Forgiveness
The wind rustled through shadowed trees outside a small window as an old man, his face lined and sagging, sat up achingly slowly to face a man wearing a perfectly ironed, vaguely translucent uniform standing at the end of his bed. The young man with the toothbrush mustache watched warily as the old man gently patted the edge of his mattress.
“Come; sit and talk,” the voice was soft, but far from frail.
The young man’s figure briefly warped, wavering as if caught in the wind sweeping past the window. “You know who I am, nein?”
The old man smiled and patted the quilt again. The young man sat with a ramrod back and a pinched expression.
“I know who you are. And I find it curious you came back from the dead to visit someone like me.”
The young man turned his intense eyes to the old man. “Why do you find it curious?”
“I believe you already know the answer,” the old man gave a chuckle that devolved into a cough.
The young man silently stared until the coughing had abated. He was quiet a moment longer. “It has been many years since I died. I have had much time to reflect and now that I have been given the chance to visit the living, I find myself drawn to people like you the most.”
“And why is it you feel drawn here?”
The young man glared at the photographs of laughing children and smiling adults hanging on the wall.
“I am not here to grovel for forgiveness.” His voice lashed out like a whip.
“I would not expect you to.”
The old man waited patiently in the heavy pause.
“I want to explain.” The young man abruptly stood and began pacing from corner to corner, a soft light trailing along behind his faded form. “I was wronged countless times throughout my life. When my brother died, I was left to fend for myself against my father’s fists. My artistic dreams were shattered by pretentious fools who lacked true vision. I was wounded by shrapnel, blinded by mustard gas, and forced to languish in hospitals filled with national heroes moaning in agony and bleeding to death.” His voice grew in volume until his last word seemed to echo throughout the room as it had carried over seas of soldiers and loyal Germans.
The old man merely smiled. “I know. I have long understood the difficulties you faced. But do you know of mine, I wonder?”
The young man kept his proud face turned away from his companion.
“My family was herded from our home when I was a young boy. My sister and mother were ripped from me and my father was killed soon after our arrival to the camp. Over the years, I watched dear friends disappear, one by one, until my own brother entered a gas chamber and never walked out. When I was finally released, I wandered the earth like the ghost you are now, adrift in my grief and lost to reality.”
The young man kept his gaze aimed at the window, but his jaw was locked and his shoulders were just a bit tighter.
The old man stood and slowly made his way to the dresser by the bed, atop which was a large black and white photograph of a young woman smiling toothily back at the camera. “It was not until I met my Rebecca, that I was able to lift away the despair weighing down my soul. Despite her own sorrowful past in the camps, she filled my life with laughter and children and joy. She taught me that forgiveness can deliver release from any burden, even one as painful as the sea of death I drowned in all my life.”
The young man’s eyes shot to the old man. “You have healed?”
The old man smiled. “Over the course of many long years, I have learned to accept my losses and enjoy life once more.” He reached into the top drawer of the dresser and gently moved aside piles of folded sweaters that had long since faded to mere echoes of their cheery colors.
The young man’s intent stare seemed to glitter with a cautious hope. “You have accepted the past? You have forgiven me for all that I caused you?”
“Well now, I said Rebecca taught me about forgiveness.” The old man turned to face him, a hard grin on his face. “I never said I took her lessons to heart.” The old man lifted his arm, his steady hand wrapped tightly around a loaded gun. A sharp click sounded.
A flicker of shock registered on the face of Hitler’s ghost before an explosion burst from the handgun and a bullet shot through his translucent form. It crashed loudly into the wall and lodged itself deep within the house. Hitler’s form flashed brightly before disappearing, leaving behind a faint stream of smoke and broken plaster.
The old man stood with his arm still holding the gun aloft. His grin stretched further across his face. “Rebecca wouldn’t have just forgiven me for that; she would’ve pulled the trigger herself.”