Gifford

media type="custom" key="7618555"Vladimir

I don’t have many friends around here. In fact, I barely have friends at all, not since I was 16. It’s probably because of my past. I grew up in Moscow with my mother and older brother. My father was a general in the Red Army. He was always off in another country for some reason or another, so I can’t really say he lived with us. But one day, all that changed. On June 28, 1981, my father was betrayed. He had just failed a military operation and forced to retreat from Afghanistan for the sake of his men, due to poor political insight from the government. That was the first time he had ever failed his country in all 20 years of service and for some twisted reason, the government wanted to punish him for it, even though it was the government's fault. After all he had done for them, where was their sense of humanity? Is this how they thank him? Well, according to them, yes it was. They saw it fit to punish him with death, and that’s what they did. On June 28th, we received the news of his death and the screwed up excuse for why he died. The soldiers that told us said that he was a disgrace to our country, but I knew it was an excuse for their inhumanity. In a fit of rage, my brother Tokarev struck one of them on the face and my mother swore at him for their crimes. This however, was not a wise choice as both the soldiers had rifles. Those government pigs killed my only remaining family right in front of my eyes. But they would pay. I ran, grabbed an axe and waited by the doorway with my axe, ready to strike. I heard them coming so I swung and caught one in the chest, an instant death. I took his rifle and shot the other soldier 6 times in the head. This is for my family,I thought. After that, I walked from town to town for 30 days **all the way** to China. There I got on an airplane and ended up here. As I sat, sipping vodka in my apartment here in Cleveland, I noticed what seemed to be a garden in the vacant lot below. People were planting and harvesting fruits and vegetables and flowers and I thought to myself, I don’t have many friends here and if I started a potato patch down there, I bet I could meet some people. Sure enough, there was plenty of empty space to plant a potato patch. Right then and there, I decided to go and buy some potato seedlings from the market. However, it was very hard to talk to people, for no one was speaking my language. I couldn’t resist speaking Russian. That was the only language I knew how to speak. Many people saw the symbol on my fur hat and thought that I was one of the Soviets.They moved away from me. After I had gotten the seeds along with a rake and shovel, I immediately went home and ripped the emblem off my hat, just to show that I was not one of those communist pigs. I then went out into the garden, found a spot, and used my shovel to dig up some soil. I planted the seeds, watered them, put the dirt back on top and then watered that dirt so that they would get as much water as they needed. I then put some rope around my area just to make sure that some idiot wouldn't plant something else there by mistake. Days grew into weeks and weeks grew into months as I watched my potatoes grow. When the potatoes became big and ready to harvest, some started disappearing. I knew someone had stolen them, so I made a sort of booby trap around my garden by putting leaves and sticks over a trench that I dug around the perimeter. My father had taught me this just in case I would grow up to be a soldier just like him. The very next day, when I came to harvest my potatoes, I found a man just about my age, black and fairly muscular, trapped in the trench. I scolded him and told him not to steal my potatoes, and then I asked him his name. He said his name was Royce and that his father had kicked him out of the house and that he needed somewhere to eat and sleep. I personally felt bad about yelling at him, so I gave him some seeds and a shovel to go and plant a new area. I also gave him some potatoes. So in the end, I felt better about myself because I had actually made a new friend, and, for just that little moment, I began to forget about my bloodstained past and move on.