is hard. Sometimes, you may think you’ve finally forgiven them, but the anger surges another day and you realize you haven’t. It’s more intense when you’re angry with yourself and can’t forgive yourself.”

Hitler was considering my words. It was odd that a long deceased murderer was coming to a teenage girl for advice on forgiveness when she struggled so greatly to forgive herself and the one who broke her.

“Do you think the Jews will ever forgive me?”

“I cannot say. However, forgiveness is not unreachable, it never is. Some may never forgive you but if their god is truly the same as mine and they’re true believers in their god’s commandments, they will.”

“How can you be so sure that forgiveness is unreachable?”

“I may be a teenager but sometimes, teenagers know more than the adults. In today’s world, we experience a lot that our parents and grandparents haven’t. It breaks us but builds us. A lot of teenagers are seeking ways to change things, despite being labeled as lazy. I’m one of those teenagers seeking to fix what’s broken in the world. And one of the first steps to fixing what’s broken is to forgive those that broke it.”

“You are too wise for a teenager though, what broke you to make you this wise?”

“Life, life broke me.”

“And what do you seek to fix?”

I looked at him, “Everything. It’s my fatal flaw, the flaw that will be the end of me. I seek to fix everything when I cannot even repair the fractures in my soul.”

“I hope you can one day fix yourself.”

Me too. “Thanks.”

~

When I woke up, the sun was streaming through the curtains of my room. There was no sign of my ghostly intruder from the night before. Perhaps it’d been a dream, Twenty twenty has been a bizarre year. Perhaps I was finally losing it and dreaming of late night talks with dead people.