Greetings, fellow travellers on this spinning orb of madness. Your bespectacled correspondent, Barnaby ‘Biff’ Thistlethwaite, here, filing from a dimly lit corner of a London pub where the only thing more bitter than the pickled eggs is my disposition. I’ve just received word that Moscow is experiencing a rather unusual weather event: a drizzle of what can only be described as petrochemical perspiration. Yes, from the heavens above the Kremlin, a black rain is falling. And British intelligence, bless their cotton socks and clipboards, are assessing the fallout. Well, I’ll save them the trouble: the fallout is that Vladimir Putin is going to need a lot more than an umbrella; he’ll need a full Hazmat suit and possibly a priest.
Let us set the scene. Ukraine, that plucky underdog with a penchant for agricultural exports and surprise offensives, has reportedly struck Russia’s largest oil refinery. Not just a love tap, mind you, but a full-blown, romantic, heart-on-sleeve punch that sent a plume of apocalyptic particulates drifting towards the motherland’s capital. Now, before we get all teary-eyed for the poor Moscowites, remember that this is a city that has weathered Napoleon, Hitler, and the Moscow Metro during rush hour. But a black rain? That’s a new one even for the annals of Russian suffering.
According to my sources (a man named Dave who claims to have a cousin in MI6 and a bottle of Gordon’s gin), the strike was so precise and devastating that the ensuing fire created a monstrous column of smoke that, when mixed with the local cloud cover, began to weep oil. Imagine if the sky suddenly decided to imitate the floor of a garage forecourt. That is Moscow today. The streets are slick with a viscous, oily substance that smells of regret and diesel. Traffic has ground to a halt, and not just because of the usual Muscovite driving style. Now, people are sliding into lampposts with a sense of grim inevitability.
British intelligence, of course, are doing what they do best: analysing the situation with the enthusiasm of a librarian at a rave. They have confirmed that the number of angry phone calls from the Kremlin has increased by 400 percent, and that President Putin’s official spokesman has used the word “unprecedented” seventeen times in the last hour. But what does this mean for the grand chessboard of geopolitics? Well, in simple terms, it means that the Ukraine conflict has taken a rather Dickensian turn: it was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and now it’s raining oil.
One cannot help but admire the sheer audacity. Ukraine, a nation that has been pummelled and battered, has decided to fight back with a weapon more powerful than any tank: environmental guerrilla warfare. They have made the Russian sky their own personal dirty protest. And the Kremlin’s response? They are, predictably, calling it a terrorist act. But let’s be honest: when you are being bombed in your own heartland, and the sky is crying black tears, you might want to reconsider the definition of terrorism. Perhaps it’s just karma, delivered by drone.
As I sit here, nursing my gin and contemplating the ridiculousness of it all, I am reminded of a quote from the great poet Lord Byron: “Tis pleasant, sure, to see one’s name in print; a book’s a book, although there’s nothing in’t.” But here we have not a book, but a story of black rain, a story that writes itself. The headlines tomorrow will be a carnival of alliteration and horror. And I, dear reader, will be here to report it, with a heavy liver and a lighter heart.
So raise a glass, if you will, to the brave Ukrainians who have managed to make the Kremlin cry. And to the people of Moscow, who now have to scrub their cars and souls free of this oily stain. Perhaps this will be the push the Russian people need to question their leader’s wisdom. Or perhaps they’ll just blame the West and buy more umbrellas. Whatever the outcome, one thing is clear: the world has become a stage for a farce that William Shakespeare would have rejected for being too implausible.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with a bottle of cheap wine and a sense of profound existential dread. This is Biff, signing off from the edge of reason. Keep your chins up and your hats on. You never know when it might start raining crude.
