Auf Wiedersehen Mein Herr

Last weekend, I was sitting around a dining table with some friends in a post-dinner party-food-and-drink coma. It was late in the evening and we had all drank and supped to our hearts content. Conversation was at a low ebb and that point in the night where we all peeled off and slipped away seemed fast approaching. Then out of the blue, someone said:

If you could go back in time and kill Hitler as a three year old, would you do it?

I can't remember who the question was directed at but all of us became animated at once. It was as if we'd all had a IV shot of Red Bull into our brains. My first question was:

Does it matter how we kill him? Are there rules?

The discussion that followed was fast and furious. Some of us (well actually, only two of us) didn't hesitate in agreeing to kill a kid in order to save many more. Others believed that you should not change the course of history the argument being that history is not fixed. By killing Hitler it could jettison other key past moments which incrementally have led to the evolution of our group sitting around the dinner table that very night. One person opted for a compromise. She would top him once he became a teenager.

We discussed the points for hours, invigorated by more wine and possibly drunk on the idea of time travel and a moment of such absolute power and responsibility. Intoxicating.

In the next week I posed the question at work. Once again everyone re-acted as if stunned by Tasers.

No, no, no. I could never kill a child.
Not even if you knew that child was going to grow up and commit genocide?
No. I would encourage him to get involved in the arts instead.

The arts? The arts?

I work in the arts. It makes me want to kill. All of us in the office want to kill daily. Kill artists. All of them. Apart from one or two who we might keep as pets.

I reminded her of this fact.

Hmm. Valid point. Maybe I'd just break his arms and legs instead.

Of course. A quadriplegic meglomaniac with an identity crisis. So much better indeed.