by Mark Holme
Silhouettes pinned to wooden Stars of David, black SS Nazi officers walking towards them in a circle, wooden torches burning before them turning their faces orange on the cold night.
Now, now Leonidas. What did your parents tell you about telling the truth?
Wait, there were no officers. There were no Germans, there was only fire. There was only pain and suffering. There screams still ring in my ears sometimes. A temperamental tinnitus that mocks me. All these years I hated the Germans, and for nothing. It was suicide. That is the route of all my problems. That is where this life begins.
Close Leonidas, you even convinced yourself. Tell the truth.
Why would they kill themselves? They had a child to care for, they had me to look after! They never loved me. Never wanted me. I was an accident, a blip in their perfect little lives. Thank you mum, thank you dad. You ruined my life and helped Leo kill all those people. This is on your shoulders parents, this is your creation. You’re evil.
"NO NO NO, LIAR!" The words erupted from their mouth, Leo's voice furious. "You did this Leonidas, and you alone"
I'm evil. I am responsible for all these dead. The Germans didn't kill them. Neither did they kill themselves. I did it. I had suppressed this memory so deep, and for so long that the truth was like a volcano erupting.
I hit them with a shovel in their sleep. Just a seven year old child. Dragged their bodies into the back garden with all my strength and nailed them screaming to the Star of David. The wooden stars I had made whilst 'playing with Lego in the garage'. I knew the matches were kept in the cupboard above the bread tin, laughing as I struck the match I burnt them. Eyes fixating on the flames. When I see fire something snaps inside of me. Something changes.
Tears rolled down my face, I could have been anywhere in reality, but in my mind I was in that child's head. Not feeling anything as they burned. Mesmerised by the flames.
What had they done to me that made me burn them alive. What could be so harmful?
NOTHING.
They must have done something, must have beat me or starved me or treated me like an animal. I cannot remember anything before their deaths. This is Leo playing games, this isn't real. This is a dream, a nightmare, a horror story. They beat me and abused me. Left me tied to the stairs like a dog.
I have always had a passion for art, but these monsters would not let me paint. Would not let me through fear of staining their precious furniture. Their precious rug. What did I do? I pulled the rug from beneath their feet. Laughed at their bodies burning.
The Germans should have arrested me then, should have found my little secret. I slept soundly that night and rang the police midday. They came in their black uniforms, the evidence impossible to read. Who suspects a child? I grew up with foster parents, caring people who always abandon you in the end. My life has been long and hard. Why did the fools not arrest me?
Still blaming the Germans are we? You’re obsessed with them. You love them and hate them simultaneously. The Nazi’s are innocent, this time, the German empire had no input to your downfall. You were obsessed with them in school as well, almost as much as your art lessons. They were the first real life bad guys you encountered. Do you see yet Leonidas? Do you see who you are?
Damn Leo and these childish games! There are many paths to be led down, but only one truth. Only one Leonidas.
You blame them because you can. An easy target. Do I have to spoon feed you like a child? You haven't been a child for years Leonidas, you are a man. A useless dim witted man. It's time to stand up, it's time to accept the consequences of your actions. You are a murderer! A born killer. You are a compulsive liar! Not just to me, but to yourself; that's what fools do! Have no doubt that you are a fool, a brutal murdering fool who killed his own parents! I hate you Leonidas. I hate all humans, but you in particular are a viscous creature. Remember Leo, remember the truth. Come visit me back in reality.
I'm in reality. Where are you Leo? In my head? You lie so often I do not know what to trust.
I have not lied to you once Leonidas. Fine I will tell you, you must learn eventually. It's hard enough functioning without having to battle through your hallucinations. They are unnecessary distractions. Accept reality Leonidas! Accept who you are! Fool!
"HITLER DIED IN 1945, he lost the war! Isn't that right detective?"
I’ve got you now, boy.
Chapter 18
The Shoulders of Giants
Hitler lost world war two, you all know it to be true; you cannot have forgotten such a huge part of history already? So many dead. When it comes down to it you will all kill to survive. I am doing something much more generous, I am killing so that you may survive.
Hitler won the war! His birthday has been celebrated every year since his victory, the SS officers walk round proudly in broad daylight.
There are many reasons for the great man’s defeat. He would have been a hero if he had won, he would have been remembered for thousands of years as the man who conquered the world. On a par, if not exceeding, Caesar.
Unfortunately for all of us, who will soon be starving in a world with uncontrollable weather and disasters, he lost.
Hitler had the brave policy to never retreat. Like Leonidas he lived in a fantasy world, a world lined with ideology. I have been questioned before about how humans know that the colour they perceive as red, is the same colour others perceive is red. Is my purple your green? This is the closest I can get to describing how Leonidas and Hitler view the world. They view it uniquely. A Hollywood glimmer on a grey existence. An amazing talent. A talent which caused Hitler to kill most of his own Army. Sometimes you have to cut your losses in order to succeed overall.
I would have loved to kill all you creatures by hand, but I can’t. I can’t achieve my dream living in a fantasy.
Do you know how I know so much about the war? It is because Leonidas knows all this to. He has just hidden it inside himself, inside me. He was the only child I know who was astounded by history. The mythical path that lies behind us.
There is a German Empire, a German world! I may have forgotten the details of the death of my parents. A world is whole lot bigger than two people. Roosevelt is lying dead this second at the bottom of Devils Lake.
Child! Roosevelt fought against Germany, not hand in hand. Where does the root of the bombing of Pearl Harbour lie? The Japanese executed the command but it was Hitler who spoke the words. If I know that do you not think America does to? Atomic bombs are not used haphazardly.
Roosevelt was a Traitor!
Roosevelt played a huge part in the allied forces. The US army joined world war two in 1941, with Hitler announcing war on America shortly after the strike at Pearl Harbour. Hitler underestimated the world in his fantasy world.He underestimated the British. He underestimated the Russians. He lost the war!
Roosevelt was a traitor! I’ve seen the newspaper clippings, I learnt about this in school for years. He was a disgusting back stabber. A fool.
How much evidence must I provide? How much are you willing to ignore? Look outside, look around! There are no swastikas in the streets, no Natzi officers looking down upon you. There are very few Germans even living in Britain. You forget, he lied to them all, he deceived and tricked and manipulated everybody he came in to contact to. They have millions dead. Rows of gravestones. You don’t care about that. They are all evil?
The great one dismissed facts just like Leonidas. The most useful innovations thrown on the scrap heap, the technology was available to produce the first ever assault rifle. The technology was ignored. The first jet powered aircraft. Technology Ignored. One mistake I will not make it to ignore technology. I will win this war. One versus seven billion.
Technologies are causing you to evolve away from perfection, but it would be idiotic to ignore them in this crazy world we live in. Technologies built you up, they will tear you down.
Hitler made the same mistakes as Leonidas. He took on too much too s
oon, doomed to failure before he had started. A brilliant idea does not automatically transform into a brilliant result.
You talk about fantasies Leo, but you are deranged yourself. You talk of technologies that you hate. The deaths of the Germans. The deaths of humans, which you hate. Survival of the fittest? You would die the same as thousands.
I am the strongest, smartest and most inspirational human on this planet. I am a mountain amongst children.Even a mountain cannot defeat the world whilst trying to defeat himself. So we come to Hitler’s final mistake. The biggest of them all.
Fighting the battle on two fronts is a ridiculous idea. His primary target was Russia, already a hard enough task. Then he got distracted by the Brits, he wanted to crush them, to show the world his power. Instead he showed the world his weakness. Hitler ignored the British after his initial defeat, focusing on Russia. A mistake he would never have the chance to make again.
Attacked from two angles, the genius then decided to poke a stick at America, see how they would react, whilst dragging Japan into the picture.Russia one side, America and Britain the other. He was being crushed. He couldn’t take it any longer. Couldn’t bare the embarrassment of defeat.
He killed himself.
The thought crossed his mind, but the bullet did not.
He was as much a coward as you are. Hiding from reality until it creeps up on you. How can you survive in a world where you are a killer? Where you are the bad guy? Hitler lost the war. Leonidas lost his marbles.
You killed your parents. They deserved to die. Hitler killed Himself. He deserved to die.
The Supermarine Spitfire was a single seat fighter/ interceptor that fought at low altitudes. The most famous British aircraft of all time. A thoroughbred. It had a maximum speed of 374 mph and a range of 1135 miles. It was the Rolls Royce Merlin engine which provided such power, such feats that the German air force could not compete with. A sleek design with an elliptical wing and eight guns in each wing.Spitfires dived at velocities approaching the speed of sound. Then the Americans arrived with their carrier fighters. The Spitfire was then used as a tactical fighter-bomber. It evolved. It survived. It became immortal.
I loved planes as a child, their beauty and elegance. The whole idea of flight was so appealing, to simply jump off a cliff and soar to wherever you wished to be. I should have been born a bird. A bird does not worry about who he is; he knows who he is and what he is designed to do. What are we designed to do?
Leo is right, the first time we have agreed on anything. My parents deserved to die. I saved up for weeks, skipping dinners and keeping the dinner money.I bought myself a model spitfire, with plastic parts and glue and paint. It was wonderful. I hid it under my jumper and slid upstairs to my room. My parents barely acknowledged my existence to begin with.
All night I stayed up building this beautiful machine, delicately painting the propeller blades. By morning it was complete. It was perfect. I had not eaten since the previous morning and was feeling feint.
My mother was horrified, not at me asleep on the floor. Dead for all she cared. She stomped on the plane, breaking it beyond repair and waking me up. Then she burnt the pieces in front my eyes. Laughed at my tears as it melted into a molten black ball.I was five.
This was the day my shadow came to life, a shadow that still lives inside me. I wasn’t lonely anymore. I was angry.
My shadow whispered to me. Told me to do bad things, I resisted at first. I controlled him for years. The sleeping giant remained asleep. In my dreams he would speak to me. He would tell me his secrets. His naughty little tricks for surviving.
One night my dad hit me, knuckles crunching against my ribs. I was seven. As his next strike aimed for my head my shadow told me to duck. His knuckles crunched against the brick wall behind me. I won the battle. My dad hit me with his other hand and knocked me unconscious, dragged me to the yard and left me to sleep on the grey flags.
My shadow protected me. He looked after me.
We made a plan. We made a plot. A plot to make most terrible and wonderful things happen. A plot that would free me forever.
It was Leo’s fault they were dead, but I can’t deny that it is not what I wanted.
As I grew older I knew I had done a terrible thing, my shadow pushed me to do more and more. A friend that bullies you, well, he is no longer a friend at all. I buried my head in history books searching for monsters who had done as I. Searching for those worse than me, to make me look better. I found the Nazis. I found Hitler.
I looked for evil in every great man.
Leonidas and the 300 Spartans intrigued me. It gave me hope that sometimes the underdog can win, that believing in your ability can help you succeed. But there is a dark side to this tale, details that will be located far away from the battle in any book about Spartan life.
Spartans were trained from the age of seven to be ready for the army, torn away from their parents to take part in physical training and survival exercises. New born children were slaughtered if not capable of growing to defend Sparta. They had a purpose. They knew what they were born to do. The greatest honour was to die on the battle field. The children were starved, and then beaten for stealing food. Not for stealing, for being caught. When marching to war the women presented the men with their shield “with this, or upon this”. You win or you die or you never return.
You see Leonidas, there is cruelty behind everything. Every great achievement. Every discovery and development in society. Evil shadows helped to develop everything.
You can hide in your fantasy for as long as you like, but evil will find you. When you think you are safe. When you think you cannot be touched. I will find you. When you accept this reality, when you see through the mist, you will evolve into something much greater than all of us.
Hitler was a fantasist, but even in reality there was a secret nobody could have known. He was married to a Jew.
You hate me Leonidas. But in fantasy and reality you have become attached to what you hate. You can’t let go of your fantasy, but you no longer fully accept it either.
There is a choice to be made here, you can live in your fantasy, you can deny me my dreams, or you can join me in the real world. However you love your dream? Why would you want to live in my nightmare?
Dreams are glorious, the impossible becomes normality; you can experience things so wonderful that they can’t exist in my world. You will never be fully satisfied in this world. In this world were Hitler won world war two. Your parents are dead. That’s on your shoulders as much as mine. They deserve to be dead. Do not punish yourself because you do not remorse. To remorse would be to regret, to regret would be wrong.
The past is an immovable object, the fixed foundations from which you must build your life. We are all ceaselessly being reborn into the past and building upon it. Regret is not progressing. Regret is tearing down the foundations from which your life is built upon. Regret is blaming Hitler for your actions.
A dark side is asleep within all of us; sometimes he must awaken to do what is necessary to progress. Sometimes I must take control. Hitler lost his war. Do not lose ours.
Bernard of Chartres would say that “we [the Moderns] are like dwarves perched on the shoulders of giants [the Ancients], and thus we are able to see more and farther than the latter. And this is not at all because of the acuteness of our sight or the stature of our body, but because we are carried aloft and elevated by the magnitude of the giants”.
“Is that Right Leonidas? Your wisdom astounds me, as does your life story. Have you any other murders or social observations you would like to declare before you are imprisoned for eternity?” Spencer spoke sarcastically but with a bite in his tone that had never been heard before.
Behind him two SS Officers stood, bewildered at what sat before them. The giant man had not even acknowledged their existence until this point. Muttering away to himself in two distinct tones. They did not know if to laugh or shoot. Many peo
ple may say the odd word to themselves, but a full conversation of such detail is rarely observed. It is hard not to petty the man stuck inside such an organism.
The man stood up peacefully and smiled at the three men stood before him. He held his arms out in front of him in a childlike manor, eyes glazed over as the two sides both battled to take over. Ready to be imprisoned.
“I may fall so that others can rise up to greater heights; it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants that we can rise up to mountains. Hitler was more than a giant, he was a god; standing upon his shoulders I can look down upon the world.”
Chapter 19
The Final Chapter
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, but at least then we couldn’t see the mess we are in. Humans have so many plans, so many systems for how a civilisation should be. Is it you that chooses? Do you have a say in how your life should run?
It is how it always has been, and how it always will be if you let it. Those up above feeding those down below, the rich have a laugh and the poor fade away. It is their names that go down in history. It doesn’t matter how a country is run, there are certain divides that do not crumble away by themselves.
For centuries the rich have prospered while everyone else fumbles around their feet. Catches their change and stumbles along. We all survive, but what about the quality of survival. What have they done to be treated this way? Footballers earning millions while nurses struggle to put food on the table.