He sat in a tavern made almost entirely from dark wood and darker shadows. As always, he sat alone with his back to the wall, away from the windows. He’d manifested a no-go zone around him with his menacing demeanour, sudden twitches and barks. Only the barkeep would approach and he did so as quickly as was still polite, to replace Ade’s empty glass with a full one from his tray.
Regular patrons wondered what Ade was thinking. What trauma had befallen him. What had turned the polite young artist into that. Visitors might have just noticed an agitated young man muttering to himself and thought him a tragic warning against the dangers of alcohol.
Alcohol wasn’t to blame, but it was tragic. Not just for Ade. There’s little that’s story worthy about a lone loony in a bar. They’re everywhere. No, this young man’s angst would unleash tragedy upon the entire world. Apart from maybe Mongolia and some islands right out at sea, I dunno.
Ichts not fair! barked Ade. The patrons ignored him as best they could, for it was a common shout.
At that exact moment, one hundred and twelve years in the future, in the Spring, at a different time of day, in a laboratory in Massachusetts (fuck, that’s hard to spell), Peter Herchal and his best friend Sullivan were bickering.
“How did you miss? You’ve got a freakin’ machine gun!?” asked Peter, incredulous.
“He’s only little. And he’s ready for it now. He’s evasive,” retorted Sullivan. “He’s like a wild animal. It’s like trying to shoot a goddamn squirrel!”
“Fucking hell.”
“I know, right? I think he’s moving. All his stuff was packed up. He dived behind them.” Sullivan shook his head, thinking about the erratic line of smoking holes he’d made in Hitler’s trunks.
Peter thought about how the day was developing. Unraveling? “Should have killed the bastard when he was a goddamn baby!”
“Yeah,” agreed Sullivan. “Easier said than done.”
“Yeah,” agreed Peter. Neither of them had been capable of killing baby Hitler, because he was just a baby. Sullivan had slapped toddler Hitler around a bit, but hadn’t managed to land a fatal blow, not in the 30.3 seconds that each encounter lasted. There had been 25 such encounters. One for each year of Hitler’s life. Each had failed and both Peter and Sullivan had noticed a real difference in Hitler’s demeanour during the last few attempts on his life. He’d seemed like a nice kid up to about the 16th attempt to kill him. Since then Hitler was losing it. He’d given up painting and had the beginnings of a mental moustache.
“If he moves then we’re goddamn screwed,” said Sullivan. He gestured to the shelves. “The history books don’t have his location again – until he’s full-on Swastika Nazi Hitler in Germany. We have to kill him before that!”
“I know!”
“Well, it’s your turn, goddamn do it!” demanded Sullivan.
“I will! Give me the gun!” demanded Peter.
“Okay, but remember, he’s got insomnia now, so we lose the cover of night.”
“I’m thinking about 9am?”
“Aw yeah, get the goddamn son of a bitch over his strudel!”
Peter picked up the gun and put in a fresh clip while Sullivan adjusted the dial on the time machine. They fist bumped and with the gun pointed ahead of him, Peter walked slowly but deliberately into the machine, and with a bright blue crackle was zapped back to 1920s Austria.
Adolf – he’d stopped responding to Ade – was sat at a small table in his small room. He looked up and saw the gun approaching. He couldn’t see the face of the man holding it but he’d seen it before, many times. Two different apparitions had haunted him since birth. Appearing out of nowhere, attacking him before vanishing. As unlikely as it sounded he felt he had memories of being violently shaken from before he could talk. It wasn’t until adolescence that Adolf Hitler realised that he was all alone in this. Other people didn’t have people suddenly appearing, trying to kill them. It had made him angry, sad, frightened and confused.
Peter inched forward, holding the gun as he’d been trained in physical education. Hitler’s calm reaction was a surprise, but a welcome one. He didn’t look like running away. Peter increased pressure on the trigger.
“Vy isht you doing dis?” asked Hitler, calmly.
“Why?” snorted Peter, not taking his open eye off his target. “This is for all the shit you’re going to do in the future! This is for the Jews, you goddamn fuckface!” and there was a flash, a bang and there was smoke. Blue smoke. It took a wide-eyed Peter a few seconds to realise that it was he who had been shot. He hadn’t seen the pistol because it was on Hitler’s lap, under the table.
Peter collapsed and 12 seconds later he vanished and years in the future there was a scream in a laboratory in Massachusetts.
“The Jews, eh?” said Adolf Hitler, smashing his fist down on his strudel. “Das is very interestink!” He wiped his greasy hand across his forehead, creating his signature hairstyle.
The rest, as they say, is history, but in the future.
Sullivan, unable to explain Peter’s death – without mentioning their unauthorized 2 hours dicking around with the time machine, which would have been considered a federal offence – blamed a black man. He regretted it almost instantly but it was the first thing he thought of and impossible to recant. He even came up with a description. Bald head. White vest. Gold chains. Red cargo shorts and Nikes. The resulting race riots affected him deeply.
Yeah, so that happened.
What can we take from this story? For me it’s that there’s too much hate in this world. Hate begets hate. It’s a cycle. It’s a cycle that could have been broken at any point, simply with the introduction of love. We need more love in this goddamn world.