Anastasia at Lenin Hills.


"Dave, did you hear? Hey, Dave, wake up." I heard her,
but she her voice came from far away, the land of the
conscious, whereas I was far away, in the nocturnal land of
dreams.
"What, what is it?" I heard myself grumble, not really caring,
just wanting sleep.
"There is a war, you know, your country started a war."

The perfect begining to a perfect day. As I got dressed to go to
the embassy I contemplated turning in my American passport.
"That's it, I'm out." I would say to the Consular,
"You can take your Desert Storm, your Desert Fox and your
Desert Cumshot and stick them up your imperialistic desert ass!"
Moscow was beginning to feel like home anyways, and I was finally
used to life there. Of course, being an American meant more than
a tattered blue book bearing an awful picture of myself. It meant almost
22 years of monster truck rallies, professional wrestling, soap opras,
sitcoms, White Castle and hundreds of other little pieces of American
"culture" embedded deep within my consciousness, so engrained in me
I doubt I can ever completely rid myself of them, no matter how hard I try.

As I showed the guard my passport, a rag tag group of protesters with
misspelled banners shouted "Fascist Pig!" and "Fuck Clinton!" at me.
It felt strange being on the other side of such a demostration, and despite
the portrait of Hussein, I sympathized with them, and felt like shaking my fist at
the weather worn building that symbolized imperialism and arrogance
to so much of the world. Even the lonely American flag above the door seemed
to hang in shame, half wrapped around the pole, its stripes blood dripping toward the ground
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