Elevator Encounter

It’s day 439 of World War III that started on February 24, 2022 with Russia invading Ukraine. The entire world is burning since November 2022, after the exhausted and desperate Putin’s army launched a missile aimed at Lviv, miscalculated, and overshot it into Poland. NATO countries immediately activated Article 5 for joint defense and sent a missile directly into the Kremlin. It was an imploding bomb, taking everything with it underground in a clean sweep. After the dust settled, the entire Kremlin was gone as if someone carefully cut out a cancerous mole off the face of Moscow. Even though Putin had not stayed in the Kremlin since the beginning of the war and the hit was largely symbolic, triggered Russia went all in and launched a tactical nuclear bomb into the formerly British and currently Canadian Arctic. NATO retaliated by sending a similar bomb into Siberian taiga. All hell broke loose. Russia twisted the arms of the other BRICS countries, and Brazil, India, China, and South Africa reluctantly got involved by either kicking out or directly attacking NATO bases located in their jurisdiction or proximity. India’s Modi sent his troops into Kashmir, setting off a war with Pakistan. China invaded Taiwan, killing off most population as dissidents and resettling the island with mainland Chinese.

North Korea got emboldened and dropped its half-baked nuclear bomb on Busan; in response South Korea sent its troops into North Korea and bombed the hell out of Kim the Third’s secret compound where he was hiding in the bunker. Kim managed to escape into Russia by an underground train and commanded his exhausted and demoralized troops from exile.

In the Middle East, Iran took advantage of the global chaos and tried to achieve its dream of erasing Israel from the face of the earth by shooting its extremely dirty nuclear bombs. One of them hit Gaza by mistake, setting off a chain reaction in the entire region, with Shiites and Sunnis fighting each other.

In Africa, civil wars started to break out again in countries with long-term smoldering conflicts, first in both Congos, then Sudans and Yemen, Ethiopia-Eritrea and Nigeria. In South America, Bolsonaro started a fight with virtually all countries bordering Brazil, under the cynical pretext of defending indigenous Amazon tribes. Even Australia and New Zealand got dragged into the war, obliged to protect Japan and South Korea from Chinese and Russian attacks and incursions. Who would have ever thought that Japan and South Korea would be fighting on the same side, right?

As I said, the whole world is now on fire. About a month ago, the war reached the United States’ shores, in the form of long-range Russian missiles shot from Kaliningrad, the Russian Arctic, and treacherously invaded Alaska.

I’m staying at my friend’s apartment in Chicago for Mother’s Day weekend. Chicago was the only major city remaining intact from the Russian bombs as it was right in the middle of the country, hard to reach from the shores or across the ocean. Just about six months ago, my friend Emily got rich from writing a scifi novel and bought one of the two penthouse apartments in a 30-some story building downtown. Most of her family from Michigan has come for the Mother’s Day and she invited me and my son as we have no immediate family in America. My son is flying from Atlanta, miraculously still standing despite the heavy shelling. The city is protecting its world-wide known Hartsfield-Jackson international airport with everything it has and the airport remains operational.

Emily and I go years back: We graduated from the same doctoral program, and she is like an American God mother to my son (his real God mother is in Russia). Emily met me and my then 2.5-year-old at the New Orleans airport in 2005, with a baby car seat as a gift. Ilia is 20 now, but he still remembers how Emily babysat and read books to him. She also taught me to drive, taking turns with our other grad pal Jane. Emily and I have been through thick and thin together, and for me she is one of the very few trusted people who I could call family in America. I am a naturalized American, a Russian born in Soviet times in Kyrgyzstan, whose immediate and extended family is dispersed around the world, including Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Germany, Israel, and the Unites States. In the war, I have lost touch with most of them while some of my Russian relatives openly rejected and condemned me for my pro-Ukrainian position.

As Emily and I get ready to go pick up my son from the airport, we hear an air raid siren. We don’t pay attention as they have become quite regular recently and most of the times are false alarm. Emily’s family – a brother and a sister with their spouses and kids, and her mother is here as well – is glued to the TV in the living room, watching the news of the world on fire. Suddenly we hear a loud whistle of an incoming bomb and an explosion nearby. Our building shakes violently, things start flying around the apartment, and we hear the sounds of broken glass and thumping things and people. But the building stands.

Emily checks out the damage, makes sure that everyone is alright, and says to her relatives, “You’d better get the necessities and go down to the shelter!” Then she drags me by the sleeve, “C’mon, we need to go pick up Ilia!”

I come out of the shock, and we run for the elevator. As we leave Emily’s place, we see that the second penthouse apartment is wiped out by the bomb that grazed through it before exploding a short distance away.

“Wow!” I mutter, “It’s almost like it’s been licked off by a cow’s tongue, as my Russian grandma would say.”

“Isn’t that ironic,” Emily chuckles, “It belonged to a Russian oligarch and had been sitting empty ever since the sanctions were introduced last year. At least no one got killed.”

We enter the elevator and push the ‘Lobby’ button. It’s one of those plexiglass elevators on the outside wall of the building, looking out into the beautiful courtyard. The ride seems endless and scary. We try not to look around at the burning city or lean on the elevator glass walls. We hold on to the handrails every time the elevator shakes from some strike or thump.

“Well, at least it’s still working,” Emily says, and we both laugh nervously.

Finally, the elevator stops. As the doors into the lobby open, I see five of my Russian male cousins, two of whom lived in Germany before the war, standing in a row, blocking the elevator exit. They all wear ill-fitting Russian military uniforms, bullet-proof vests and helmets, and lots of ammo. With AK-47 on their chests and hand grenades hanging from their belts and breast pockets, they look like military-theme decorated New Year’s trees. Two of my uncles stand next to them, in ragged half-burnt civilian clothing, with their hair disheveled, dirty hands and faces, and eyes shooting off crazy sparkles. “Have they come out of some fire?” I think.

“Oh-oh, this is not good,” I say to Emily. “You go ahead, I’ll catch up.”

“Do you know these guys?” Emily asks, concerned.

“Yes, these are my Russian relatives. Not all of them, I have a big extended family.”

“I remember,” Emily reassures me. “What do they want with you, though? And how did they get here?”

“That’s what I’d like to know too,” I say, “Please go, Ilia must be arriving now. If I don’t come out in like five minutes, don’t wait for me, just go and pick him up.”

“I’m not leaving you here alone with them,” Emily says, giving the men a look up and down, as if measuring them for danger. “At least ask them what they want.”

“What do you want? And how did you get here?” I ask them in Russian.

“You may speak English,” one of the cousins gave me permission with a strong Russian accent.

“We have translating chips now,” another added proudly, showing to the area above his shaved right temple. It had a visible small scar like the one in the first Kingsman movie.

“We joined the Russian Marines,” the third cousin said, “Our regiment has deployed in Chicago when the first bomb dropped. We came here for you.”

“Emily, it’s gonna take awhile. Please go get Ilia,” I plead with my friend.

“What do you mean, ‘we came here for you’?” Emily asks them defiantly.

“We are here to take her and Ilia back to Russia,” one of the cousins responded with a smirk. “So, you’d better go fetch him, it’ll make our job easier.”

“Fetch???” my brave strong-willed friend says indignantly. “I’m not your dog!”

“Oh, I thought ‘fetch’ just means ‘go for something and bring it back.’ I’m sorry, ma'am,” my cousin says, flashing Emily with his great smile. All my cousins are incredibly handsome, runs in the family.

“Emily, please, go,” I plead again, “I’ll sort this out. It’s my family matter.”

“Ok, I’ll wait for you in the car for five minutes,” Emily said and decisively stepped out of the elevator. My cousins parted to let her through and closed the flanks again, standing shoulder to shoulder and looking at me intensely.

“So, you are here to take me back to Russia?” I repeat their proposition. “Why? Didn’t you call me a traitor to Russia because I sided with Ukraine?”

“But you are still Russian, and every Russian counts now. Mother Russia is calling on all her children to come back home! We’ll vouch for you and they’ll de-program you when we return.”

“I don’t need your vouching,” I said, annoyed. “And what do you mean ‘de-program’?”

“They’ll un-brainwash you,” another cousin said.

“Oh, so I’m brainwashed now? That’s rich, coming from someone so brainwashed they can’t even look beyond their blinders. And how exactly would they un-brainwash me, do you know?”

“Of course we do, they did it to us too, but we didn’t need much,” the oldest cousin said cheerfully. “They’ll just make you watch some movies about the Great Patriotic War and sit through a couple of history lectures.”

“Sure, World War II you mean. I can lecture anyone on history and propaganda myself,” I mumble. “By the way, I’ve done my DNA test. I’m 70 percent Ukrainian, just like you are, I’m sure!”

“Bullshit,” one cousin says angrily, “I don’t have a single drop of damn Nazi blood in me!”

“First, Ukrainians are not Nazis, and you know it. It’s Russians who have now become fascists, even worse, rashists!”

“It’s the American propaganda, all bullshit!” another cousin said, smiling.

“Second, our shared grandfather was Ukrainian, you dummies!” I said, undeterred. “Where do you think our Ukrainian last name comes from?”

“Not true! Grandpa was of the Don Cossacks!” another cousin yelled.

“A-ha, and where exactly was the Don River when the Cossacks were thriving? Ukraine! You need a lesson in real history!”

“Well, it’s Russia now!” one of the cousins retorted triumphantly.

Another one chimed in, “Don’t unload this propaganda crap on us! Our last name is just a name of some swamp bird!”

“That came from one region in Ukraine! Near Don! You may deny your Ukrainian heritage, but I won’t. My father was also half-Ukrainian!”

“Aww, look who suddenly remembered her father, the bastard who abandoned her when she was five!” a quiet cousin suddenly stabbed me with his words.

“It doesn’t matter, I’m only saying this to show that there’s more Ukrainian blood in me than Russian. I have nothing to do with Russia!”

“How can you say this?” the oldest cousin said, “You still have Russian citizenship, that’s how we tracked you down!”

“I only have it because I wanted to travel to see mom and couldn’t rescind it after the war started! Because your freaking dying Mother Russia is clinging to everyone she considers Russian as if it’s her last living child and her survival depends on them!” I shout in response. “Wait, what do you mean, you tracked me down? Is Russia spying on us now??”

“Of course not! But this same translating chip,” he pointed at his temple, “Has facial recognition software for all Americans with Russian passports, from your mugshots the Embassy took for the passport application. It tracked you down in minutes, hacking into your street security cameras through our satellites! Such an amazing technology! By the way, I see Ilia is de-boarding his plane. Your friend better go and get him now!”

“Oh my God! This is the country you want to live in, where everyone is spied on!”

“If you don’t commit crimes and have nothing to hide, why would you be afraid of someone spying on you? Just be a good citizen, that’s all!”

“Oh God, do you even hear yourself?? So Orwellian! I want my privacy!”

“No one has privacy these days, are you kidding me? Facebook and Twitter know more about you than Mother Russia ever would, and you are OK with that,” the oldest cousin said.

“I’m not OK with that, and I don’t use them that often, just to connect with people! Besides, they are not watching me in the streets!”

“Sure, sure,” the cousin replied with a knowing smirk. “So, are you coming with us or not?”

“Of course not! Why would I? I don’t want to go to Russia!”

“But why? It’s your duty as a citizen and true Russian, you owe that to your country!” three of them said simultaneously, clearly a rehearsed line.

“I owe nothing to Russia!” I say defiantly.

“Wow, nothing?!! Really?? How about the fact that you were born there and had healthy, care-free childhood, and free university education that opened the world for you?”

“Oh my God, do you even hear what you say?” I gasp for air in disbelief. “I grew up in the 1970s, in the stagnating and suffocating Soviet Union, raised by a single mother who struggled to make both ends meet! If it hadn’t been for our grandfather, I don’t know how we would have survived! And I excelled in school because I knew it was the only way to achieve something, to go abroad, albeit to the effing near abroad!”

“Albeit,” one cousin giggled, “She knows fancy words!”

“Right, none of us finished a university!” another cousin cited a common Russian anti-intellectualism put-down.

“Not my fault! You said it, not me: Education was free! Bad, but free. I had to relearn a lot of things here, but you keep telling me how I owe for it. To whom, again?”

“Russia, your home country!” one of the cousins fell into my trap.

“Funny how I never lived there even for a single year, and you still say it’s my home country.”

“Well, Russia is the Soviet Union successor, so there.”

“Doesn’t mean anything to me. I owe nothing to the country that gobbles up its own people and invades others! I have achieved everything on my own, through hard work and perseverance!”

“No one denies that, and Russia needs your talents and skills now, on the propaganda front! So, are you coming or not?”

“Propaganda front? You mean I will become a Russian propagandist, everything I despise and condemn in humans?” I am again gasping for air, aghast. Suddenly, a realization comes to me, and I suggest, “Why don’t you come and get me?”

The cousins didn’t move, standing there in one dense row. I egg them on in Russian, “What? No can do? (‘Slabo?’) Chickens!”

“Not that we can’t do it. We have the strict orders to persuade you. The chip is recording everything as evidence, we must bring you in voluntarily.”

“Oh yeah, that’s new, why?”

“Something about free will and international human rights conventions. We can’t force you.”

“Great! Russia is suddenly concerned with the human rights law. Since when? You nearly erased Ukraine into dust, with women and children in the cities you shelled!”

“We personally didn’t, we were not there. Yet. We just joined the Russian military a couple of months ago. But since we are in the US now, Russia does not want to be accused of human rights violations in America.”

“Good for me, I guess, because I’m not going anywhere!” I sat down on the elevator floor in protest.

“Well, you’ll have to come out at some point.”

“And then what? You’ll handcuff me?”

“Of course not. Free will, you know. But we hope we’ll change your mind.”

Another realization strikes me. I finally look up at my uncles, standing quietly in my cousins’ right flank. “And why are YOU here? You are DEAD!!” I almost scream at them.

“Glad you remember,” the older dead uncle finally said.

“What do you mean, I always remember!”

“You didn’t come to our funerals and never visited our graves,” the younger uncle sounded bitter.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t remember! Not a day goes by… What do you expect, when I live five thousand miles away! So, how come you are here?”

“Just in case they fail,” the older uncle said, nodding at my cousins. “We NEED to bring you back to Russia!”

“NEED to? Why?”

“Because you are our ticket out of Hell!” the younger uncle pleaded, “We can’t stand there anymore! So painful, you can’t even imagine!”

“What??? You are in Hell? Why??” I always thought of my uncles as good people, not without flaws and weakness for alcohol but they definitely did not deserve to be in Hell.

“Can’t tell you. We just need you to come with us… that is, with them. Putin has pulled some strings with our boss for a 2-for-1 deal, and we must bring you in. Or we’ll stay in Hell forever.”

“I can’t believe it! This is just freaking blackmail, a-la Supernatural!” I jumped to my feet and started to pace the elevator. I felt all their eyes following me. I finally stopped, “Listen, guys, I still love you all, no matter what. You are all blood, and we share a lot of history and great memories. BUT I cannot go back to Russia, even for you. Especially with Ilia, who is not even half-Russian and an American citizen.”

“We’ll make a good Russian out of him,” one of the cousins said. I didn’t doubt they’d try.

“I’m ba-a-a-ck! Brought my car around, can’t wait any longer! Time to go, chop-chop!” I hear Emily’s cheerful voice. She tried to push one of my uncles to clear her way and went straight through him. “Oops, didn’t realize you were dead, sorry!” she giggled, entering the elevator.

I’m grateful and incredulous at the same time, relieved to see her. “I thought you already left to get Ilia,” I said.

“Nope, just brought my car around. You really thought I’d leave you here alone?”

“Aren’t you afraid?” I whispered.

“Terrified!” Emily whispered back, smiling.

“Me too! Strange shit’s happening. Those two are dead, say I must save them. I can’t go out there, Emily!”

“I know! But I also know a secret!” Emily first slams on the ‘close door’ button and the elevator door shuts in front of my relatives. She then pushes another, invisible, button. The elevator shakes violently and opens the glass door on the opposite side. We tumble out onto the luxurious lawn of Emily’s building’s courtyard.

“C’mon, let’s go get Ilia!” Emily yells, grabs me by the arm and we run to her car…

I wake up. I’m indeed at Emily’s, in her new house in Ohio, happy to realize I’m not in that apocalyptic elevator. I must make a disclaimer: I don’t know where my cousins stand on Russian invasion of Ukraine. We don’t talk about the war, I suspect mostly because everyone is afraid to be disappointed or to start verbal fights. Sometimes I think it’s good that my grandfather and my two favorite uncles didn’t live to see these dark days. With many of my relatives, I have not talked since the invasion, but they all know I was always fiercely anti-Putin. As the war is going on now for almost three months, I become hyper-aware of what it means to be Russian today. As my son says, I’m becoming a RINO – "Russian In Name Only." Many of the points and counter-points of this nightmare’s conversation come from my self-reflection and real interactions with pro-Putin trolls on social media. This entire dream must be the pain of my subconsciousness, especially when it comes to rescinding my Russian citizenship and sorting out my identity. I probably need to finally have that DNA test done and learn Ukrainian.

My other stories in the (post)Apocalypse series:

Taiga Encounters

Dead Woman Walking

Mirror