by Mark Holme
When I See Fire
M.R.Holme
Copyright 2014 M.R.Holme
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Thinking
Chapter 2: Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill
Chapter 3: Misanthropist Milkshake
Chapter 4: Starry Night
Chapter 5: Technology
Chapter 6: Nighthawks
Chapter 7: The Lady Jew
Chapter 8: Adopting History
Chapter 9: Unconventional
Chapter 10:No More
Chapter 11:Up In Flames
Chapter 12:Banksy
Chapter 13:Morality of Murder
Chapter 14:The Mosaic of Mona Lisa
Chapter 15:V-Day and Beyond
Chapter 16:The Superior Race
Chapter 17:Insanity
Chapter 18:The Shoulders of Giants
Chapter 19:The Final Chapter
Chapter 20:Change
About the Author
Chapter 1
Thinking
Fire – burning, flames, heat, red, orange, fascinating, destructive.
When you hear the word fire, these are some of the things you think? When I hear fire I think two things: Death, Run.
Fire has ruined my life, but also taught me a lot about it; the importance of life, the cruel outcome of simple mistakes. Some say the past is practice, but what use is that if you’re not living today? Do I remember them? No. Do I miss them? Yes. This may seem strange to some of you, yet not so strange to others. How can you miss something you never really had? Because of two little words swimming in your mind. Sometimes deeper than others, but at night when there’s no other thoughts to block them out, you can’t stop yourself thinking …
What If?
My name is Leonidas Diavolo, and I’m on my way to fame, i.e. money – the good life some would say, how to gain a bunch of fake friends. Money is a strange thing. A man can work all his life 7 days a week, 16 hours a day, and yet a man in ten minutes gambling can earn more. Who says who deserves money? Whoever they are they messed up a long time ago, and I think a new system is needed, however I can’t change how the world is so I’ll have to make myself work to the system. One day the world will wake up and realize that God will never forgive us for what we have done; it often occurs to me that the human race is doomed. Greedy, destructive, self-centered, yet still fascinating to think about.
Thinking is over rated. It’s only useful to a genius, on everyone else it is wasted. The deeper you think the harder it is to stop. If you think about something for long enough it can destroy you, wear you down and tear you apart. Stretch you until you can’t bear it anymore – any way out is good, but how do you escape yourself?
In films you often hear people say they aren’t scared of death. I am, in fact I’m terrified. The one thing you can’t escape, and the one thing you don’t want to happen – yet if you could choose when to die life would be boring. I don’t want to know the future, I need change, change is unpredictable – keeps you on your toes. The seed of knowledge that one day you will die is awakening, yet in most people it is kept as a seed. In me it is a fully grown ivy strangling my soul and if I’m not careful it will ruin my life. Actually you might say it already has. The good thing about life though, is if you have a bad day you can try again tomorrow – start a fresh so to say. Try again. Again. Again. You know what the definition of madness is? Doing the same thing and expecting a different result, however every human does this to some extent, so are we all mad? It’s arguable. Looking at the world from an outsider’s point of view you would think us mad: letting people starve, killing each other, destroying the ground beneath our feet and doing anything to be number one. To be on top, the Alpha dog. Yes, looking at us from the outside I would say we are mad. We call ourselves civilized, please! We weren’t civilized as cavemen and we aren’t now. Nothing’s changed.
They say one man can make a difference, in the past they were right: Shakespeare, Churchill, Van Goff, Martin Luther King, Lincoln, Caesar. Notice the common thing between all these people?They aren’t around anymore. No one is stepping up to the mark, who’s your idol? Maybe the world is too big for one man to make a difference. Who can inspire seven billion people? Can you?
The world is beautiful through the eyes of a child; the innocence, the aspirations, the joy and wonder, the great adventure every day. The adventure of life. You could say this story is an adventure of life, or how to cling onto it anyway. It is also a story of Love. And Fame. And Friendship. And whatever else you choose to make of it.
I often wonder what the world would be like had Hitler died on the 30th April 1945 in his Führer-bunker. I can imagine his eyes tightly crumpled as the taste of metal flowed over his tongue. A bead of sweat, slowly running down his forehead and past his stupid Charlie Chaplin moustache.
The messenger burst in as Hitler’s finger was on the Walther PPK 7.65mm pistol’s trigger.
“Führer, Roosevelt has responded, he has agreed your terms”.
I bet the messenger was shocked to see his great leader with a barrel down his throat, not as shocked as when Hitler turned the thing on the messenger and blew his brains out.
His wife Eva was dying at his side. He said something cruel, something for her to remember him by. “Goodbye my Cyanid Braut”
It all went wrong from then.
It was in the French and British papers within hours: ROOSEVELT TRAITOR. I bet you never saw that coming, more than what my great grandfather saw, he was an Italian British POW. Within a year Russia had fallen, and then Charles de Gaulle surrendered, closely followed by Winston Churchill.
Bombing Pearl Harbour was the best thing Hitler ever ordered. He awoke the sleeping giant then put a leash around its thick neck.
He changed Chūichi Nagumo, the Commander in Chief of the First Air Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and the twisted face of warfare, forever. Hiroshima and Nagasaki will be remembered for eternity in infamy.
Revenge was all the Americans were seeking, revenge against the Japanese. The yanks were all for national expansion, that’s how Hitler sold it to them. That was his pitch. Yanks do have a heart though; they drew the line at concentration camps and gas chambers. At creating a “superior race”, look at us all, do we look superior to you? He was to “Secure for the German people the land and soil which they are entitled to on this earth” – the Yanks definitely didn’t agree with that. The man was insane; he believed that Aryans were destined to rule the world, even when he had managed to conquer it with dark hair upon his scalp. By the time Roosevelt had realized his error he was at the bottom of Devils Lake in North Dakota, and Hitler was now the head of a monster. A hulk with a brain is a scary concept.
The Italians were safe of course. My Ancestors were safe.
Europe was renamed the German Empire, only people with blonde hair and blue eyes are allowed into Berlin – even Hitler himself was banned. The whole world must pay yearly tributes to the Germans, like a tribe from before the times of metal and brains. They have the cars. They have the money. They have everything.
Can they make the Jews extinct? They cannot. Do they have my heart? Never. I am Leonidas Diavolo, and I will never surrender to this evil that surrounds me.
I am Leo Diavolo, and I will kill every Jew I ever meet. He was a very misunderstood man, Adolf Hitler. The great ones often are. No one understood Da Vinci either. One of two siblings to survive childhood in Austria. Time Magazine man of the year. He fought valiantly in World War I, though the cowards surrendered when he could have won it for them, as he later proved. Power mad? He just wanted what was, by rights, his to begin with. For years the poor man lived on the streets of Vienna like an animal, the very animals he loved so much. He was a vegetarian you kno
w.
I will never surrender to the men who walk in Hitler’s shadow. He was a vegetarian you know? Didn’t want any animal to die, but killed the Jews by the thousands. The fool thought he was an artist because he helped design the Volkswagen Beatle. His first girlfriend committed suicide, he was that much fun. Churchill would have hated to see Britain like this. Like slaves. We have no money, but that just means that everything is cheaper. I don’t suppose that is too hard to live with. The murders, the murders of people accused of being Jews. That’s difficult to stomach. Wait, did I mention the Vegetarian thing twice?
Apologies for my ramblings, the world around us enrages me. What do I do about it? Nothing. Though there is much I could be doing to aid the world; that we all could do. Poverty. Orphans. Cancer. Malaria. Homeless. Hospitals. Hospices. Extinction. How many charities have we all ignored? I sit in my home, on my sofa, eating well, while on the TV set the adverts pleading for money go on and on. My heart feels sympathy, until the next advert starts. Then comes the news at six. More death. More world issues and skating squirrels. The UN can’t decide what to do, again. The United Nations aren’t so united after all. Hitler started the UN – no wonder it’s doomed to failure. WWIII may be closer than we think.
My home isn’t much to look at, a semi-detached on a cul-de-sac in the North of England. In Oldham, near Manchester, if you’re interested. The English are muck in the new world, though being of Italian decent, I am looked on more fondly than most by the government. The people themselves couldn’t care less where I’m from, as long as I’m not German.
Rusty coloured carpets, glass tables and TV stand, wooden fireplace, silver trimmings, and plain white walls, with bronze floral displays in a print pattern on the wallpaper. A plain white wooden staircase leading up to the three bedrooms and bathroom. Sky+ on the television, yet I still watch the adverts, forgetting I can fast forward through them. Dark brown leather sofa with big ivory coloured cushions. It isn’t much, but it’s home.
Upstairs in the spare bedroom is where you find out about the real me. Mad paintings and attempts at poetry. Model cars lined up on the shelves. The room has never been decorated; I see no point as my paintbrushes flick all colours imaginable in every direction. I’ve been known to throw pieces of work that fails adhere to my satisfaction into the corner of the room.
Most artists need a room, or a landscape, that oozes inspiration. I don’t, I have all the inspiration I need engraved into my mind.
Another family hunting for a murderer are begging “for anyone who knows anything to come forward”.
He loved animals, how evil can he really be? Do you know who else was just as great as Adolf Hitler? Leonidas and the 300 Spartans at the hot gates. The Persian Empire looked set to rule all of Greece until Xerses met the Spartans. Until Xerses met Leonidas. Wave after wave fell at his feet, including the Immortals who failed to live up to their name. Like Hitler in WWI, Leonidas was betrayed by his own. A traitor told Xerses of a pass that would lead the might of his army behind the hot gates, did Leonidas run? Did he think of the words of the Oracle of Delphi? His army of 7000 was reduced to 300. The 300 immortals whose tale is still being told all these years later. Leonidas was killed; his body beheaded and crucified, which only served to anger his fellow Spartans who expelled the Persians from Greece, a few months later at the Battle of Plataea. The warrior I was named after. I am so much better than you all, your puny thoughts could not comprehend my greatness. I am part warrior, part survivor, part god, part leader. One - hundred - percent - evil.
Now somebody else is in trouble for saying something they shouldn’t online, but he “apologises for any offence caused”. It turns out we are all allowed an opinion as long as we don’t say anything too opinionated. Wait, that family on the news. I killed their son.
Chapter 2
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill
Jack Spencer is the leading detective for the Greater Manchester police force; he is praised amongst his peers for catching murderers. He is also mocked by the same peers for being able to think like them, though he does not think like them at all. He extrapolates. He looks at every tiny detail and researches to the point of painstakingly nit-picking.
This morning he woke up to a phone call he dreaded, though despite himself, he did feel a surge of excitement, and happiness.
Tweed trench coat on, cigar in mouth, breakfast thoroughly skipped.
He stood in his apartment lift, his intimidating stature taking up most of the space, with a small boy in school uniform on his way to the bus taking up the remainder. The boy stared at Jack like he was a famous footballer, looking away sharply when Jack looked down upon him, then returning his gaze once more.
The two stepped out of the silver lift in unison.
“Excuse me sir, are you going to be my daddy?” asked the brown haired boy shyly.
“No I am not, I am a police detective young gentleman, not a father”.
“But my mum said the police are here to look after us” responded the disappointed child.
“Your mother is correct, we are here to stop the bad guys”.
“Like a superhero? Thanks mister!” and with that the small child ran to catch the number fifty-nine.
Spencer had the child’s words in his mind all the way in his red Audi TT. The next thing to enter his mind was a pair of carefully sawn off human hands, completely free from any blood, and nailed to a plaque upon a pile of ash – presumably the rest of the man. They were definitely a man’s hands. A workers hands. The Praying Hands.
Most men would have winced slightly upon the sight, but not Jack. Jack felt great anger, that some monster was still out there capable of doing this. Was killing not bad enough? What kind of person needs to place their work upon a plaque?
Somebody who wants to be noticed, inferring they are not being noticed right now. What point are they trying to make? What do they want to be heard? Something religious most likely, but this looks more like art than prayer.A taste for the theatrical.That’s not much to go on Jackie. That’s not much at all.
There it was, the not so painstakingly nit picking feature. A perfect half-moon crinkled imprint in the skin, and a mouthful sized chunk of meat missing from between the thumb and index finger. We’ve got you now boy.
We’ve got you now. I expect Winston Churchill was thinking much the same as Hitler cowered in his bunker with the allied forces closing in. “You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.” Hitler had many enemies; it’s not so good if you’re standing up for evil. I wonder how he felt when Roosevelt was found to be a traitor. How all the soldiers, fighting together, reacted when the Americans turned their guns on them? How far did it go before not so “friendly fire” was no longer a good enough excuse? Churchill did say “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.” I guess he was proved right. What good is that for him now? He was half American himself of course, on his mother’s side. There is a link as well between Hitler, Churchill and Leonidas Diavolo – Art. However according to Sarah Thomas fighting against the government in an attempt to sell Churchill’s work says: “His work does vary in quality…A lot of his paintings are pretty poor and amateur and full of splodges.” If his painting skills were not impressive, the man himself certainly was – famously stubborn, especially in the ugly face of adversity. Shown no more fiercely than on the 24th December 1941 in Washington, D.C. “Let the children have their night of fun and laughter.Let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their play.Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasures before we turn again to the stern task and the formidable years that lie before us, resolved that, by our sacrifice and daring, these same children shall not be robbed of their inheritance or denied their right to live in a free and decent world.
And so, in God's mercy, a happy Christmas to you all.”
A merry Christmas to you too Mr. Churchill. He had his critics
of course, surprisingly more before Hitler got his hands on him than after. No one likes to speak ill of the dead, especially one as great as Churchill. Just ask Nancy Astor, who once said to Churchill “"If I was your wife I'd poison your coffee!" to which he replied: "If I was your husband I'd drink it." Witty and resilient. A true Brit, despite his ancestry.
It all went wrong from then.
Using a bite mark to identify a human is a controversial topic, many researchers believe it should only be used to identify a possible suspect, not as incontrovertible evidence. Now saliva and DNA is much more clear-cut, that can definitely be used as identification.
“An artefact bite of this size is almost un-heard of Jack, the man must have an incredibly strong jaw – or he didn’t use his mouth at all, have you considered that he uses tools?The hands were severed with a singular blow so he is, most likely, a very strong man.” Spoke the rat like, Rufus Brown. He used so many hand gestures when talking, he looked like he was conducting an orchestra. His balding long grey hair moving with every wrinkling of the face. He was almost disgusted at his own findings, had he not been so proud of them.
“Cut the small talk Rufus, who did it?” Jack responded.
Rufus housed a look of distaste. “I’ve not had many artefact bites in my time, but this one was easy, he wants to be found Jack, we found a drop of saliva as well Jack – according to the database it was a German politician; Harry Dert.”
“German? I should have known.”
After two hours trying to find a translator and get in contact with the Germans, the very British Jack Spencer was told that there wasn’t, and never had been, a man called Harry Dert born in Germany; and told rudely, not to accuse their great country again unless they had concrete evidence. The detective was no longer worthy of praise, not until this boy had been caught.