I was staying the night at my parents' house. In morning, I was going to take a taxi.
My aunty patty was also going to my work at 6:30, so I was going to share a cab with her.
I leave the house, early. It's dark out. I'll come back. I end up at
Kits High,
visiting. I stop by the music room. My friend Jenny is there. She must be in grade 12, I figure.
We go to an assembly; it's
Boris Yeltsin's funeral. Boris Yeltsin himself is presiding, walking
around, greeting people and thanking them for their kind thoughts at his death. He asks us if
we would grace his funeral with a song. Mr. Burger, conveniently piss drunk and thus ready for
conducting, exhorts us to pull out Concerto for Four, in F, a
hymn-sounding song. I, not in
my high school choir, wing it, sightreading. I'm pleased - I'm a much better singer than I was
when I was in the choir in grade 8 and 9. Lise, who is also somehow in the choir here (she is
actually in the
chalice choir at church) turns to me and says that no wonder I ditched this
choir for chalice - he's crazy! Boris Yeltsin looks pleased, and, with a tear in his eye, lies
down in the
casket and falls asleep, presumably for good. I am about to ask Mr. Burger
if I can be a ringer in the
choir - what with getting out of work early, I could make the 3:30
practices. I don't; I suddenly remember that I was supposed to be at work. It is now 9:05 - oh
god! I'm so late. I feel terrible. Redfaced as I arrive at work, I realize I the choir wouldn't have
been so great anyhow - my friend Jenny is so not in grade 12 - she must be in third year by now.
Aunty Patty is not at work, but some nice fuzzy slippers are. "These must be Ben's", I think for
some reason. Sure enough, Joe (his brother and my boyfriend) calls me up. "Did we leave some
slippers there last night? Ben can't get to work now." "Yes, yes, I'll put them in the mail." The
stamps (it takes a number of them) are a commemorative series celebrating dead russian and
soviet leaders.
Yeltsin is there; the paint is still shiny on his stamp.
Gorbachev is there.
he's been dead for years now, I discover to my great surprise.
Khrushchev looks like
Stalin without
his
mustache; I suspect a conspiracy. As I fiddle with the postage meter (I didn't have
enough stamps in the end), I hear a whispered "PSST!" from the ceiling. I look up just as one
of the panels is removed. Joe pops his head out. "Those stamps won't work!
They're bugged.
Here, I'll take the slippers." "Okay. Have a good day at school! Don't catch a cold in the tunnels on the way out!"
I wake up with the name Vladistokya on my lips and a nervous panic as I check the clock. 5:25, not 9:05.
hmm, maybe I was thinking of Vladivostok. That sounds like an interesting place to visit. Except for the rampant crime and drugs.