by Lance Parkin
Adolf Hitler, the Gaol.
In the exact centre of the island was a tower.
It was an ugly concrete stump four storeys high, a brutalist version of a medieval keep. There were tiny slits for windows. There wasn't a door. Around the tower, thorns and weeds had grown into a jungle. The tower held one prisoner.
Surrounding it was an electric fence. And the guards. Millions of strong men and women with the bodies they should have had, unmarked by armband or tattoo, allowed to grow up and grow old. Proud people, many with names like Goldberg, Cohen and Weinstein. Men and women who would never forgive. Men and women who lived in the vast, beautiful community that surrounded the tower, keeping him awake with their laughter, their music, the smell of their food, the sight of their clothes, the sound of their language and their prayers and the cries of their babies. They felt they had a duty to be here. They had always been free to leave, but few had.
On Resurrection Day itself, some had realised that as everyone who had ever lived was in the City, then he was here. It had taken longer to hunt him down. Few knew where he'd been found, how he'd been leading his life. Had he tried to disguise himself? Had he proclaimed his name and tried to rally supporters? It didn't matter. He had been brought here, his identity had been confirmed and he had been thrown in the tower that had been prepared for him.
Some of those living in sight of the tower had wondered if they were protecting him from the people of the City, not protecting the City from him. And it was true: the City - the glorious, colourful, polymorphous, diverse City, with uncounted races of people living side by side - was the ultimate negation of the prisoner's creed. The vast, vast majority people of the City didn't care who he was and couldn't comprehend his beliefs, let alone be swayed by his rhetoric. Individuals who'd killed, or wanted to kill, many more people than he had remained at liberty and found themselves powerless. Had imprisoning him marked out as special? Such things were argued about, but the prisoner remained in his tower.
Every day bought requests from individuals, organisations and national groupings who had come up with some way to harm him within the protocols of the City. There were also representations from his supporters, or from civil liberties groups, concerned that his imprisonment was vigilante justice or that no attempt was being made to rehabilitate him. There were historians and psychologists and journalists who wanted to interview him. There were those that just wanted to gawp at or prod the man they'd heard so much about. All of them were turned away.
One man had come here in person. An old Roman, in light armour.
The clerk, a pretty girl with dark hair and eyes, greeted him.
'Your name?'
'Marcus Americanius Scriptor.'
While she dialled up his records and waited for them to appear on her screen, she asked: 'He's after your time. You're a historian?'
'I was,' the old man said. 'May I see him?'
'The prisoner isn't allowed visitors, or to communicate with the outside world. He is allowed to read, but not to write. Oh, that's odd. Your record isn't coming up.'
'It wouldn't.' The Roman didn't elaborate.
He looked out over the city to the tower. The young woman was struck by how solemn his face was. Most people who came all the way out here were sightseers, sensation seekers. Even some of the gaolers treated the prisoner with levity. Mocking him, belittling him.
'Don't you ever want to let him loose?' he asked, finally. 'Let him wander the streets, let his words be drowned out. On another world he was an indifferent, anonymous painter.'
'It sounds like you know that for certain,' she said, before checking herself. 'To answer the question: no. He stays here.'
'I met him,' the Roman told her. 'On a number of occasions.'
She frowned.
'A long story,' he told her. 'I suppose IÕm concerned that you torture yourselves by having that monster in your midst.'
The woman had heard many people say such a thing.
'Not a monster. A human being.'
'But the only human being you've locked away for all eternity.'
'The wardens have ruled that he will be freed,' she told him.
Americanius Scriptor seemed surprised. 'When?'
'First he must serve his sentence, then he will be released.'
'When?' he asked again.
'In six million lifetimes,' she told him.
Marcus Americanius Scriptor smiled.
'I'll be waiting for him,' he told her. He turned and headed back to the docks.
