ADVENTURE JOURNEY EPISODES
by Jeremy Russell
Photo by Alexander Rist

Episode 8: Brisbane, Australia, Summer 2006
This is one episode in a developing story. Links to PRECEDING EPISODES at bottom.

By 2 a.m. Giselle had retreated into a dark corner of a grubby internet cafe where about fifty pimply teenagers were huddling over consoles playing MMORPGs. The room looked like a sweat shop and smelled like a high school boys’ locker room, but Giselle stayed focused on her work.

"Kolya grabbed the back of his head with both hands and crushed his forearms over his ears in a desperate attempt to block out the screaming," she typed. "The next day Koly's partner, Ivan, would be found dead with his head between his bent knees and his hands tied to his ankles, a KGB torture position known as the ‘konvertik’ (the envelope). But for now he was alive, and each time the mop handle struck with a sound like an old woman beating dust out of a carpet, he gave another cry followed by another pitiful sob."

Suddenly the Giselle’s IM program dinged and a message flashed in an orange box at the lower left of the monitor.

siberiaguide: awake so late? giselle151: still working on the story siberiaguide: my story? giselle151: your story siberiaguide: I let you go siberiaguide: but first to tell I arrived Sydney hotel giselle151: okay, thanks, I'll call in the morning

Giselle returned her attention to the open text document. She fumbled in her mind for the right words, then typed: "A few days later, drinking tea with his grandmother in the kitchen of their humble Moscow flat, he admitted, without so much as hinting at his harrowing ordeal, that studying English in London wouldn't be such a bad alternative, after all.' "