[Short Story] – Diary of a Future World Leader

When I was a freshman in college, I was interested in the idea of the Antichrist, likely because there were a lot of people saying that the world was about to end, and those stupid “Left Behind” novels were widely available. Sadly, they had a really lame Antichrist character who was so ridiculously obvious that I couldn’t believe anyone would follow him to the end of the world. So, I decided to create my own, and Carl was born in a story for my freshman writing workshop class.

I would hasten to add that I do not share Carl’s views on Adolf Hitler, or on much else, for that matter.

I want to rewrite this story as a daily blog, but I just don’t have the time. So, until I do that, here’s the original. Enjoy!

Diary of a Future World Leader

by Sean J. Jordan
Written: February, 1999
Monday, September 13th

I hate people.

I know, I know… it makes me sound like a jerk. I don’t care – especially after what happened today.

I joined this creative writing club during the first week of school because I thought it’d be fun. It’s only been going for a few weeks, but already, three of us have brought in stories to discuss. Mrs. Brown, the teacher in charge of it, makes copies for everyone and we read and then discuss the stories in our weekly meetings. Our meager membership of ten or so includes myself (the only male), a few cheerleaders, a couple of gawky, quiet females and three girls who must have been hand-picked from the depths of Hell. The worst of them is Nicole Jacobs, a creature I hesitate to call anything more than a “sow.” She’s extremely short and round, with stubby, fat little arms and legs, a pink complexion, and a flat, large, upturned nose that she snorts out of every time someone doesn’t agree with her. When I’m in the room, she sounds like she’s got a sinus infection.

At Nicole’s insistence, we discussed her story first. As I looked over my copy, I began to feel physically ill as I searched for a plot amongst spelling mistakes, run-on sentences, spliced commas, dangling participles, awkward phrasings, and drawn-out descriptions of mundane objects. I read through passages about two children, penguins, Eskimos, polar bears, and baby seals sitting on a snow-covered hill looking up at the Northern Lights and seeing scenes of peace from all over the world. As soon as the teacher told us it was time to start discussing the story, Samantha and Christine, Nicole’s toadying friends, both started frantically waving their hands in the air.

Nicole made a big production about it, extending her arm and waving it back and forth between the two before settling on Samantha. I rolled my eyes.

“I thought your story was excellent!” she said, sounding like she was about to gush forth praises. Before she got the chance, though, Nicole pointed towards Christine, beaming. I rolled my eyes even harder.

“Oh, I loved it…” Christine oozed. “I really think you should try to publish this.”

I was having trouble seeing at this point, so I cast a level glare at Nicole and raised my hand in an l-shaped, half-committed signal. Instead of picking me, she looked over at Mrs. Brown.

“Will you tell him to be nice this time?” she asked, shooting me a hard look. Mrs. Brown turned towards me and smiled.

“Carl, please just be constructive,” she said sweetly. I smiled at her and turned my glare back towards Nicole.

“You’ve definitely shown me a new and different way to write prose,” I said politely, “but don’t you think that your story might be a little more effective if you did some research? I mean, not to be critical,” I nodded at Mrs. Brown here, who was still smiling cheerfully, “but wouldn’t the polar bears eat the Eskimos? And aren’t penguins Antarctic birds?”

I could see hatred burning in Nicole’s eyes, and I just smirked at her as I leaned back as listened to Samantha and Christine quickly offering long strings of praising comments about Nicole’s work. A few of the other girls in the group offered suggestions, but I got the feeling that they all either liked the story or were too afraid to say anything.

Soon, though, we moved on to the next story, which I really found quite interesting. It was written by very meek, soft-spoken girl who rarely, if ever, says anything in the meetings. The basic story wasn’t remarkable – it was just another one of those tales where boy meets girl, boy leads girl on, and boy leaves girl for the captain of the cheerleading squad. The only difference was that girl then took an automatic weapon down to Wal-Mart and gunned down a random crowd to cope with her loss. I found it darkly amusing, and told her so, though most of the other people in the group seemed too disturbed to say anything about it.

I figured my story would be the favorite of the day, but almost immediately when we started discussing it, Nicole blurted out “It was stupid!”

“Well, what do you mean, Nicole?” Mrs. Brown asked. “You have to have a reason for saying that.”

“Have you read this?” she said loudly, holding it up for dramatic effect. “It’s about a guy who stops at a red light and relives his entire life while he’s waiting for it to turn green!”

I let it go – she was half-right. The story was actually about a man’s inner conflict as he stopped at a red light in the middle of the night when there were no cars in sight. Through the whole story, he fought an ethical, inner battle trying to decide if breaking the law was justified when no one was around, even if it was just to save a few seconds. It brought up memories of more important decisions in his life, which I cleverly brought in and out of the framework by having different objects in the car catch his eye and remind him of something. The whole thing was around 20 pages long, though I could have added in more detail if I’d tried. It was too long or too literary, maybe, but not bad.

“I didn’t like it either,” Samantha chimed in. “I mean, how can this guy think about so much in such little time? He’s sitting at a red light, not waiting for a train to go by.”

I didn’t feel like explaining my conventions to her, so I kept my mouth shut. I had been pretty sure that Nicole and her cohorts would bash the story. I was surprised, though, another girl rose her hand and said “It’s just plain boring, Carl.” Almost everyone nodded in agreement. “I mean, you jump around from a wedding to a court scene to a hit and run. It doesn’t make any sense, and it’s really hard to keep up with. You’d never get on a bestseller list with a story like this.”

The club meeting continued to go downhill from there as people offered suggestions to fix the story. Make it take place on a boat, they said, or a plane. Or put him in a car accident and have his life flash before his eyes. I just sat there and rolled mine. They all missed the point – it wasn’t a story about his life, but about the ethical dilemma of breaking the law for one’s own gain. The whole time, I was thinking this has got to be proof that I think on a higher level than they do.

This has been a long entry, and I probably should get some sleep. I’ve still got four days of school left this week, and almost four years beyond that. Being a high school freshman definitely isn’t something I’m going to remember fondly. Especially when people are as stupid as they are.

Tuesday, September 14

Hitler wasn’t such a bad guy, if you think about it.

Boy, that was a stupid thing to say in a public school. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone being sent to the Assistant Principal’s office for trying to challenge a historical viewpoint, but I guess there’s a first time for everything. All because I made the classic blunder in my class today – I forgot that people don’t listen to your explanations if they don’t like your theories.

I don’t know how, or why, we got on the topic of Hitler in my Western Civilizations class today. I guess it had something to do with talking about different forms of government and using Hitler as an example of fascism. Almost immediately, people started scowling and offering comments about what a terrible person they thought he was, and how he murdered six million Jews for no reason, and how he had tried to take over the world and make everyone serve his master race. The teacher, for the most part, seemed to agree with them, and kept nodding as almost every white Anglo-Saxon Protestant in the class condemned Hitler for his crimes against people they usually don’t give a second thought to.

I don’t know why I decided to say anything – I honestly don’t care what other people think because I know that most of them don’t examine issues like I do or even pay attention to their own comments while they rant. But for some reason, I waited until most of the ranting was done and told them that Hitler wasn’t such a bad guy.

I’ve never heard people get so quiet, never seen so many eyes turned in my direction. Wow, it tingles, I thought as I shrugged, knowing that they’d want a logical explanation for my “shocking” statement.

“Well, think about it!” I explained. “Some short guy with a mustache comes in, takes over a nation that’s been falling apart for almost twenty years, and then turns it into a place so powerful it takes most of Europe to stop him. He puts a stop to the crime and poverty that are rampant all over the place and gives Germany a strong sense of nationalism and superiority when it was the country beaten the worst in World War I.”

I saw a bunch of hands shoot up into the air, but I kept talking.

“Oh, and then people get all upset about the Holocaust. Hitler killed 6 million Jews because he thought they were getting in the way of what he wanted for his empire. You guys want to condemn him for that? How about Joseph Stalin, who at the same time was killing 40 million of his own people while he lived in a palace? How about the Roman emperor Nero, who’d cover people in pitch and set them on fire or, even better, sew them up in animal skins and send starving dogs chasing after them? And he did it because he thought it was funny! How about Ivan the Terrible, who built a huge frying pan in a village in Russia and cooked people in it because he suspected they were traitors? Would it make it worse if I told you he made everyone in the village watch, and he even took his baby son with him every day to watch people die?”

People were talking to each other now, and I could see that a lot of them were angry. Good grief, they’re not even listening, I thought. I was going to say something else, but somebody yelled something about me being a neo-nazi. Soon enough, a bunch of people were shouting and throwing stuff at me. The teacher was just sitting at his desk writing something. It wasn’t too long before I realized it was a disciplinary referral slip. After a minute, he got up with the pink sheet of paper in hand and started walking towards me.

I honestly expected him to give it to one of the people in front of me, but he put it in my hand, looked at me angrily, and told me to go to the assistant principal’s office and not to come back. I grabbed my backpack, glared at everyone, and left the classroom very slowly and deliberately, putting on a stone face but really feeling good inside about what I had just done. When I got out in the hall, I looked down at the slip. “Student caused a major disruption with anti-Semitic remarks,” it said. I grinned as I headed for the assistant principal’s office. I can’t get in trouble for expressing myself, I thought. He won’t do anything.

I’m not going to recount everything that happened simply because it was exactly what I suspected. I was shouted at, not given an opportunity to explain myself, and told that my parents were going to be called on the issue. I got a big lecture about how racism is an evil thing and that people like me didn’t make it very far in the world. I just ignored the man, for the most part, and nodded my head like I was agreeing that I had been wrong. He ended by saying if he ever heard about me making these sorts of remarks again, he would make me very, very sorry. I thanked him for his time and left, rolling my eyes as I went to my next class a few minutes late.

It seemed like people were glaring at me all day. Someone even jammed a death threat in my locker. I don’t care. I’m not afraid of them. I like it when my being right makes them mad, and I’ve got better things to do with my time than worry about whether or not they like me. One day, I’ll be rich and powerful enough that that will mean something. Then I’m going to make them sorry for every little thing they did to me.

It’s been a long day, so I’m going to stop here.

Sunday, September 19

It’s been a few days since I’ve been able to write, but nothing’s really happened. It’s been raining a lot, and I’ve been pretty bored. I think the most exciting thing lately happened at church this morning.

I still can’t figure out why my parents insist I go to church every week. It seems like all we do is interrupt our sleep long enough to change into nice clothes, drive over to the church, and then resume as the preacher drones on for about an hour. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy going. I find it amusing to sit and watch as people who I know don’t hold much stock in Christian beliefs attend “just in case” God might let them into Heaven if they have sat in a pew for X number of hours. They’re almost always the ones who walk around and speak the church lingo, which normally consists of saying “brother,” “sister,” and “hallelujah!” at least once in each conversation. I do think there are probably a few sincere people who attend, but I have a feeling they’re the ones who are quietly worshipping while those who are there for show drown them out with loud singing and unfeeling “amen”s.

The sermon today was on something silly like “the Biblical Basis for Loving One’s Pets,” or something just about as impractical, so I cracked open my Bible and started looking for passages on the Antichrist. I don’t know why, but I’ve always had a strange fascination with the character. I guess the idea that a single man could singlehandedly threaten 2000 years of doctrines and religions is part of it, though I think a lot of it is because I wonder who it’s going to be, what he’s going to be like.

I’ve actually read a lot of books by people who say the Antichrist is alive today. A lot of them think he’s going to rise up in Europe somewhere. One guy even said that Hitler is going to be brought back to life and given evil powers to take over the world. Just about everyone seems to think the guy’s going to be supremely evil, a Satan worshipper, and hidden away by the Devil until the time is right for him to take over the world.

While our preacher was talking about how the evil Queen Jezebel was fed to the dogs in the Old Testament, I started thinking about where I would hide the Antichrist if I were the Devil. I definitely wouldn’t put him out in Europe – that’d be too obvious, I thought. If people believed he was out there, they’d start a witch hunt and try to flush him out. I wouldn’t want him being a Satanist, either, because it would make him too obvious when he tried to take power. I don’t even think I’d let him know what he was destined for – it might make him try to change the outcome of the situation. No, I’d hide him away somewhere in a Christian church, and I’d fill it up full of so many hypocrites that he wouldn’t want to be a part of their religion. I’d guide him to rise to power quickly and mysteriously, and then reveal my true intentions once he was too far in to back out.

I looked around at the different people in the congregation, wondering if any of them could be the Antichrist. The pastor was still droning on, something about God commanding us to care for “all creatures great and small,” though I had my doubts that he’d gotten that from the Bible. It could be anyone in here, I thought as I looked around at people’s still forms, each pretending to care about the good Samaritan story being applied to the humane society in town. This would be exactly the place I’d put him. But somehow, I’d have to get him to Europe…

Anyway, I’m going to go work on my German homework – it’s not as much of a chore as it sounds, though, because I really have a knack for German. My teacher always jokes that I sound like a native speaker, which I think is a sign that I’ll be getting an easy “A”. I’m also going to try to work on my story for creative writing club tomorrow. Hopefully, things will go better than last week.

Monday, September 20

Nicole’s boyfriend canceled our club meeting today.

It wasn’t that he actually came to school, showed up at the meeting, and told everyone to go home – far from it. He died over the weekend, and the memorial service was after school. Everyone in the club went, except for me. I didn’t know him, I don’t care that he’s dead, and I really didn’t want to see Nicole blubbering and talking about what a great guy he was. If he was dating her, he was a loser, and it’s probably better that he died before they could reproduce.

I was a little surprised when I heard the news this morning. “Hey Carl, did you hear about Doug?” one of my friends asked me during biology.

Nicole was sitting a few seats ahead diagonally, and I saw her fat head shoot up as I turned towards my friend. “No, what happened?” I asked.

“Well…” he said, grimacing a bit, “Doug and Kyle Presser were out in some woods, playing with Doug’s gun, and Kyle blew his head off.”

I laughed, and my friend looked at me with horror. “Carl, that’s not funny!” he said, his eyes so wide I honestly thought they were going to pop out of his head. This made me laugh even harder, and just then, Nicole stood up, walked over, and started screaming at me. I’m not sure what she said, and I didn’t even really find it funny, but I couldn’t stop laughing. She started smacking me on the head, wailing as each blow struck home. I tried to duck down and cover myself, but she started hitting harder and harder until the teacher came over and yanked her off me.

Before long, Nicole and I were sitting in the principal’s office, watching as he shifted very angry eyes between the two of us. “Nicole,” he said, after a moment of looking back and forth at us, “I understand your loss, and I know Carl wasn’t being sensitive,” – he glared at me here – “but that doesn’t give you any right to hit him.”

“I… I know,” she said softly, looking down. “He’s just such a jerk. I couldn’t help it.”

Now the principal’s gaze rested on me. “Carl, quite frankly, I think you deserved what you got,” he said. “We’re talking about one of your peers dying this weekend, and you’re sitting around laughing about it. Do you really find it all that funny?”

“No, I don’t think what happened is funny,” I said flatly with a straight face and a level gaze. “But when I get nervous, I laugh. It makes me nervous to think about how he died, so I started laughing. It’s involuntary.” It was a lie, but it worked – but then, that facial expression combined with a level tone and a plausible tale always do. The principal’s face softened a little bit and I knew I had evaded whatever horrible punishment he’d been concocting.

“Well, I guess I can understand that,” he sighed, “but you really need to be more sensitive, Carl. Next time, please leave the room or excuse yourself.”

“OK, sir,” I agreed, deciding to see how far I could push things. “Actually, I would have been happy to, but Nicole started hitting…”

“Carl, we’re not going to blame Nicole for this – she’s going through a rough time right now. I just want you to be sensitive to her loss, OK?”

“Sure, fine,” I said, smiling. “Can we go back to class now?”

Nicole was still glaring at me, but I stood up, turned towards her, and said “I’m sorry you got upset, Nicole,” thinking might as well make it look like we’ve resolved things. Though her contempt for me was still burning in her eyes, she did mumble something like “it’s OK.” I left the office shortly after and had a great day. After all, I outfoxed them both, and I’m still savoring it.

Wednesday, September 22

I never realized I was capable of miracles until today.

It started out after school when I went out for a walk in the city park. It was a pretty nice day, and since October’s not too far off, I wanted to make the most of the warm weather. As I walked by the pond, I saw Nicole sitting on the shore bank, staring into the water. For some reason – and I’m still not sure why – I felt compelled to walk over and talk to her.

I was still few feet from her when she said “Go away,” in a muffled voice. I stopped in my tracks and looked down at her, noticing she was clutching a tube of some sort in her hands. I sighed and turned towards the pond.

“You know, Nicole, I’ve always wondered why you seem to dislike me so much,” I said aside to her. I didn’t wonder, but I still heard a voice inside me telling me to talk to her.

“You want to know why? Because I hate you,” she said, still not looking in my direction. Her voice rose with anger as she spoke. “You’re a jerk, you don’t care about anyone but yourself, and you get on my nerves.”

“Whoa… whoa, calm down, I’m not that bad of a guy,” I soothed, though inside, I was tingling with delight knowing that she loathed me almost as much as I loathed her. She rattled the tube, and turned her hand a bit. I looked at it a little more carefully and realized it was a prescription pill container.

“Well, it doesn’t matter what I think anymore,” she said. “I guess you probably won’t be sad when I disappear.”

I moved a bit closer to her now. “So you’re going to kill yourself?” I said, reaching down and tapping on the pill container. “Is that it?” I felt very strange talking to her about this, but I decided to keep talking and see what happened.

“Yes, I am,” she said bitterly. “And don’t try to tell me that if I’m talking about it I don’t mean it. Christine already tried that.”

“No, I’m not going to tell you what to do,” I said. “It sounds like you’ve already made up your mind. If that’s what you want, I’m not going to stop you.” Actually, it was because I really didn’t care, but I figured if I told her that, she’d probably do it just to spite me, and I really didn’t want her blood on my hands.

“You just want me dead,” she pouted. “Admit it.”

“No, I just want you to make up your mind,” I said. “It’s your choice. I told you – if you’ve made up your mind, I’m not going to stop you.”

“But what if I haven’t?” she said a little more softly. “I mean, I don’t think I can go on living without Doug, but…”

I shrugged, thinking this is a waste of time. “Look,” I snapped, “here’s what I think. You can either get over him, live your entire life whining about him, or just end things now. But you have to decide that. It’s not right to get other people involved if you’re going to kill yourself, because then they’re going to blame themselves for what you decided to do.”

“You’re right,” she sighed. “You’re right.” I stood there for a minute, looking down at her, and then suddenly, she turned her face towards me, and I could see tears running down her pink cheeks.

“Here,” she whispered, handing me a scrap of paper. “Will you give this to my family?”

I took it and nodded at her gravely. “Good luck,” I said. “I’m going to go now, OK?”

“Carl?” she said as I started to turn. I figured she was going to try to make me stay so she could chicken out, but when I looked at her, she was smiling.

“Thanks,” she said. “You’re not as bad a guy as I thought you were.”

“No problem,” I said, raising two fingers up to my eyebrow and saluting her. “Good luck.”

I walked away from her and jammed the piece of paper into my pocket, not really sure what to do with it, but knowing I didn’t want to give it to her family. They’d probably blame me! I thought. There was a trash can not too far ahead, so I walked up to it and quickly deposited the paper. That was when the really strange part happened.

There was a bloody, dirty crow next to the trash can, writhing around on the ground as flies buzzed around it. For some reason, I felt a very strong urge to reach down and touch the bird, so I poked out my index finger and gently jabbed it. There was a sort of electric feeling as my finger touched its black feathers, and suddenly, it stopped moving. Oh great, I killed it, I thought as I watched, but then I noticed that the flies had buzzed away. Before I knew what was happening, I reached down and picked up the bird, feeling it seem to awaken in my hands. I cupped my hands together and held the bird upright. It looked straight ahead, turning its head slightly to the left and the right in jerky little movements. Suddenly, I lifted my hands up towards the sky and felt the bird leave my hands. As I watched it fly off, I realized I had just performed a miracle. Somehow, I had the power to heal and bring things back to life with a single touch. Giddily, I headed for home, all the while thinking I just performed a miracle…

My mom came up here while I was doing my homework and said she’d heard Nicole had turned up missing and asked me if I’d seen her.

“No,” I said without even raising an eyebrow. At least she went through with it. I don’t care. I have the power over life and death. She’s just a fat, annoying girl with problems.

I hope I can do something miraculous tomorrow. It’d be a shame to put this sort of power to waste.

Thursday, September 23

I had a really strange dream last night.

I saw a man who was absolutely awe-inspiring standing in front of me. It’s hard to describe exactly how he looked other than to say that he had a presence about him that made anything I’d ever experienced in life seem dull. In my dream, I was so affected I fell on my knees and started kissing his feet like he was a king or something.

“You’ve done well,” he whispered. “Now go to Berlin and fulfill your dreams, my son.” He put his hands on my head and suddenly, I felt fire pouring down on me, consuming me. But for some reason, I kept thinking of it as “brother,” and the man as “father.” That was when I woke up.

I don’t think it would have bothered me so much if I hadn’t gone to school today, though.

First of all, Nicole is dead. They said she died of a lethal mix of prescription drugs, and that it was probably accidental. I think people expected me to laugh again, but I didn’t. I honestly couldn’t have cared less.

More importantly, though, is the fact that my German teacher pulled me aside today and asked me if I might be interested in going to Berlin with her advanced classes over the summer. “I normally wouldn’t take a first year student,” she said, “but you have such a talent for the language that I’m sure you wouldn’t have any problems.”

I told her I’d think about it, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be going. I’d hate to let my father down after all this time.

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Writing Scraps

by Sean J. Jordan