Ironically, the only words I've gotten down for my writing project during the trip (besides about fifty pages of handwritten notes) were these, neither deep nor studied, nor even taking place in Ukraine:
Moog, Thomas's contact in Warsaw, hated Moscow ever since a tangle with an electronic turnstile in the Metro a couple of years earlier. He'd been rushing through the open space in the turnstile and inserted what he thought was a valid Metro card (it had expired). At jogging speed he ran right into the plastic bars that snapped instantly shut from both sides of the turnstile, and in his words, "crushed my balls in their horrible grip." Dizzy with pain and shock, he'd bounced off the plastic bars, clutched onto one side of the turnstile and emptied his stomach onto the top of the slotted chrome machine. Before he was even able see straight again, the passengers behind him had shoved him to one side and howled at him for slowing down the line. And then a sadistic female dwarf in the uniform of a Metro attendant hurried over to berate him for making a mess, not bothering to conceal her glee at having witnessed the ball-crushing. "They don't have to be so cruel," Moog said afterwards. |
AAaaaararrrggghhh! stakkels Moog! Why am I picturing a Russian metro female guard when I read this story ;-)
kiss,
cec