When Evgeni Nabokov made it to what was thinly described as the "Recruitment Area" of Trotsky, it was clear that things were less than hospitable to, well, anyone not wearing SCRA insignia already.
Nabokov thought nothing of the stern guards posted at 15 meter intervals along the hallways... he thought nothing of their fingers touching their gun triggers, nothing of their steely eyes following him at all times. Worst of all, perhaps, he thought nothing of their pure sense of disdain and disregard that emanated from all sides.
He traversed the narrow hallway as he sought the recruitment office. Looking up, Nabokov was taken aback by the sheer numbers of mean faces confronting him. Sadly, it was nothing new to the young man who bore distinctly slavic features. For a boy growing up on Berlin, it was his curse.
~ Get out of here, freak!
Na-bokov, named like a jack-off!
No squinty eyes allowed!
~
The teases from his youth actually hurt a lot less than the dozens of job rejections and social snubs he received later in life. Nabokov always looked to life after his schooling as a new start -- a fresh page to make it on his own, through his own efforts... but the disappointment came quickly to Nabokov. He was a misplaced soul.
As he snapped out of his less-than-nostalgic memories, he finally noticed a door with a simple sign: "Recruiting"
With a degree of conviction and a helping of desperation, he opened the door to find an even more inhospitable scene. A grim looking secretary glared from the corner of the room, and a man who appeared to be recently beaten stared with dire intent: he motioned for Nabokov to move out of the doorway.
As Nabokov shuffled to the side, he cleared his throat.
"Uh, I'm here to enlist?" he managed a feeble statement.
The secretary, fixated on the weakness shown by the young man, raised a weapon and fired away: "WHAT?"
After a paralyzing few moments, Evgeni Nabokov raised his tattered courage to the surface to state with conviction:
"I'm here to enlist."
"There's a wait. Sit. Down."
"Yes ma'am!" He thought but could not manage to verbalize. Instead, he simply sat as still as he could.
![[Image: usicopy.png]](http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/8890/usicopy.png)