[Lights up on two men striking heroic poses on either side of the bare stage, facing each other.]

LEFT: I am Lenin! See me topple the Provisional Government of Alexander Kerensky during the October Revolution!

RIGHT: I am Khrushchev! I am taking off my shoe and banging it on the desk. I am stationing nuclear missiles in Cuba.

[They take one step closer to each other.]

LEFT: I am Trotsky. I am being expelled from the Party in 1924. [He hangs his head in shame.]

RIGHT: I am the N-1 moon rocket! I am dogged by behind-the-scenes power struggles between rocket designers Korolev, Glushko, and Chelomei. Watch as I explode at launch.

[They take another step closer.]

LEFT: I am your launch pad. I am being destroyed. [He weeps.]

RIGHT: I am developing a severe axial roll after liftoff and breaking up. [He shrugs and grins sheepishly.]

[They take another step, now mere inches apart.]

LEFT: [angrily] I am Brezhnev! My administration is cancelling you.

RIGHT: [tormented] I am shame. I am loss. I am nothing. I am Boris Yeltsin.

[Lights out.]

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©2001 Luke Gutzwiller. I really mean it. Violation may result in the unwanted collapse of your state vector. Any similarity to real rockets living or dead is purely coincidental.