The Young Dictator,

I can remember Adolf Hitler or “Dolphi” as we called him, when I was “Alive” in the mortal sense; we were in the same class at school. We were about twelve I think: He was already a nutter, who used to stand on desks before lesson saying things like, “Success is the only measurement of right or wrong,” which sounds very mature for that age and sort of laughable at the same time, except most people still believe it. We moved shortly after my fourteenth birthday and I never met him again, which is something to smile about I suppose.

Anyway, we know what happened to “Dolphi” don’t we? During the First World War, when half the world went mad, and turned on itself with primal brutality, Dolphi had a great time. He found himself in a place where the enemy was easily identified, and being a good man just meant pointing your gun in the right direction. It influenced the entire way he approached his life

All that is history now, to me certainly, who’s been in Eternity these fifty years. Up here everything is different. Wealth is measured wherever you are, but up here you cannot earn anything. You have to live off the good deeds and thoughts you exhibited whilst on earth. Me, I’m just an ordinary man. I gave half my sandwich to some beggar I saw in the street quite regularly and “kechang” my moral bank account got a nice wedge of credit. He was my brother fallen on hard times, as it happens, but for some reason that biological coincidence got overlooked. The algorithms used at the gates of Eternity are far too complicated for the average soul to understand, so quite why you end up with the worth you do, is often beyond our understanding, but then that’s the same on Earth isn’t it.

Mind you I spent a lot of time having that affair with Erika, my neighbour, whose husband I pretended was my friend. Well, I had to, to get near her, didn’t I? You couldn’t miss out on the fun and anyway he was one of those music teachers who lacks every sensibility and tortures the ears and morale of pupils in his charge, which was lucky for me because that meant my afternoon trysts with Sandy didn’t cost me what they might have done if “Mr Pallid,” that’s what I called him, had been anything like a generously hearted husband or teacher.

Anyway, “Dolphi” or Adolf, as you know him, had so much fun in the first war, he spent his life trying to organise another party, and, credit where credit’s due, he pulled it off and with bells on. Not that it’s done him any good. He lives in one of the most wretched areas known to spirits and is practically bankrupt.

Here’s the rub; when you’ve finally spent your goodwill, and even Hitler got some because he was nice to his secretary, loved dogs and was a vegetarian, you are sent back again to see if you “Can do any better this time.” Apparently they are sending him to the Middle East. That might be interesting!