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“If you believe your nonsense to be the truth, then you’re a madman. Either way, get out of here. Get of here now!” Wally looked toward the door, then walked toward it with his eyes on a wall. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, then walked out of the room and shut the door softly behind himself.
############Adam Halstead was sitting in the room’s single chair, smoking a cigarette and thumbing through a book pulled from the many resting on the shelves, when a twenty-two year old Paul Joseph Goebbels re-entered his childhood living space to stare with an open mouth at the familiar face seated within. “Come on in, Paul. Set your bags down and have a seat.” Goebbels set both suitcases on the floorboards, but otherwise did not move from the opened doorway. “What are you doing here?” “Your mother let me in. I imagined you would be home soon from university, and your mother and I got along quite well once she realized who I was. Good Catholic woman. Makes very good coffee.” Goebbels said not a word, but limped to his bed and plopped himself down on his bed. “What are you doing here? What are you doing in Rheydt? What is Adolf Hitler doing in my bedroom?” All three questions were directed not at Halstead, but at a wall. Halstead laughed and took another drag on the cigarette whose latest bit of ash he tapped into the coffee cup on the desk. “In Rheydt, I am a bit of a tourist. It won’t be long before I am the leader of a new Germany, and I thought I would take last advantage of the ability to travel without bodyguards. As much as I hate the Allies, I must admit that they are doing a superb job as conquerors, running this little parcel of Germany they ripped from the Fatherland. What do you think of the Allies?” |