What a Fool/One More Sacrifice
Ten years you've been managing the power station that straddles this dammed river. This damned river, even. It has certainly claimed enough souls.
You remember when it started. The promise of electricity on the Dnieper. Revolutionary power, to feed the people and fuel the industry of a revolutionary nation. So claimed the crews coming in with bright eyed and voices raised in cheer, as they set about their work.
What fools they all were.
Oh, the dam were built, yes. You can still hear the screams of falling men. The sight of corpses, washing down cold water. How Alexander took up the drink to keep it off his mind, back when he was still around.
You had your own poison. At least when it was done their sacrifices would not be in vain, you told yourself. The power flowed, the result truly did improve the lives of your fellow men. Sure, it never quite worked to capacity, but it was surely better than what came before, and you knew that Lenin's grand electrification would do so much for you and your countrymen. If the numbers needed to be fudged a little to make it all work, well, it was close enough.
What a fool you were.
You remember when the Party men came with the new heaters. Their bold proclamations of how the lack of coal would make the air so cleaner. Never again needing to pay for coal. How you brought your dear mother to this place, showed her its wonders, and how it and the results of their schemes would help the cough; for a time, it all seemed so perfect you could almost forget it all.
You remember hearing how she died of the cold, sacrificed so that lights in a factory in Smolensk could stay on. Never mind that they went out too anyways, just a moment later. If they had just built it properly, she never would have died.
Alexander couldn't keep his mouth shut after that. Told the Party man about the incident, the lies and lost lives because someone decided to skimp.
What a fool he was.
They could never allow the first works of the great Sergo to be so besmirched. So he was Sacrificed for the Great Builder and for ULAG. For a time you'd thought he might be too valuable an worker to just throw away, but in the end it got him anyways.
Knowing all this, of course you glare at the man from the VSNK as he comes into your office. He seems harried by something. Perhaps his boss has been looking for another body to place on the wall so he can shore up his position.
Nevertheless, you give him the reports. Years of beaten caution keep you telling the bosses what they want to hear; He reads them carefully and calls you a liar.
Well, if this is to be your death as a wrecker then so be it. Ten years too late, spite finally overrules caution. You'll take his place on the wall for this, but you refuse to die like a coward to the end. You tell him of the lives this machine has cost. Of the countless dead who fell from the walls into the river. Of the lives lost in power failure. Of those who tried to speak out and were silenced.
And...
He's horrified. Of all the absurdities. As though he and his could ever be truly ignorant of the monster they made. Even so, and with such earnest fervor in his voice, he promises you, the Party will fix all this. Set it right.
In the end, you stare at him at he goes, all the anger and spite washed out of you. One more sacrifice to the Party, to the VSNK, to the dam, walks out of your office.
What a fool he is.
