QUOTE:
An Accidental Swastika
[An accidental bit of prose found on the Russian side of the internet.]
“Genocide? That’s a joke!” muttered Bundeskanzler, smirking.
But no one listened to him. At a round table in a concrete bunker a secret and heated discussion was taking place on the subject of sanctioning Russia. Each participant was thinking up more and more new punishments for the country that dared to proclaim its sovereignty.
“Russia must be cancelled!” yelled the walleyed American woman. “It must be forbidden to exist on our planet! There is no other way!”
“Yes, yes!” seconded the tow-haired Pole. He was secretly thinking about the hole in his shoe and that he urgently needed to borrow some more money.
“Russia must be punished for its impertinence,” the American woman continued. “We should close our stores, embargo our goods and disconnect them from our networks.”
“We must force them to their knees!” shouted the crooked-toothed woman representing Britain.
“France will declare total economic war against Russia!” crowed the French minister, but then became scared of his own words and started to shiver.
“Genocide? That’s funny, no? Funny!” the Bundeskanzler kept on saying in a daze.
“We will ban them from sports!” the American woman added.
“On what basis?” asked the Italian, who had recently been vaccinated with Sputnik-V.
“On the basis that they are Russian!” the American woman rounded up angrily on her stupid colleague.
“OK, that works!” he agreed.
“That’s not enough,” went on the crooked-toothed Brit. “There must be collective responsibility. Let’s ban their Paralympic athletes. Let them be held responsible.”
“We could burn their books!” mused the slightly drunk Czech.
“We must start bullying Russians all over the civilized world!” the Australian offered.
“…and their cats!” the Dutch representative continued the thought, smiling.
“Why cats?” asked everyone, looking at him in surprise?
“Because they are Russian, aren’t they?” he acted surprised in return.
“Genocide—that’s so funny!” suddenly shouted out the Bundeskanzler.
“We must insult them,” the American went on. “We must make them feel guilty, to embarrass them, seize their property, refuse to sell them medicine. We must refuse to treat their sick children! We must not let them use our currencies! There shouldn’t be any of our beautiful, clean money in dirty Russia! We must discriminate against Russian students! Don’t just sit there, write this down!”
The representatives took to writing it all down with animalistic abandon. Their eyes became bloodshot and they scribbled furiously, as if wielding knives.
“Genocide—that’s hilarious!” all of a sudden the Bundeskanzler erupted hysterically.
Apoplectic with hate, the Western bureaucrats were ready to jump up and salute him by extending their right arms forward. The outlines of two silver lightning symbols started to become visible on their lapels and red armbands showed through on their right arms… And then, suddenly, they heard a polite knock on the door.
“Excuse me, are you finished?” asked a head in a tactical helmet and a mask. Then the rest of the man, in a pixellated green camouflage uniform, entered the room.
He looked in surprise at the officials, who looked at him in stunned silence. Then he glanced at the table, on which lay scattered papers covered in epileptic scribbles.
“Ah,” said the man, relieved. “You prepared after all? Excellent! Don’t worry, I’ll gather all the papers myself and we’ll acquaint ourselves with their contents.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll do everything myself,” said the soldier to one of the officials, who was offering him his piece of paper with a quivering hand.
“But it’s still early!” a bureaucrat from the Baltics suddenly erupted. He was always late to everything.
“I am so sorry, but there is no more time,” the soldier responded. “The time has come to defend Russians.”
“But wait, you can’t…” said one of the officials, suddenly switching into broken Russian. “Don’t you see that the entire world is against you?”
“Even if the entire world is against us, it is enough for us that the truth is on our side,” the soldier answered. He stood in thought for a moment and then took out two objects and placed them on the table. Then he left the room.
Left on the table were a handgun and a cheap transparent cigarette lighter with just a tiny bit of butane left in it. The officials exchanged vicious glances, then lunged for these objects with shrill, desperate cries. And then the lights in the bunker went out.
UNQUOTE