Fifty Six in a Row
It seemed like a good idea at the time. It was
late at night, the day before the big announcement
- time travel, finally, we'd made it, beaten
the other side to it, too. I was minding
the equipment. Had a few drinks. Started thinking
about that old question "if you could go back in
time and kill Hitler, would you?" And there I
was, with a working time machine. Who would know?
So I did it. Went back to 1939, snuck into his
bedroom, beat the fucker's brains out as he slept.
Job done.
Of course, you can't just mess with history like
that. There are repercussions, butterfly effects
- a frog farts in Australia, a house collapses
in Arizona. Everything got messed up. One look
at the newspaper told me that. I had to fix it.
But I couldn't just go back and stop myself
killing Hitler - the machine
couldn't allow two of me in the same place at
once. I had to put history right. Went to the
dermatology lab, changed my face, broke into a
costume store, rushed back to 1939, invaded
Poland. As Hitler. I had to stay, of course,
right up to 1945. Had to do some bad,
bad things. You've read the history books. Broke
my heart, nearly drove me mad. But I did it. Came
back seconds after I left. The perfect crime.
That fixed some stuff, but not everything. See,
I'd made other stops on the way back from killing
Hitler that first time. Took out some other
"undesirables", as they say. That all had to be
fixed. Manson, Bundy,
Stalin - fifty six in a row, all
murderers, serial killers, psychos. I had to do
all their crimes, disguised as them, to fix
everything.
It was a long night.