A Man With His Dog

I hopped in my time machine and tried to go back to 1902 to see Hitler as a kid. But the calibration was off on the machine and I landed in 1943—41 years is within the margin of error, as things go. It wasn't so bad. I landed in April 20, 1943. 

The Nazis captured me and wanted me to show them how I time traveled. They wanted to use my invention, which I made in my cellar a few months before, or 83 years later, depending on how you look at it. I agreed, but only if I could meet Adolf Hitler, himself. I was unarmed and assured them I hadn't traveled back in time to kill him. They said okay and took me to meet him. I was greeted warmly—probably in large part because I had something of great value. Imagine what the Third Reich could do with a time machine.

I made another request, which was to paint his portrait. I was a portrait painter and what an opportunity this was. After the portrait was complete, I promised to show them how to use my time machine. How it worked. In fact, I'd give it to them. Hitler agreed. He asked me about the future and I told him what was going to happen. I told him about D-Day and Hiroshima and the day he would shoot himself inside his bunker as the Russians, Americans, and British closed in on Berlin. I thought he would be angry, but he wasn't. He said he expected it to happen. He saw it in a dream. 

I told him about what someone had asked me at a bar once—about if I would go back and kill him when he was a kid if I could. I said I wouldn't have done it. I told him I was trying to go back to adopt him. To raise him different. To be kind to him. Maybe bring him back to 2026 and raise him as my own. Teach him how to play baseball. How to ride a scooter. Buy him a dog. Have a birthday party for him with balloons and cake. He laughed. Then he smiled. 

Then I told him about Jeffrey Epstein and Israel and he inhaled deeply and scowled. But he didn't shout. Nor did he even move. I didn't expect him to be as human as he was or to have any emotion other than anger. But he kept petting his dog and being playful. The dog, in return, seemed to love him. He asked about the time machine and I think he wanted to use it for something other than as a tool towards world domination. I think he wanted to go back in time and do something different. What exactly, I do not know. 

He remained still for the painting. I told him how my grandpa would fight in the Battle of the Bulge and how "the Battle of the Bulge" would later be co-opted by weight loss clinics, fat pill makers, and everyone trying to sell some sort of weight loss gimmick or gadget. I looked at my watch and told him my grandpa was probably being drafted as we speak. I told him he would win a Purple Heart for taking some schrapnel and go back home to West Virginia, move to Ohio, and drink Blatz Beer. Hitler smiled. He breathed long and slow breaths. Deliberate breaths. It was almost like he was reconsidering his entire life.

I didn't say anything else. I finished my painting, shook his hand, and said happy birthday and goodbye and led some scientists to my time machine, which I had crashed on top of the SS Headquarters in Berlin not far away. 

I made a final demand of my captors, or hosts, whichever they were. I wanted one of their fancy SS uniforms and they gave me one, but it didn't fit right, so I asked for a better size and they found one that fit me better. Then after I dressed, I stepped inside of my time machine and began to explain the device to them. This does this. That does that. But just before I disclosed the big secret, I pressed the magic button and I shot out of their like a bat out of hell. The next thing I know, I was back in my cellar, present day. 

I'll never forget that experience. Years later, I found the painting that I painted in 1943. It hangs above the mantle in my living room. I take it down when company comes because they do not understand, nor would they believe me when I told them that I met Adolf Hitler on his birthday. The inevitable conversation that would occur would be, why didn't you shoot him for humanity's sake? I would have to laugh. I don't owe anything to humanity. To humans who slaughter hundreds of millions of animals every year and kill millions of unborn babies. Your selective outrage is as pathetic as it is contemptible. Humanity has no grievance of me as I have of it. I am not a killer. I am a lover. I am a portrait painter and an occasional time traveler. 

And when they asked what I did, I'd have to tell them I painted his picture and said happy birthday. So it's better to hide the painting away when company comes and to not have the conversation at all about that one afternoon in Berlin. Sometimes I sit there in my living room in my SS uniform in a chair by the painting and drink Blatz Beer, wondering what Adolf Hitler would have done with my time machine. 

I called the painting—A Man With His Dog. Pastel on Paper. 1943.