Hitler’s morning in the afterlife begins promptly at nine. Cherubs come knocking on the golden door of his high-windowed bedroom, bearing his hot milk, his zwieback, his dark chocolate bar broken into squares just the way he likes it. Fluttering over him like solicitous doves, they dress him in his superbly pressed uniform and high polished boots, so he can strike a truly resolute pose in front of his mirror.

At nine-thirty they lead him to his studio, where his easel stands in the glow of an Alpine sun, the mountains cool and resolute in the view from his window. His canvas, pure as an Aryan heart, gleams with the pride of knowing that soon it will bear the loftiest inspirations of the Fuhrer. His brushes line up with the precision of an honor guard, and of all his paints, none shines with such burnished glory as the Prussian blue.

Till twelve the Fuhrer stands at his easel, painting a world that only he could envision. Then the cherubs accompany him to the exhibit hall where his greatest creations are shown, and where soon the judging will take place. Hitler stands at a corner of the hall, greeting his admirers with that avuncular dignity so well known to Goebbels and Speer.

At one the results of the judging are announced. It is a different painter every day who makes the announcement; today, it is Camille Pissarro. Monsieur Pissarro steps up to the microphone and makes the same announcement that Edward Hopper made the day before, and Gerard ter Borch the day before that, and that Sandro Botticelli will make the next day, and Edvard Munch the day after that:

“We are pleased to announce the results of the judging. For the best painting in the exhibition, second prize goes to Herr Adolf Hitler, first prize to Mr. Winston Churchill.”

A scream rises above the applause. “THIS IS AN OUTRAGE! I AM GREATER THAN WINSTON CHURCHILL! I AM THE GREATEST PAINTER WHO EVER LIVED!”

From the ensuing silence comes a voice, usually that of Goethe or Beethoven: “You are the greatest house painter who ever lived.”

“THAT IS A LIE! A LIE AND A SLANDER! I WAS NEVER A HOUSE PAINTER! IT IS A LIE, I TELL YOU! A LIE OF THE JEWS AND THE AMERICANS!” Turning a color that reaches the subtle midpoint between an eggplant and a boiled lobster, the Fuhrer tears off his own head and hurls it out the window into the street. The window is always closed; the head lands face down in the crash, driving shards of glass into the glacial blue eyes. The headless body lurches out the door, and—having reached a blood pressure of 666 over 490—it explodes.

Watching from the broken window, cheerful with his Cohiba and Courvoisier, the winner of the judging declares, “Corporal Schicklgruber should not develop more anger than he can contain.”

The severed head, the ragged pieces of flesh and bone and viscera, all pulsate in the street. Children with numbers tattooed on their arms play a pick-up game of soccer with the head. The head flexes its bloody mouth, trying to shriek, but its vocal cords are rent asunder. Packs of dogs, led by Lassie and Rin-Tin-Tin, lick up the blood from the asphalt, gnawing the bones and the meat. Then the children take the dogs home to play. The cherubs scatter, to do whatever cherubs do when not waiting on denizens of the afterlife.

At dawn, after lying in the street all day and all night, the tidbits of Hitler drag themselves back home. Leaving a stuttering trail of blood along the pavement, they agonize inch by inch, over dog feces and broken glass, up to the door, up the staircase, into the bedroom. Crawling onto the bed, they bind together painfully, head to neck, limb to torso, joint to joint, until they make what might be considered a man, just in time for the cherubs to knock on the golden door at nine, bearing the hot milk, the zwieback, the dark chocolate bar broken into squares just the way he likes it.

Elvis Presley and Princess Diana were married in the Cathedral of Heaven, before 800 million of their most intimate friends, on what would have been last Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. if they had still been in linear time.

The cathedral was at its most magnificent; the designer of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon outdid himself, festooning the nave with truckloads of every non-carnivorous flower known on every inhabited planet in the Universe, in ways that enhanced the artworks by Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Tintoretto, Giotto, Titian, Donatello, Cellini, Del Sarto, Fra Angelico, Fra Lippo Lippi, Filippino Lippi and even Caravaggio, who received a day pass from Hell to do a quick mural.

To the tune of Johann Sebastian Bach’s organ prelude, which he composed expressly for the occasion, the fashionable guests were shown to their seats by ushers James Dean, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. JFK and Jackie were the best man and matron of honor, and lovely in pink were the bridesmaids—Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and Mother Teresa. (“Teresa darling, you look almost like a man,” said guest Noel Coward. “So do you, Noel,” Teresa quipped back.)

The bride and groom were resplendent in their diamond-, ruby- and emerald-encrusted matching jumpsuits, designed by Gianni Versace himself and made from the finest tanned skins of Andrew Cunanan. Henry VIII, demanding pride of place among British royalty, obtained a day pass from Hell to give the bride away before the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. The bride and groom recited their vows to each other, written for them for the occasion by Shakespeare, Lord Byron, Kahlil Gibran, Charles Bukowski, and Kurt Cobain. Bach played variations on “Love Me Tender” as the couple exchanged their first kiss as man and wife, and a hundred thousand cherubs flew around the nave, carrying banners bearing messages of good luck to the new couple, in 24-karat gold lame, in 297 different languages including 56 extinct and 14 “speaking in tongues.”

After the wedding the guests were treated to a sumptuous buffet prepared by Vatel, Careme, Escoffier and Ho Chi Minh, although to Elvis’ chagrin they balked at the deep-fried peanut butter-and-banana appetizers he wanted. Emily Dickinson caught the bridal bouquet, and Peter Abelard the garter. The band, led by John Lennon, included George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper, Janis Joplin, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Frank Zappa, Keith Moon, Jerry Garcia, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Gene Krupa, Benny Goodman, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Johnny & June Carter Cash, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Hildegard von Bingen, Dvorak, Sibelius, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Rachmaninov and Mozart. Nixon and Mao made a smash hit with the crowd when they danced naked to “Whatever Gets You Through the Night.” (That’s the only work for which Nixon and Mao can get day passes from Hell these days--dancing naked at John Lennon’s gigs.)

Andy Warhol took the wedding pictures, a process that went more smoothly after Ansel Adams reminded Andy to take the cap off the lens. When the 2,806,184-tiered cake was cut, Di playfully tried to smash the first piece into Elvis’ face; Elvis ducked, and Di shoved the cake right in the kisser of Alexander the Great. Everyone laughed, none louder than Aristotle. (“That makes up for a lot of math homework that was never turned in!” Aristotle whispered to Schopenhauer, who grunted his approval.) There were a few unpleasant moments, as there are at every wedding: Jackie elbowed JFK in the ribs when she caught him looking a little too intently at Marilyn, and a drunken brawl threatened to break out between Ernest Hemingway and Christopher Marlowe, which fortunately was nipped in the bud when Jack Johnson and Daniel Boone restrained them.

But of course the magic moment came when Elvis sang “Love Me Tender” directly to Di, accompanied by the Jordanaires and a choir of ten thousand seraphim. As the love light in Elvis’ eyes met the love light in Di’s, the Milky Way Galaxy ignited with the Aurora Borealis, spreading light across the sky in 1,907 subtle yet bold gradations of 146 different hues, so that the heavens glittered for hours, days, and eons.  

As Oscar Wilde opined for the Elysian Times Literary Supplement, “The display was fireworks of an intensely spiritual nature, beautiful and perfect, as the princess and the troubadour demonstrated for eternity the triumph of optimism over experience.” Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein presented opposing theories of the celestial phenomenon for the journal Scientific Heaven. Hedda Hopper—who got a day pass from Hell to report on the doings for the Cerberus News Network—said, “It was to `Di’ for!”

And who among you would call me a liar, or a blasphemer? I swear to you all I have said is true—as true as the faint rim of violet that lingers over the hills after a sunset, as the memory of spring daffodils after they have withered in summer’s heat, as the wind you thought you felt ruffling your hair as you walked outside your door.

they are adding
new words to the dictionary
locavore and staycation
flash mob and green-collar
my spell check confused
underlines them as I type

words in their infancy
newly hatched
with jagged bits of shell
clinging to consonants
are now official

be calm my fingers say
as I peck the keys
the old words remain

sassafras and jubilation
cotillion  veranda
words that have grown

beautiful in mature plumage
sublime in  past knowledge
smooth and polished
they patiently wait between pages