CHAPTER 2. WHAT I LOVED — I LOST

And then YouTube came along and ruined everything. A loudmouth is a godsend for foreign agents! I shouldn't have told them everything on camera while waiting in line, because that fake "extraordinary incident" report was put into action, and I ended up being guilty of some terrible horror along with Tolik, who didn't show up to vote because he was drunk. Alcohol, like stupidity, considers itself above politics.

I always warned them: lying isn't my thing. In the army, I got guard duty on my very first day because of this. On the first evening, they beat up the "young guys," and they didn't want me among the witnesses.

Now I had become a witness. The staff — like a herd of sheep — cast their votes. Then many got sick. A wave of COVID. A week or two later — record mortality. First the authorities feasted on the votes, then the virus finished off the bodies.

But that was later. What to do now? I lost my job. Speak up again and I'll lose my freedom too. Viral videos are worse than COVID!

A suit had been collecting dust in the closet for a long time, "just in case." My documents lay in an old tablet box — packed and waiting. Mother — impossible to prove; father — quite possible. There's a chance to leave for Israel.

I need to move immediately to my historical homeland with citizenship and no probationary period. Moving the family — later.

Did I stay away from politics? I did the right thing, but I couldn't hold out. Now they might brand me a foreign agent — that brings inconvenience. Or worse: label me an undesirable extremist, which means freezing my accounts and inflicting a whole bunch of other undesirable state extremism.

I suddenly wondered how it feels to find a severed sheep’s head on your doorstep and how a person feels when a bucket of excrement is poured over their head. Or maybe it'll be the currently fashionable "Novichok"? Relax! All this will take them several days to prepare. I have no idea why they tail you beforehand and study your daily routine. The main thing now is to immediately jump out of the routine and disappear.