Der Führer's Face

"You don't have dreams like that, do you?" said Gail. We were watching Der Führer's Face, a bit of ancient anti-war propaganda. Donald Duck was being chased round the screen by a shrieking battalion of shells, and I--well, I'd seen it before, so I was fidgeting around with the lightswitch.

"Not yet," I said. "Oh, dear. I hope I haven't jinxed myself."

I emerged from a stuffy hallway, squeezing through an immense set of double doors. At first, I thought I was outside--it was very warm, and I could feel a breeze on my face. When the dazzle wore off, however, I saw that I'd stumbled into a great drafty atrium of sorts. It was quite windowless, but light was getting in through several gaping cracks in the walls. In the middle, there was a steel-beamed elevator shaft, much like the one in the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I followed it up with my eyes. It seemed to rise forever. This was no mere atrium I'd wandered into. This was--this was some kind of hollowed-out skyscraper.

I must be dreaming, I thought. I'd never come to a place like this in real life. I hate places like this--places that are structurally unsound, that is--and I hate places with elevators, and places with--

(I looked around for something to hate. A poster caught my eye.)

--with posters on the walls. Posters on the walls are so tacky. They remind me of that berk I used to date, the one with the Crow posters everywhere. Stupid poster. I ought to rip it down. What is that, anyway? Oh, no. Oh, don't tell me. It's not. It is--

"--der Führer's face."

I went over to tear down the poster, but then I noticed another one, and another, and ten more besides. Everywhere I looked, there were posters, thousands of them, Nazi posters. Even the floor had posters on. Most of them displayed Hitler's head in stark black and white, but there were some swastika ones too, and some with Darth Vader. (I'm not sure what Darth Vader was doing in my dream, but there you have it.) I spun around and around, trying to find the door again. It seemed to have been plastered over with posters, however, and was nowhere to be seen. And then the elevator started to hum.

"Let it be Frank N. Furter," I mumbled. "Please, please, please let it be--"

Hitler dressed as Frank N. Furter! (This was my brain. This was my brain betraying me.)

"--let it be anything but that."

It was Hitler, of course, but--thank heaven, I suppose, for small mercies--he was dressed the way he is in those old photos you get, with the flasher coat and the horrible combover. He looked at me as a tiger might look at a mouse, and then I woke up.

"It was that video," I groaned. "I had to go and watch that video...." I thought about getting up, but being awake seemed more objectionable, in the dark of the wee hours, than being beset by Hitler. I stuffed my head under a pillow and went back to sleep. Hitler kept trying to creep back in, but I ignored him, turned my back on him, shut the door on him, and generally evaded him till he went away. I don't remember what I dreamed of after that, but I dreamed of it till ten o'clock, or thereabouts. When I resurfaced, my sister was already up, so I told her about the Hitler dream.

"Who's Frank N. Furter?" she wanted to know.

"You haven't seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show?"

"Nope."

"Oh. Well, for want of a better description, he was a really lumpy transvestite. The first time he appears, you see him coming down an elevator in stockings and garters, and this shiny red lipstick."

"And you wanted to see Hitler dressed like that?"

"No! Good God, no! I was afraid I might, though. I mean, when I saw the elevator...."

"What a stupid dream."

"It was, wasn't it? I hope I don't have another."

...which brings me to this evening. It's one-thirty in the morning, and I'm really quite exhausted. I'd like to go to sleep, but I don't want to see Hitler again. I especially don't want to see him if there's a chance he'll show up in tights. Every time I see his pasty-pale face, with its monstrous eyebags and half-a-moustache, I just want to throw a tomato in it. I also want to run away. It gives me the same angry-sad-horrified feeling you get when you open the door and find that your cat has brought you a dead crow. Did the neighbours see? Has your cat caught some horrible bird disease? Will you also catch it, and if so, will you die? You just don't know. All you know is that there's a horrible maggotty thing on your doorstep, and that you've got to go back inside, get a rubbish bag, and scrape the whole rotten mess into it. In other words, nothing good can come of it, and it's ruined your morning.

It's the same thing with Hitler. Nothing good can come of him either, even in a dream. Once he's popped up, that's your whole night down the tubes. Even if you can get back to sleep, you'll still be uneasy, and you won't feel rested in the morning.

(I'm putting off going to bed, here. I can't put it off much longer. I've already compared Hitler to a dead bird. Soon, I'll be typing with my nose, and--)

Nose: "MAQN. I'M TIRED." (Hey, my nose isn't bad at this!)

Left Foot: "TYHEWMNNM NGO TO BEDD." (My left foot, on the other hand, appears to be drunk.)

Right Elbow: "BOTH OF YOLU SHNUT U;P. IK/'M TGRFYHKIN HN TGLO DCLO SXDSXLO M ,KEDBGED.SX" (...but my right elbow thinks it's a vagina.)*

Goodnight.

Pow! Pow! Hey, my sister calls the death-noise made by mechanical monsters in Xenosaga a banana noise.

Goodnight.

* Nose: "Man, I'm tired."
Left Foot: "Then go to bed."
Right Elbow: "Both of you shut up. I'm trying to do some Kegels."