Thursday, September 2, 2010

I Am Narcissus

I looked around at the city as the Allied forces closed in. This city reflected all that I stood for. There was uproar and unease all around me but I was calm. This was it. It had finally come to this. I looked around the innate and plush surroundings around my office. I looked at the portrait of myself painted by one of my many deranged followers. They all worshipped the beauty of my philosophy. It had all seemed too easy.
Every step I took reminded me of a page from my life. I looked around and suddenly I was filled with the smoke filled air of Poland and the fear ridden silence in the cities as I passed by. I shifted my gaze and suddenly I was in prague shaking hands with my Commander. I looked at my reflection and saw a fallen leader. How badly I had erred. How visibly I had blundered. How knowingly I was bewitched by own philosophy that I couldn’t even think?
Shoulders hunched, I ignored the sudden explosions occurring outside. I couldn’t help but think with amusement that if it had been me ordering this attack, it wouldn’t have lasted this long. I definitely couldn’t risk letting me escape. Lucky for them, I didn’t want to. Lucky for them, I didn’t need to.
I looked down at my arms. The only time I had ever fired a gun I was at war with those who hated my country. How ironic. No, poetic is a better word. I proceeded to fondly run it over my gloved hands. For a few minutes I merely reflected how history would remember me. My smile faded. I felt pain. I felt so much pain. In the years to come I will never be forgotten. They will burn effigies of me. History books will slander me. People will spit on my name. Maybe my very name will never be used on another German again. This is the punishment by the Gods for my own obsession with myself. Consumed as I was, I looked at the reflection in front of me…….
I was Narcissus….