Write

When I got the envelope in the mail, I DID NOT expect that there would be THAT inside of it. I expected a frilly Christmas card with puppies wearing jingle bells on their collars; because that's just what Uncle Menken sent. I suppose he thought they were cute. However, I was wrong. I slit the top of the envelope and a huge square of paper, folded many times over, slid onto the table. Definitely not puppies with jingle bells. I unfolded the crumbly, yellowed paper and looked at the image sketched upon it. I knew that shape. I knew that shape very well. It was the Moscow Kremlin; the most beautiful Russian landmark ever to be seen. It was the subject of my thesis, for my PhD in architecture; how they could have possibly created such a masterpiece way back when. But, what really caught my eye was the old writing, in the Russian alphabet, along the bottom and sides, each end marked with a ten pointed star. The hand was spidery and sharp, swooping and curving. It was as much art as the drawing was. Now, being half-Russian, and the favourite nephew of Uncle Menken (Hence the christmas card puppies) I could translate this artful jibberish. As I read it, my headache just got worse and worse...