When Volodymyr Met Vladimir…
Imagine the scene…the war is over. The Russians have fled & Ukraine has retaken Crimea. Volodymyr accepts an invitation to meet with Vladimir on the Kerch Bridge.
“Vladimir!” Volodymyr extends his hand.
“Volodymyr!” Vladimir hesitates, then offers his hand.
They shake hands, leaning across a gap in the bridge.
Volodymyr looks around. “Nice bridge!”
Vladimir looks around. “Yeah! It was…!”
Volodymyr sighs. “Yeah! It really was…!” He looks at Vladimir, resplendent in a smart black suit, loafers, hair thinning, but tastefully tussled in the slight breeze. But he feels no personal connection whatsoever.
The sun is going down. The sky a tableau of orange as the sun symbolically disappears behind Vladimir. “So?” he asks. “What’s next?”
“Oh, you know. Same old, same old! Back to Moscow. Oppression, violence…” Vladimir shrugs and smirks, “perhaps a bit more than normal…of each of those. Kick some arses, ruin some lives…everyday drudgery!” He looks at Volodymyr, much younger than himself. More vital. More athletic in cargo pants and T-shirt. “You?”
“Oh, Democracy! The EU!” he turns the corners of his mouth down, “NATO!”
“Oh okay! Nice! Good for you!”
“Thanks. Errrm, so you’re gonna kick some arses, eh?”
“Yup. Some people…got too big for their boots!”
“Oh, Prigozhin?”
“Prigozhin!”
“Gulag or…?”
Vladimir clicks his tongue, then slowly drags his finger across his throat making a sound like a cat being strangled.
“Ah!”
“You know…I could’ve nuked you!” Vladimir shrugs both shoulders heavily. “Anytime I wanted!”
Volodymyr smiles. “Boris told me you’d say that!”
“Bah! Johnson! That idiot! What does he know?”
Volodymyr smiled again, pushing his hands into the pockets of his cargo pants, like a naughty schoolboy caught taking a leak over the headmasters car. “Errm, you…apparently!”
Vladimir batted the comment away. Then he lifted his head and guffawed. “In the Duma…we call you Volod the Clod!”
“Oh, right! I heard that! That’s…” and held Vladimir’s gaze, “…almost humorous.”
Vladimir looked pleased with himself then grimaced slightly.
“You know what we call you?” asked Volodymyr.
“Vlad the Impaler! That’s so old, I’ve heard it all before!”
“No, no! Not Vlad the Impaler, Vlad the Failure!” and Volodymyr laughed out loud.
Vladimir winced. “You are a funny guy! Really! A very funny guy!”
“Hey…you got a magic marker?”
“Actually, I do!” said Vladimir surprised.
Volodymyr gestured. “Pass it over!” Then he held out his hand. “No, no! Wait! I’ll come over! It’s better, okay? I don’t have my passport though,” Volodymyr smiled. “Can I enter Russia?”
Vladimir looked puzzled and held out the magic marker. “I s’pose…”
“Will you let me leave again?”
Vladimir laughed and raised an eyebrow, “I can’t believe I’m saying this…but yes, you can leave again after…after what?”
Volodymyr jumped across the gap, took the magic marker and set to work as the bridge creaked.
Vladimir furrowed his brow and scowled, “Hmmmpf! I see…!” He nodded and looked uneasily at the redrawn road sign. “You really are a funny guy! They said it, but I didn’t believe it…! Funny guy! Who would’ve known…?”
Volodymyr jumped back. “I’m glad you like it!”
“Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Oh, nothing! So, you heard about what we say in the Duma?”
Volodymyr opened his hands, then raised an eyebrow.
“How? From who?” grilled Vladimir.
Volodymyr squinted. The sun was very low in the sky. He unclipped his Raybans from a pocket on his trousers and slipped them on, looking every inch the movie star. “What can I say? People don’t like you!”
“Me? I’m such a pussycat!” Vladimir grimaced again. “There! Did you hear that? Like something cracking…!”
“No, it was nothing!”
“I hear they turned your palace into an old people’s home…!”
Vladimir looked askance. “Yeah, they insisted I do it. Good PR they said!”
“What about the gold toilet seats?” enquired Volodymyr.
“The Kremlin!” Vladimir threw his head in the direction of Moscow. “That road isn’t closed.” He laughed weakly.
“Hah!” smiled Volodymyr. “Yet!”
Vladimir scowled. This hadn’t been a good idea after all. There was that awful cracking sound again. He looked at Volodymyr. So young. So cool in his Western shades and his fatigues. The man was everything he wasn’t, and he despised him.
“Whoa! What the…!” exclaimed Vladimir.
Volodymyr stepped back from the edge as the bridge beneath Vladimir began to sag violently.
Vladimir stepped back and made to turn. But it was too late.
As Vladimir slid off the bridge and started to fall he looked up at Volodymyr, as he got smaller and smaller in his field of vision.
Volodymyr looked over the edge and waved cheerily, “Shoddy Russian workmanship! Who knew, right?”
Vladimir shouted back as he flailed usefully, “Corruption did for me after allllllll!”
Splash!
Vladimir doggie paddled helplessly for a few seconds before, with a gurgle, he disappeared from view.
Volodymyr walked slowly, thoughtfully, back to his motorcade, and said quietly to himself, “Corruption! It’ll be the end of us all!”
Thanks for reading.
