Charity: An AH Short Story

Hitler was having a bad week.
He had done nothing wrong, just had a run of bad luck.
On Monday and Tuesday he had been bedridden with a bad case of the flu, the fruits of being too cheap to buy coal in January.
Suffering a terrible draft for his error, he bought coal to heat his home after he had recovered somewhat on Wednesday.
It was a risky move as he still needed the Crowns that he had to buy food later that week.
He was taking the bet that he would make enough selling his hand drawn postcards to make up for that deficit.

Unfortunately a bitterly cold snow storm began later that Wednesday, not enough to keep him from going outside but enough to keep everyone that didn't have to be on the streets off it.
The problem was that the people that the people who bought his postcards were also the people who could choose not to be on the streets. Every morning for three days he struggled out of bed and attempted to sell one of his godforsaken postcards and in three days he had sold nineteen out of his stock of one hundred and twenty.
At first Hitler was too proud to go to some church for a handout.
Then when the empty nashing in his stomach became to much to bear he did. They were all full, mostly with Czechs (as Hitler was keen to notice).

So it came to pass that on Saturday evening that week Hitler paced up and down the mostly deserted streets of Vienna. He would madly yell at anyone who could listen."Postcards For Sale"
He was given either a dismissive "no" or an angry look. The people he was begging at were industrial laborers heading back home from their jobs, most of them as hungry as he was, who certainly had no money to spare.

After his fortieth no of the evening Hitler began to feel tears welling up as he stood alone in the bitter cold of the night.
He was crying because of his horrible biting hunger, because of the cold, because of his illness and most of all because of the filthy Czechs which had taken the charity that belonged to him.
Hitler forgot were he was for a moment as he took some time to wallow in self pity.

He was shaken out of it by feeling of someone tapping his shoulder.
"Are you alright, sir?" a heavily accented voice asked him.
He turned and and saw a grim looking, darkly dressed man with a thick mustache looking back at him.
"Yes sir, would you care to buy a postcard?" Hitler pleaded a feeling of hope rising in him for the first time in that evening.
The man looked him over for a moment and finally said "How much?".
"One Crown, sir" he said, quickly producing a postcard out of his pocket.
The man took the postcard, placed a bill in his hand and then walked off in the direction of a man seemingly waiting for him further down the street.
It was only when Hitler returned home that he realized the man had given him twenty Crowns.

The man met up with his comrade further down the street and he was of course questioned.
"Why did you give him the money Koba?" he was asked.
"It's always good to extend an olive branch to people, you never know how they might help you in the future".
 
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