The Jewish Syndrome-3

The Confession of a "Terrorist"

Translated from the Russian

One delight is left to me:
Fingers in the mouth and a merry whistle.
Notorious fame has spread
That I'm a shameless scandalizer.

- Sergey Yesenin

The evening of February 8, 2002 was marked by a unusually nauseous dampness. Something between rain and snow dripped from the gray sky, turning upon contact with the ground into a dirty sucking ooze. Sharp gusts of wet February wind penetrated to the bones of those rare passers-by unfortunate enough to be caught in the gloom of the dark streets of Kharkov. All in all, it was memorable weather...

And only in one courtyard of one multi-storeyed building on Moscow Prospekt could an unusual liveliness be observed, which upon closer examination turned out to be an agitated commotion. A crowd of frightened men and women holding crying children shivered in the wind, illuminated by the headlamps of numerous ambulances, fire-trucks and police cars.

In the meanwhile, in one of the apartments of the evacuated stairwell whose residents were standing and freezing on the street a search was in progress. The owner of the "suspicious apartment" was me.

It all began like this: Around 7 p.m. there was a ring at the door. Strange, because I wasn't expecting guests. Standing at my door was a platoon, no less, of policemen in bulletproof vests.

"Citizen Hodos? We've received information there's a bomb in your apartment. Get dressed, take your documents and go out onto the street."

"Wait, what bomb? Where did you get your information?"

"Hurry up. We're going to seal off the stairwell. We're bringing the dogs in to search for explosives."

"OK. But only in the presence of my attorney. There's valuable artwork in the apartment which your dogs could damage by mistake..."

This was the "bomb" they were looking for.

The search began without the dogs' participation. Apparently it was decided not to disturb the canines in such miserable weather. There was far less concern about the apartment's owner, however: I was invited to personally help search for the "infernal machine". Carefully supervised by the bomb squad, I started opening drawers, closets, removing pictures from the walls... In a word, I played the role of minesweeper.

The "mine-clearing" finished without incident. And it couldn't have been otherwise, for the bomb which they were looking for (but fortunately didn't find) presented no danger to human life. That fact was well known to the masters of the "bloodhounds" whose keen sense of smell proved unneeded that evening.

But there was a bomb after all -- a delayed-action bomb. And I'm the one who planted it. I'm the terrorist who created it myself and named it "The Jewish Syndrome 2-1/2". In our day, this kind of "weapon of mass destruction" is the most effective ... and the most dangerous. Because the explosion it causes is in people's brains, blowing away the encrustation of years and years of "brainwashing", cleaning out the gray matter and forcing it into motion...

My task is to be a terrorist, and I've begun the latest round of the "arms race" by creating yet another "bomb" called "The Jewish Syndrome 3". The main thing is for it to go off before the "bomb clearers" have a chance to find it.

Eduard Hodos

Bold emphasis is the author's. Colored highlighting provided by oag.ru.

Table of Contents   Next