The bunker’s climax

The mood in the milky white bunker was bleak. News from the West and news from the East were equally discouraging. Embarrassed generals with chests covered with medals avoided the chairman’s eyes. Some had already disappeared, laying low, waiting for the coming storm to blow over.

Various aides urged the chairman to flee. A submarine was ready to take him and his staff to Argentina. But he refused. Why? Nobody was sure, but after ruling a mighty empire, some surmised that it would be beneath his dignity to run like a two-bit thief.

And would he be happy anywhere else? He probably had thought of Napoleon who, after his fall, was confined to St Helena, a shitty little island located at the end of the world.

He surely must have thought so, because he often considered himself an equal to “the Little Corporal.” Didn’t he run a mighty empire just like the French emperor?

And if he would be toppled, there would be the unavoidable legal proceedings. A man who disposed of people like dirty laundry, could not be submitted to such indignity. And, truth be told, a few skeletons were dangling in his closet… He had tried to dispose of them, but no matter how hard he tried, the damn spooks kept coming back, threatening to expose him. There is no privacy anymore, he lamented to his henchmen.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

 He had heard this somewhere…. He had tried it… and it worked… for a while.
But despite his dogged efforts to discredit the peddlers of fake news, they kept coming at him, tearing pieces of his flesh like mad dogs. He often wished that he could throw them in some dark dungeons for eternity, but like bedbugs, they kept coming at him.

Lately, though, he had been plagued by doubts. And what if the fake news were true? His virtual image had already been dragged into the mud in many parts of the country… Was he going to get the same fate as his beloved confederate heroes?

The chairman had German roots and his youth had been steeped in Wagnerian lore. He often identified with Siegfried and his tragic fate.
After he slew the she-dragon and bathed in her blood, he felt invulnerable. Everything went his way for a while, but later on, he was betrayed by many of his close associates.

He started to reflect on the end of his saga. Carrying Brünnhilde’s shield and riding his steed Grane, armed with the Notung sword and carrying the Tarnhelm, Siegfried will enter the legend.

It will be a beautiful Götterdämmerung, a fate fitting a hero like him.

Alain