A Bridge Between Worlds: A Short Story

Time Travel

He walks unseen down the Unter Der Linden—a street he no longer recognizes. To him, the entire world has turned upside down—grass might as well eat the cows for all the unthinkable things he's witnessed.

To begin with, there is no Kaiser. That in itself was a catastrophe. No one could ever imagine such a thing in his lifetime. The Kaiser was the German Empire, he represented everything Germany was and everything it stood for—omnipotence, power, grace. He could only imagine the ruin the country has fallen into without him leading his people toward what he described as "Germany's rightful place in the sun."

He doesn't have to look far to see what a world with no Kaiser is like.

There is complete disregard for anyone in a uniform. Whereas back in his day, military men were respected and feared by all, now they are complete laughingstocks. Those Prussian cavalrymen and soldiers who survived the war made a living as dance partners for women who wanted to learn the waltz from those who knew it best. He had laughed out loud when he looked through the window and saw them guiding hopelessly clumsy girls through what is supposed to be an elegant and tasteful dance. He can afford to do it—they will never hear him. He is far beyond anyone's reach to be heard—or seen.

He slipped quietly into a bar and found himself the unwitting witness of a street fights. He had flattened himself against a grimy brick wall and watched as men who had once been united under one emperor and one flag spill each other's blood and knock each other unconscious in the dimly lit room made hazy with cigarette smoke.
He didn't know why he bothered to take cover. He was nothing but an apparition, a spectral entity who took advantage of his ability to wander the earth unseen and see for himself what was left of the world he once knew, the cracking world he had thankfully left before it could fully shatter.

The situation with women and modesty horrifies him to the point where he is physically sick.
Especially one Anita Berber, the likeness of whom is plastered all over the dance halls, cabarets, and nightclubs of Berlin. Each photograph is worse than the next. In some she is wearing a tuxedo and wields a walking stick with a rakish flair. In others she poses naked with an equally naked man—her husband—whose eyes are obscenely ringed with some sort of dark paint he later learns is called kohl. He gags and wonders what happened to the days of corsets and full length skirts; of modesty and femininity?
She would have been considered somewhat attractive in his time, with her small mouth, pale skin, and curly, abundant dark hair. Her flamboyance and apparent moral deviation disgusted him, however, as it would anyone back in his time. If she had pulled a stunt like this when he was alive, the public wouldn't hesitate to have her locked up in a corrective facility. The people of this day and age, however, ate her debauched behavior up like marzipans.

An epidemic of influenza ravages the city, finishing what the war started. There may have been one or two families unaffected by the war but there were none left untouched by the epidemic.
That it was a beastly disease was putting it lightly. He hadn't ever contracted it, but he knew of people who had come down with it in his lifetime. It brought with it chills, fever, headaches, and severe congestion, all if left untreated could result in fatal consequences.

On impulse, he strolls into the first bakery he sees. The smell of freshly kneaded dough and rising bread, coupled with the steady hum of the industrial oven in the back room, brings back comforting memories of a time when things were normal in the world. He swipes the nearest jelly donut and turns to go, half wondering what people will say to a gradually disappearing pastry floating amicably down the street. Will it be considered strange in this already strange city, so familiar and yet so alien to him?
Or maybe, he says to himself, they won't. The scores of young men pushing and shoving their way into the theatre to see the latest silent film, which the matinee says is called Abend—Nacht—Morgen.
One can only notice so much nowadays.
Evening, night, morning. What sort of film prompted such a cryptic name?
A trio of trouser clad women pass him, and he jumps back in disgust. He watches them pass and suppresses a shudder.
He doesn't belong in this world, and he's glad he doesn't. If anything, he's only here for the silent films...and the pastries.

kleineskloesschen happy birthday UWU