Synopsis

Adolphus is at a crossroads. His mother recently died which caused Adolphus to consider his future, what he aspires to, what his next step will be.
Then he finds the waterfall.

(WRITTEN FOR ROUND 1 OF #NYCMIDNIGHT #FLASHFICTIONCHALLENGE2023 – SUBMITTED JUNE 2023. Didn’t make Round 2)

Adolphus slumped upon a flat boulder in the dark of the cave. He was cold and surprised. Moments ago he’d been quietly at breakfast attempting to peel his morning egg, with his cat, Blondi.

His beloved mother had recently died, and Adolphus was alone. While breaking his fast he contemplated his vision of an ideal world.

Distracted, he dropped the egg and watched it lazily bounce and roll away. He shrieked as the egg disappeared through a crack in the wall. Startled, he stood. Blondi left him to the strangeness.

Adolphus stepped toward the crack and pushed through his hand then his shoulder. With a deep groan, the crack widened enough to absorb Adolphus.

In summer pyjamas, napkin tucked beneath his chin, Adolphus explored the cave as well as he could without light, finding no evidence of bear or beast. But plenty of evidence of mankind, including wall art.

Fresh water from a spring flowed via a channel in the floor. There was bedding and other personal items scattered around.

An impenetrable waterfall formed the fourth wall. Adolphus carefully surveyed the cave and found no escape route.

People use this cave, he thought. They will return.

Adolphus stood eager and unafraid when he heard voices. He was surprised by the appearance of two ape-like men. Broad in face and body with strong bone structure, heavy eyes and brows with deep dark eye sockets and deeply brown skin.

They seemed like monkeys to Adolphus.

One shouted nonsense words, and waved his arms aggressively. The message was clear to Adolphus. Leave the cave now, or, consequences.

He positioned himself at arm’s length to the wild men. They indicated he should  lead the way. He looked at the waterfall and again saw no way out and shrugged his shoulders.

As Adolphus stood wondering what would happen next, a gentle giant took him by the arm guiding him carefully through a thin water veil. Out into the brightest sunlight, the bluest sky. This horizon free of the arrogance of man and his architectural debris.

Adolphus saw a vast plain and more men, with women and children, working and playing across a  campsite. A low fire burned in a pit.

In moments they were surrounded. By smiling children (keen to touch the stranger) dangerous men, and unimpressed women.  The tribe wore little clothing and the women’s breasts swung like pendulums.

Adolphus was pushed to the ground, while the ape-men conversed heatedly. It appeared there was no consensus about what to do with him. Many glared at him, telegraphing their intention.

The women were calm. They began to smile at him. They checked his hair for pests. Fingered the materials of his nightclothes. Some marvelled at his bare, white feet. He was tickled and he laughed involuntarily. The ladies laughed with him.

The men looked angrier than ever, at this cuckold in their nest. Then descended upon him, scattering women and children like petals into the wind.

Adolphus curled into a foetal position to protect himself from the clear displeasure of these men. Their feet acted as drums, causing the ground to rumble. Their voices carried clear menace, even though Adolphus could not decipher their words.

He thought, I am a stranger here. I don’t belong. I am not wanted. And this is what happens to the cuckold, to the foreigner. To those not the same.

A large ape-man plucked Adolphus from the ground and as easily as tossing wood onto the fire, so he threw Adolphus.

Adolphus lay in the fire pit, his brain trying to understand what had happened. Then as the burning heat registered on his hands and knees, he screamed and propelled himself like a jack in the box out of the fire. With bare hands he tried to dampen the flames clinging to him. The ape-men hounded him with sticks, back toward the waterfall.

Adolphus obliged and trudged along, more concerned with his burns than the irritating sticks herding him. Like cattle.

As he pushed through the veil of water he screamed to them.

What shall I do here? I have no food, no clothes, and no way home!

He was ignored.

Adolphus held no hope of returning home. The fluke of a magic gateway happening once did not guarantee a return ticket.

He picked up the egg, cold now, and juggled it from hand to hand as he considered options.

Eat it? Who knew how long before his next meal. Or, keep the egg. It may be needed to get him home.

Adolphus paced the cave trying to find a sign of where he came through. A large fissure, disturbed soil, perhaps a breath of air crossing the divide from his home in Linz to this place.

He found a spot where it looked right but the gap was too small to crawl through. Measuredly, with no display of panic, he weighed the egg in his hand then rolled it gently at the wall. The egg disappeared.

As Adolphus crawled to the gateway, he heard the plaintive miaows of his beautiful cat.

Then he was through, sitting on his dining room floor, with Blondi crawling all over him.

Hold, my darling Blondi. I am well and reborn. He smoothed her white coat, gazed into her blue eyes. I understand my duty. It is to keep my Volk pure and free of outsiders.

As Adolf began his new life, the gentle ape-man finished his latest work of art. A small, white, moustached child-man standing quite erect. Hovering over his hand was a giant egg.

Perhaps it crossed his mind. That was one strange brother.

Author Note:

The judges didn’t seem to get what I was imagining here. 

This was an imagined Adolf Hitler, when he was Adolphus. 

His mother had recently died. He was considering what his future looked like. 

He dropped his boiled egg. I rolled away to an ‘opening’ to another time.
With early ‘monkey-like’ man. 

This frightened him, at a heightened emotional time in his life, and put the nail in the coffin of his attitude to life. 

The baseline would have already been there. His cat was named Blondi after all.

He could have gone either way. He could have remembered the fear, but then the stranger who helped him. But that’s not how the story went. 

The monkey-like beings frightened him as the ‘other’. And he would never be other. He would be the bogey man.

He would create a world where blond, blue eyed, Aryan was the predominant type. And he would never fear again.

Absolutely NOT MAKING EXCUSES for an evil man. 

Just IMAGINING.