Soviet cigarettes

Youth is self-confident, bold and susceptible

to strange actions. Only in her power will a person decide on the strangest, sometimes crazy decisions. How the USA sometimes wants her to turn his head again, poison his heart and pump poison through his veins.

His youth must have appeared before

him in the guise of the USSR. USA looks at the outstretched cigarette, looks into blue eyes that should be cold as ice, and takes the desired dose of nicotine from warm hands. The first one smiles friendly at this. Not the way an enemy should bare his teeth.

The USSR is still young and inexperienced.

Usually the USA takes advantage of this and creeps into trust, charms, without being imbued with any feelings (“Nothing personal,” he repeats, watching other people’s tears). But he did it first. Whether on purpose or not, he definitely caught the attention of the USA.

Just help a stranger, even a different

country, even an ideological enemy. Why not? That’s what the Union did, and that’s what the USA did.

They smoke silently and think about

their own things. It’s simply unusual for the United States to feel someone so close, to know that someone is standing and breathing and moving next to them. What the USSR is thinking about, it does not know and has not the slightest idea.

But in the end, they have a common enemy.

Germany is gaining strength and pursuing an aggressive policy. Therefore, as the United States thinks, there is nothing wrong with a temporary rapprochement. ***

Small smoke breaks become more frequent.

They grow like poisonous plants, entwine the brain and interfere with life.

USA comes to a small forgotten

smoking room every time in the last minutes of lunch. He looks at Union, unusually relaxed. He always comes a little earlier, apparently waiting for him - a sweet thought that leaves a strange aftertaste.

The USSR at work and here are

completely different creatures. He has already gained experience, skinned himself to blood and remembered unacceptable, fatal mistakes. One of them is don’t trust the enemy.

There, somewhere in a distant universe,

the USSR is cold and impudent. He has an eternally gloomy face and small scars on his body from wars.

Here, among the fallen bulls and debris,

he is real. With laughing warm eyes, an open soul and an open chest, where the same poisoned heart beats. Looking at this, the United States inhales the bitterness of tobacco more deeply and involuntarily relaxes.

“Soviet cigarettes are just too good,”

the USA repeats to himself. And he really wants to believe it. ***

When smoking breaks turn into long

conversations about everything, he doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know. After all, these are just too interesting conversations, just a barely noticeable warming smile of the USSR that makes head spin.

“Only an enemy,” he repeats,

“only a colleague, only an interesting interlocutor.”

That is why, when the USSR suggests:

“Shall we go for a drink?”, USA behaves like some kind of teenager.

The noise, the foggy haze of alcohol,

the light laughter of the USSR are imprinted on the subcortex of consciousness and are not knocked out by work. ***

“You hang around the USSR too often,”

his mind often said. But when Great Britain, stern and unyielding, says this, he wants to lie (as usual) and run away. This is, in fact, what he does. However, it doesn't end there. France, Canada, England and the rest of his political allies continue their attack. Constant annoying, boring questions, sideways contemptuous glances, whispers behind your back drive your already frayed brains crazy.

USA himself has already begun to be

afraid of both the USSR and his attitude towards him. The desire to make you smile, touch and discuss some nonsense with someone who can (“And ready,” he constantly adds) blows you to hell is disgusting. Although it warms the heart.

The USSR apparently thinks the same.

His smile fades, dims with every meeting. Jokes are heard less and less often, and empty but funny conversations are eaten away by silence.

The light of a cigarette burns out in

silence as the United States sees its USSR for the last time. There is an alarming pressure in his chest, but he, as always, successfully ignores it. USA nods and leaves, trying not to look back. The heart sounds like it’s racing, and from behind someone else’s gaze seems to burn a bloody hole in the body. He strongly hoped later, already in deep dreams and half-sleep, that it was not his imagination. The next day, USA sees the USSR again. He glances at him fleetingly with cold eyes, and then turns away to the blossoming DPRK. Something freezes in chest and stops. ***

He should probably finally relax,

because the USSR is dying. There will be no more sleepless nights, from which ridiculous and unnecessary thoughts stop creeping into your head. The dull pain in the chest due to the inevitable cold morning after dreamy fairy-tale dreams about the past will disappear. But USA does not want to lose any dreams, no pain, no USSR, and especially this dull feeling in the heart.

Someone say you can't breathe before you die.

The USSR is probably now missing every breath of air, every moment and every memory. So the USA frantically searches in memory for a look, warm and familiar, for touches, rough fingers, smell. Pieces of his Union emerge, but they just don’t want to come together. The USA comes to the smoking room. Because he's tired, need a dose of nicotine, and because he need to at least say goodbye. “If he’s not there,” he decides, “I won’t look for him any further. I’ll just forget.”

The USSR brings a cigarette to his lips

with slightly trembling hands. Bags under his eyes, sunken cheeks, pale skin - everything puts in a stupor. He turns around sharply as USA enters. But, having found out, he does not relax. Slightly narrowed eyes, furrowed eyebrows and undisguised hostility. Before him stands a loyal rival, an experienced enemy, a quick death. His Union died there when the USA turned around and left - this realization knocks down.

For a minute he doesn't know what to do.

He stands in confused feelings, and it seems as if he was shot in the heart and then suddenly torn out with bloody flesh. “Sorry,” he croaks, and then stands up and does what he should have done a long time ago. A light touch on the lips, a feeling of tobacco and bitterness, dumbfounded cold eyes. USA escapes.

The next morning, his heart skips a

beat, and then bitterness pumps through his veins - the USSR is dead. For the rest of his life, the taste of tobacco on his lips remains with him. It is no longer possible to forget.