Divine (1/3) by Blair Ashworth

(1/3), (2/3), (3/3).

"Mein Führer? Mein Führer?" The old man in the long grey coat was bent over the body slumped in the chair. "Give it a few more seconds, Henry," said the doctor. "Do you speak any German? It might lessen the shock." No, Henry didn't speak any German and he didn't much care about any shocks he might deliver. Behind the heavy oak chair, a silenced vital-signs monitor gave its first positive indications with a slight upward slope on the yellow line.

The blue line spiked suddenly, and a red line joined the parade after a further two seconds. Water vapour began to appear inside the clear oxygen mask held to the pallid face of the body. This was it, this was the beginning of the experience Henry had bid hard for, and he put aside any thoughts of backing out. It was too important. The doctor was transfixed by the scene, ignorant of his duties, allowing the connected apparatus alone to manage the revival process, becoming merely a spectator in the greatest event of its kind to date. Adolf Hitler himself was being reincarnated right now, just a few feet away from him.

"Mein Führer." Henry repeated. "Eyes, let his eyes open and let them see me," he was thinking. There had been revivals before and sometimes the eyes had not worked, though nobody knew quite why. It wouldn't be perfect if he wasn't able to see. Hitler had concealed the fact of his poor eyesight whilst he'd been alive, believing that it would be considered a weakness unbefitting the leader of the Master Race, "Please let him have his vision." Henry thought. As life was funnelled into the body, it twitched.

Like a drunkard roused, consciousness was staggering back from a binge in eternity. Henry positioned himself straight ahead of the chair and slowly lowered himself so that their two heads were level. When the doctor decided that it was time to remove the man's oxygen mask, he did so from behind the chair, and the flashing of a dozen cameras illuminated the scene like a firework display. Henry smelled Hitler's first breath; it was the worst he had ever known, and it reminded him of rotting corpses in open graves. Thin lips and that trademark black trimmed moustache came into view as his chin lifted up from his chest. Henry heard the creaking of neck bones. Two cameras flashed but an immediate, stern, "Hey!" cut short the interruption.

The eyes of Adolf Hitler were opening. They blinked, and they stared intently into Henry's. Henry gestured towards the doctor - who was slowly approaching with his stethoscope and opthalmoscope - to stay back for now. No interruptions, it must go exactly as he'd planned, exactly the way he wanted it. He placed a cap on Hitler's head and straightened it carefully. The expression of wonder that showed on Hitler's face as he looked at the man before him, was perhaps most like that of a tourist in Egypt seeing a pyramid for the first time. It remained just so as he looked up, and into the face of Henry Czyrski, and with a slight closing of his eyelids, Hitler seemed to say, "I don't know who you are, but thank you."

Henry spoke his rehearsed words, all echoed in German by an interpreter in the dark background. "You died by your own hand in 1945, poison and gunshot, both quick and easy ways to end things. Your body was burned and the ashes buried in your homeland. Not quite a state funeral but at least there was some dignity for you. Now it is the future and we have technology to make a body - a clone."

Continued ....next page,

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