Mare Tranquillitatis

July 21st, 1969. The big day. As he stood at the top of the ladder, he contemplated the meaning of this incredible achievement. What would the world think?

Still a little jittery, he’d had dreadful butterflies, as he clambered into the capsule ready for lift off, a few days earlier. Not as nervous as Otto, though.

“You have your speech ready?” the engineer asked. “The peace message they are all expecting to hear?” Too excited to speak, he just smiled and nodded his reply.

He was calmer now, focused on the next, most dramatic, episode in this outer-space odyssey: the first step. He was ready. With a final glance at the ragged horizon (how close it seemed) and the blackness above and beyond, he began his descent, step... by... careful... step.

Even as he lowered himself, down to the dust of this alien world, he found it hard to believe that he had been chosen for the honor of being the first man to walk on the Moon. The first human being to visit this incredibly bleak celestial body, only ever seen, before, as a bright, silvery object in the night sky.

He had lived this moment a thousand times, rehearsing the words he would say as he made the first boot prints on the lunar surface. Of course, he had to clear his speech with the PR people in the Capital, but they were his words, not theirs.

Reaching the foot of the ladder, he leapt off and landed with both feet, kicking up a plume of dust into the airless distance above. That first time that a human being had laid his feet... his feet... on this previously barren rock that had been rotating around the Earth for countless billions of years. With a profound and deep breath, he lifted his head and spoke into the helmet microphone.

“In 1945..."

He hesitated. So much had happened since the defeat of the enemy at the end of that apocalyptic struggle, 24 years ago.

"In 1945... "

He had to stop to take a breath from the oxygen-rich, piped air.

"In 1945... we defeated our enemies... and marched on to conquer the world... to pacify the whole world.

"Now… we have conquered... the Moon..."

He paused for dramatic effect, before continuing...

"For Führer and Fatherland...."

"Sieg Heil!”

~ O ~ 0 ~ o ~

Of all the fictional stories I have ever written, this one scares me the most. First published in Hysteria 9, edited by Linda Parkinson-Hardman. Intended as an alternative history, a brutal vision of a different outcome to the world wars of a past century, I hope this little flash-fiction conveys the intended warning to future generations.

Dedicated to the memory all those whose struggles brought about the end of the Nazi era in Germany, and the world, and of all the many millions of victims of fascism and Nazism around the world, in the middle era of the 20th century... the century of total war and mass murder.

Let the current century be a beacon of hope to the past.

Thanks for reading