found drama

The plane is the size of a child’s toy but it will transport you across great distances. Just grab it around the fuselage (pinching it is best) just like a child would and mime the take-off routine. Suddenly you will find yourself inside, soaring high above the Earth in Soviet-era luxury. You are the Commandant, the newly appointed Colonel to some division of armored intelligence. Your lapels are pregnant with prestige, ripe fruit of military conquest. You, comrade, are the Father Land’s pride, their penultimate hero.

You touch down at the dacha that Politburo has ear-marked on your behalf. You step out of the plane (now once again the size of a child’s toy) and proceed inside. You survey the scene, the fine appointments of each room, the rich inlays in the wood. Your heart swells with further pride, rattling the medals that dangle from your chest. You tip your cap to the porter and tour the mansion. You recall a legend about a hidden, private library.

Poking around the estate further, you do eventually find the perturbation in the bedroom wall that the indicates the door. You push and pry and eventually the perturbation yields, allowing the smallest of openings. It is barely wide enough for your to pass your barrel chest sideways through. Indeed, it is a finely appointed library: built-in shelves of the finest walnut, twelve feet high; each shelf filled with expensive, classic volumes; a sturdy ladder complete with a polished brass hand-rail leaned up against the north wall; a beautiful stained glass dome filtering green and rose tinted light down from the ceiling; a leather couch in the center, complete with ottoman. And as you slowly turn to survey the room, you find the half-dozen bodies hanging in nooses, bloody gashes still dripping from all over each of them. And as you turn to flee, you see the secret police waiting for you on the other side of the narrow door, guns already drawn.

About Rob Friesel