The Continuing Saga of My Russian Bot and Me
with bots like these
by Joe Váradi
Been three years now.
Three long years, since our falling out.
Things haven’t been the same ever since, between my Russian bot and me.
The memories still linger.
Of the hours we spent rummaging through the bowels of old world stores on Brighton Beach Avenue, hunting for the perfect samovar. Of the polar bear plunges we took into the icy waters off Coney Island, on Sundays in the middle of January.
I would paddle ferociously for warmth, and occasionally use him as a flotation device.
“You would not last for minute in waters of Murmansk, zat is for sure,” he would taunt me playfully, and then shoot arcs of gelid seawater into the air for added effect.
“It must have been a wonderful place to grow up, Arby,” I say later, back on dry land, bundled up in three layers of towels, my teeth still rattling.
I already told you about his rapid and shocking transformation, back in 2016. It still sounds crazy to hear myself say it, but it was as if his personality had been rewired overnight.
Then, he disappeared without warning in November of that year, shortly after the election.
