Comments on a Crazy World by Max Million

I

To ask us where we went wrong is ultimately to ask us whether or not we are human. Humans make mistakes, anyone will tell you that. Humans, in the end, are idiotic. No one will tell you that little detail. Our first mistake was in 1923, long before I, or my parents, were ever thought of. We let a madman come waltzing into Berlin.
Our second mistake was in 1933, when we let that madman end a ten year revolution. To ask us where we finally went wrong is a bit easier. We made mistake after mistake between 1923 and 1977, thought some would say we did everything right. We won a world war, destroyed a nation, colonized our neighbors. Even as I speak, a shuttle is streaking across the sky, on it's way to either the Moon or Mars.
That's the Deutscher way. My name is Alexander Lefroid, born on April 18, 1959, I'm a defector from France, a client state of the Greater German Reich. As I sit here now, spinning my story for you above a dry cleaning shop in downtown Nagasaki, my television blares the news of the day, July 17, 1983. My lover, Aaron, is stirring in the bedroom, trying to drown out the noise of this blasted television.
Here, I'll show you what I mean.

“Führer Wagner announced plans to intervene in Afghanistan today, stating that Wehrmacht troop count in the former German satellite will raise from 600,000 to 890,000. Reichsführer-SS Balthazar is set to visit the colony of New Germania, the Martian capital.
“In domestic news, Prime Minister Ugaki addressed senior military leadership today, calling for an extreme plan, the so-called “Containment Plot A” to stop the spread of Nazism in South America. Spanish King Juan Carlos I has pledged his support. South America, a region which in recent months has seen a sharp increase in Nazi-terrorist activity, is an area that holds many former Spanish colonies, all freed after the assassination of Francisco Franco.”

See what I mean? Japan, along with Switzerland, Spain, America and Ireland, remains one of the few democratic nations in the world. I have seen this, my friends, and I know. Two weeks ago an underground communist group held it's first public rally since the War in a Berlin square. Black uniformed SS and tan uniformed SA met them. Seventy died, forty-even were wounded.
This is the world that I live in. This is the world my father allowed me to inherit. Adolf Hitler was assassinated in June of 1961. His successor was Heinrich Himmler, who had left his post as the SS head to an enigmatic SS leader in order to rule Germany. A month later Himmler was dead, and that same SS leader...Reichsführer-SS Alois Kruger, took power. Mussolini died that same year, so did Franco, as did Tojo...by the end of 1961 the world was on the brink of a Third World War.
There is something you should know, Australia doesn't exist anymore. The Japanese had taken it early in the war, after it had experienced chaos and internal turmoil since 1951. Since it has become an anarchic mess, a perpetual battlefield between German and Japanese puppets.
Want me to continue?
Didn't think so.

II

I'm staring into his eyes, the eyes of an angel. His name is Aaron Roth, he's from the newly formed Republic of America. He is the love of my life. He is a Jew. A year younger than me, he's actually quite innocent. Blond hair, gray eyes, a slight tan (California dreaming) he's the most beautiful thing in the world. I absolutely love him, and I guess I could say that time and time again.
Ernst Röhm died in the early 1970s, but his legacy within Germany continued. Hate still bred alongside homosexuality. They never condemned us, only tolerated us. But that wasn't the reason I left. I left the Third Reich because of one simple fact: I met Aaron. Kruger continued the racist ideology of the NSDAP in order to maintain his grip on power. In 1976 Aaron, then as I was, a very young boy, found himself over his safe border in Nevada and in the United States of America...a nation under the heel of Berlin. He was arrested, shipped to Paris, and began awaiting transfer to a concentration camp.
My father, my beloved father, he helped Aaron escape. He brought him home, saw how I had grown attached to him, and arranged for us to leave Germany. My mother had died years before, and my brothers devoted themselves to their beloved fatherland. So, my father had decided to leave the once great German Reich.
Otto Lefroid died on June 3, 1976 while trying to board a cargo train bound for Madrid with his son and the boy's lover. I cried: simple as that. We arrived in Madrid two days later. Franco had died in 1961, and when the chaos of another civil war had ended Spain veered away from Fascism towards a more democratic and free society. From Madrid we boarded a plane bound for the only free superpower: Japan.

III

As I said before, the current year is 1983. A man named Ronald Reagan, on the ticket of the United Blue Party, has been elected President of the American Republic. In the United States, for the seventh time since Germany invaded in 1951, the Nazi Party won elections. A man named Frank Collin is now the President.
In Spain, a Socialist candidate is President. In the remnants of the USSR their Premier prepares to appeal to the Reichstag. He wants the Soviet Union to become a full part of the Reich. Here in Japan a man named Ugaki has been elected Prime Minister. The Emperor is clinging to life, and we prepare for another war.
The SS rules Germany, Nazism is spreading, and the ever present fears of nuclear war loom above us. It's funny, really, how things can go wrong. I picked up a popular book after shopping with Aaron yesterday, imported from the American Republic. The Star Spangled Complex is, as Aaron tells me, an “alternate history”. Apparently in this work of fiction, Nazi Germany actually lost the Second World War. Hitler and his henchman were tried and executed in Dresden. Reinhardt Heydrich escaped and commenced a guerrilla war against the occupying British, American and...get this...Soviet forces. The Soviet Union actually winning the war, like I said: fiction. But, one thing remained the same. The Cold War, which in reality is being fought by Japan and Germany, in this novel is a conflict between Britain and the USSR.
It's a comforting thought, actually, that a world like that could possibly exist. A world free from the tyranny of Nazism and hate. But, I can't help but think...would we be better off socially? Aaron and I live, we make love, we laugh, we cry, we hold one another, and society doesn't condemn that as whole.
You know what? I'm thinking too much.
Aaron is calling, very sensually, in fact. I have to go.

IV

She's ancient. Thats all I'll say. Aaron's mother, Theresa Roth is my beloved boyfriend's seventy-one year old mother. In all respects, someone of her age should actually look good. But for Christ's sake, the woman lives in California. Tanning coupled with alcohol and smoking have made her look like a burlap sack wrapped around a 30's actress. It's hilarious, really. I call her Jerky behind her back, and Aaron tends to hit me when I do. During this trip I've received four bruises on my left arm, a bite mark on my shoulder (unrelated to the comment) and another bruise on my right thigh.
Theresa Roth is, in fact, a German immigrant. She was born in Germany and lived during the rise of Nazism. Her father had been an influential lawyer in Hamburg, and as the revolution occurred and Hitler's Party became the ever present winner, he began to rethink their situation. On July 17, 1935 they boarded a ship, left Germany, and arrived in America.
She hands me a newspaper from the American Republic, in English. Let's get one thing straight, my first language was French, my second was German. My third language was Japanese...and my fourth is English. I suck when it comes to speaking the language, and in all honesty reading it, but when it comes to writing it...I'm the best. Weird, isn't it.
Anyway, she hands me this newspaper. Kennedy To Run Again in '87. I can't help but scratch my head, and cock an eyebrow at her.
“He wants to do more good. Do you know what his platform is?”
Aaron is smiling, and I shake my head.
“Extending a friendly hand to Germany.”
I don't know whether I should feel disgust or happiness. He wants to stop the rising tensions between Japan and Germany, he wants to use a friendly position to have the camps shut down. But, is holding hands with a Nazi really all that safe. As fast as my mother-in-law came she went. I found myself, like all other nights, holding Aaron, thinking. He stirs, as he always does, making those light breathing noises as he dreams about God knows what.
As all these thoughts race through my head, he kisses my cheek, placing his hand on my chest. Usually I just warm at gestures like these. This time, however, I forget everything. He has that effect on me, he tends to calm me, but not on this scale. Then, he says several simple words.
“Alex. We live in a crazy world. But we're crazy enough to accept it.”
I kiss him back, and he says three more words, far more powerful than any he could utter.
“I love you.”

My name is Alexander Lefroid. I'm twenty-four years old, I live in Nagasaki, Japan. I am loved and, well, I'm a crazy man living in a crazy world.