[ WP ] Germany , 1909 . All your life , strangers have been trying to murder you . Finally , one confesses why : they 're trying to stop Adolph Hitler from causing WW2 . The only problem : your name is Adolph Hilter . Not Hitler , HILTER .

There is a man. I see him there, standing in the window of the building opposite. Tall, slim, I think. Dark hair, darker eyes, though the glare on the window he hides behind makes it difficult. Standing there again, for the third day. I take out the scuffed note book from inside my jacket and flick through the pages. Descriptions in my own neat hand, lists of dates, rows of small and cautious lines. I count my tally with care. Yes, the third day. 
 
 Hiding behind that glare, this one is cautious. The cautious ones are the dangerous ones, take it from someone that knows. Some, some are brazen, rushing and yelling, waving knives or guns or both. Once a spoon; that one wasn ’ t expecting me. A slow one, giving herself away on the tram by the quick adjustment of her slack jaw and gormless watching. Two days to make sure, and then on the third I followed her home. A greasy little flat in the equally greasy part of Vienna. I drowned her in her soup before she could scoop out my eyeballs and use them as condiments. A lucky story, but for another time; this one has moved from the window. 
 
 No, this one is cautious, he will not be so easy. They move about me like ghosts, these ones, if ghosts can come from the future. I begin to suspect they can. All sorts I get, and some with the weirdest hair, and the rest a collage of accents and faces. But no matter how different they may be their aim never varies. A knife in the gut in a dark ally, a bullet to the brain, the wire wrapping tight and sharp into the soft flesh of my neck. I bear their scars, some, the lucky few that got me before I learnt better. Now I don ’ t give them the chance. I keep my head down, I move softly, I act swiftly. 
 
 Vienna is a good city for me. Lost in the crowd I become a face amongst faces, a fleck amongst flecks. I am a fleck now as I push myself through the seething people fighting their way home, but I as I press on I resist the smile that curls the edge of my mouth. This will be the one, I think, today will be the day. I know he is there, hiding behind the glare of the sweaty faces, I feel his eyes on my back, his knife trembling over my head. It shall not be, I think. 
 
 Suddenly I burst free of the crowd, ducking and running down a side ally in a swirl of dust and rubbish, with my case tight under one arm. A hurried set of footsteps follows and I allow a grin to flicker across my face. Around another corner and I crouch, slipping the blade from the sheath on my calf, waiting with my heart in my ears and the grin still flickering. But before he reaches me the footsteps slow, too cautious by far. The grin morphs to a snarl. I bait my breath. 
 
 “ Hallo? Herr Hitler? ” 
 
 What? No, that is wrong. I almost laugh at the mistake. Almost. His accent is good, I think, pure German. But mistakes are unforgivable. 
 
 “ Kann ich mit Ihnen sprechen? Über Ihre Malerei? “ 
 
 I have to catch myself. He knows too much. The paintings are my greatest and most open secret. They are the mask I wear, the shield I carry. No job has been as safe for me as painting, where I might hide and watch and move on in an instant. My mind rages, how can he know, how can he know. I grip the knife and lunge around the corner. 
 
 He is stood in the middle of the ally when I charge, and his image is frozen in my mind. Standing strong he levels a small revolver at my head and fires. Thankfully he is a terrible shot. I barrel into him, gripping behind the knees and with a small satisfaction feel the familiar twang of the knife against ligament. Then we are on the ground and here is where the real fun begins. A real fight, imbued with that savage thrill, the struggle for survival. This one is scrappy for all his caution. I am almost disappointed, and as I pin him down and spit the grit from my teeth and slide the blade slowly into his side I tell him so. 
 
 “ You are a cautious man and you speak well, but you are sloppy and that I can not abide. ” I give the hilt a little pat as I sigh. A yelp is a pathetic sound, I think. “ It is all in the killing, that ’ s what I say. ” I show him my teeth as he shows me the whites of his ever widening eyes. “ How do you know me? ” 
 
 I see confusion amongst the pain, how odd. And then a laugh, quiet and shivering with pain but a laugh nonetheless. “ Know you? How could I not know you, ” pinned to the ground with a knife snug in his guts he somehow draws himself up and spits in my face. The dark eyes flash under their dark hair, “ You are Adolf Hitler, murderer of millions, scum of the earth. In 1933 you will be elected to German chancellor and in 1939 you will cause the worst war the world has ever seen. May your bones rot in the hell they crawled from. ” 
 
 I admit when I set out to discover the reasons of my life ’ s corruptions that was not the answer I was expecting. Perhaps in my madness I hoped to find some centre of sanity. What a paranoid fool I am. With relish I pull the knife from his side and watch the droplets of blood twist dull red through the dusty light. They fall soft and warm on my face. 
 
 “ How intriguing, ” I wipe the blood from my eyes, “ How very intriguing. The name is annoying, but not too unreasonable, I suppose. Certainly it is liveable, I don ’ t see why not. ” 
 
 The man ’ s face pales, although that might have just been the bleeding. Something was dawning. “ You don ’ t mean… ” 
 
 “ Well, I would hate to disappoint, ” and I plunged the knife deep into his neck to reiterate the point. Not the messiest, I don ’ t think, but certainly not the cleanest. Bodies do bleed awfully, I must find some way better. And there is so much to do, so much to think about doing. The sheet has been pulled back and the ghosts are gone, the cogs are turning, I think. New ambitions stir. Names must be changed. Adolf Hitler. The mistake is amusing, but it has a ring to it. 

