People's Republic of Poland
2 Apr 1974/1914
0:34
General Staff
Office of the Commander-in-Chief
"...this division will have to be sent here to help otherwise....". Thought aloud the newly appointed Marshal of Poland Wojciech Jaruzelski creating the framework of a plan to defend Poland from all sides. And while he was saying this, rearranging the pawns on the map which for the time being represented the political division of the world that had been outdated for more than 24 hours, he bumped a mug with long-expired coffee standing next to the map on his desk.
His eyes were slowly closing from fatigue, he hadn't slept since this Undoing happened. And apparently sleep was already calling him back to himself. "Because..." He said louder trying to push the fatigue away. It's not time yet, he has to finish this so his subordinates can start organizing something. He has to finish his work or else...
"Or else what?" Suddenly a male voice sounded which made Wojciech jump up. "What? Who is here...." He began to inquire looking for the source of the sound before pausing in surprise when he noticed a man sitting in a chair under a huge map of Poland against the wall to the right of the desk.
"Someone you may or may not know. Right Wojtek?" Replied the man somewhat mockingly. Wojciech looked at him wordlessly with his mouth open in amazement and began to point his finger at him involuntarily. "You don't point your finger at people, and you keep your mouth shut to keep a fly from dropping in." He added seeing that Wojciech was not going to speak.
It was only at this attention that Wojciech regained his speech. "Immediately it's impossible I don't have a twin brother, only a sister and a regular one at that. What are you?" The man who looked literally like him shrugged his shoulders. "What you want to call it, a projection of a tired mind, the voice of your conscience silenced by you, or..." He paused with a theatrical gesture.
"Or what?" Wojciech asked. The alternative Jaruzelski, in turn, replied in a somewhat ominous tone, "Or you from another reality. You who made different decisions, or maybe history turned out differently for him so he could choose something else?" Wojciech wanted to mock him but noticed that the uniform of the alternate version differed from his. At the same time, these were noticeable details that gave him one thing to understand. That the one before him had never had anything to do with the Soviets and being their lackey. Ba even some scars that Wojciech suffered in Siberia were unnoticeable in the alternative Wojciech.
Therefore, instead of trying to mock it or pretend it all doesn't exist Wojciech nodded his head and replied, "Suit yourself, where did you come from?" The alternative version looked at him "Guess?" said AlterJaruzerlski.
Wojciech thought about it for a while. And the fatigue that plagued it disappeared as if at the touch of a wand. Looking at a different version of himself, he noticed that something was missing from his posture, something he saw every day in the mirror but couldn't say what. But this lack of what he couldn't describe gave him an idea, an idea that hardly passed through his throat to the amazement of Wojciech himself.
"Have you arrived or are you simply an image of me who did not have to," he paused for a moment searching for the word "fall so low I." AlterJaruzelski nodded at this eminently evasive answer. In fact, Jaruzelski knew a much less favorable opinion of himself, while being more honest about what he had done. The Soviet Mongrel barking as you command was just one of the nicer and more decent ones.
But into action came another voice which loudly with a Russian accent added "I protest! I have not fallen at all!" Wojciech and AlJaruzel looked in the direction from where the voice came. Whereupon AlJaruzel's face twisted in contempt and he added sarcastically, "Yes, sure. Comrade General!"
Wojciech, on the other hand, looked blankly at another different version of himself, but this one wore a Soviet Army uniform for a change. His face was more battered than his face and his nose seemed to be broken. Well, and the smell coming from him reminded Wojciech how much he hated going to Moscow for Warsaw Pact meetings.
Soviet Jaruzel or as Wojciech or Bolshevik called him in his mind only smiled wickedly at the sarcastic reply of Polish Jaruzel or Free in his mind Wojciech. "That's right, I am Comrade General and I am leading Poland to a better future within the framework of the world Soviet Union which will bury the old and disgusting world. No exploitation, no religion, no wars, a place where Poles will be able to develop safely."
To which Free had another reply, "To a common hell, I guess, Tavarishch. To a world in which people will be forced to work beyond their strength and profits are not visible at all, but it is the worker who exploits the worker so there is no problem." After which he tilted his head and said in a mischievous tone, "If the average party man who, like Lenin and Marx, has not worked a day's work can be called a worker and a peasant."
He then turned to the portraits of Marx and Lenin hanging on the wall behind Wojciech, "Whether religion is opium for the people can be argued about, but it's getting harder and harder to call communism areligious if it has its own prophets, priests and its own heresies, and any devotion to the idea is so great that in spite of the 'distortions' one continues to believe in it in spite of the fact that it itself has been called Scientific Socialism, and that should probably mean something?" After which he turned to Bolshevik.
"And about the last one I don't even want to mention how untrue it is. After all, Lenin himself said as the construction of communism progresses, the class struggle intensifies, and this is probably synonymous with war? After all, Marxism itself without strife does not exist." Free concluded the argument.
"Nice barking, imperialist mongrel, how much did the Americans pay you for this bullshit?" Replied the Bolshevik mockingly.
Free only rolled his eyes "As always, when you run out of arguments you go as befits a communist. Exclusively materialistic." After which he jabbed a finger in the direction of the Bolshevik "Admit it, all you want is to rob another man for your own gain."
"Me for material gain to rob? After all, I lost my family property to the people! I sacrifice myself..." The Bolshevik began to brawl but Free interfered.
"Are you sacrificing yourself like Konrad-Gustaw?" He ironic "Or maybe, I call Milijon - because for millions,
Love and suffer torment?"
"Don't even mention it..." searched the Bolshevik for the words "Noble shit mixed with the detached from reality of a stoned poet looking for something that isn't fucking there!"
"O not only do you reject your ancestry, but also your own culture and the rules of language. Not nice." Pulled irony Free waving his finger as if to a small child.
"You, you, YOU!" Bolshevik reddened that he began to resemble the devil, Free only laughed maliciously. "What me? My little darling Bolshevik? What foolishness will your mouth convey to us now?"
The Bolshevik ran out of words, so furious he reached into his holster and pulled out a TT pistol after which he pointed it at Wolny who, seeing this, shook his head. "Foolishness?" Bolshevik asked rhetorically and the first signs of madness appeared on his face. "Foolishness? It's no foolishness, Mr. Noble Born, the Soviets are the future just like communism, if we are to survive we must go along with them. They can't be stopped, we must follow them!"
The last sentence was spoken by Bolshevik looking straight at Wojciech.
Free, on the other hand, replied "Yes, sure, that's why I did it." He ironic before becoming serious "Have you forgotten why this happened? That we tried to save what was left of the Poles who had no chance to escape the Soviets? That we tried to save Poland as quickly as possible from the hands of the Germans? That we agreed to all this not for ourselves but for the motherland?"
The harsh power of the last sentence struck Wojciech, reminding him of a faded memory and the reason he didn't resist the Soviets when they drafted him into the Red Army and then sent him to the "People's" Polish Army. Silly puppy thoughts, but were they really?
Both Jaruzelas, the objects of his self-fighting psyche stared at him glazing him over. They both asked the same silent question.
What will you choose again Wojciech?
Sorry for the delay, but I've been having a bit of a fight with myself while writing the next chapter. And instead of making me write the next chapter of wartime adventures, my writing impulse steered me towards a certain general.
I don't know why, honestly.
