Excerpt: Cabbage Rose

Prelude: "Walking briskly through the corridors of the Octagon Compound (affectionately known as the world’s largest stop sign) Sophie Morass shifted the pile of papers she had from one hand to the other – "

Story: “Dixon? You’re joking right, please tell me you’re joking. I have filed and just done about every silly little task you’ve asked me to since I’ve started and don’t get me wrong – I’m proud to serve my country but going to Russia? Are you kidding me? It’s nothing but cold stewed cabbages and beets! Look at John boy over there, he’s practically reeking of cabbage stew right now!” Sophie thrust an indignant small finger at the large block of a man’s direction.

He actually had a started expression on his face which grew in a split second to a rueful smile which he completely masked again with a neutral expression.

“Soup on the plane, some of it spilled on me.”

“Borscht?” asked the Secretary General, interestingly.

“Cabbage and Leek in some kind of broth; surprisingly tasty though the stewardess spilled it on my seat when there was the in-flight figh—altercation.” Everyone looked surprisingly at John but he clammed up and looked surprised at his revealing too much.

“Actually darling, we’re not joking. This is plenty serious. Dixon will be accompanying you – while I will stay behind to do a routine cleanup of the Octagon compound –if worse comes to worse, we’re going to have to do complete cleanup and downsize of the compound….that’s not going to be very good of course.”

“Downsize?” Sophie’s eyes grew as big as saucers, “You don’t mean that do you? I’ve seen the plans for the downsizing of the Octagon – that’s taking away three levels – how can you do that? Besides, who wants to be called the Pentagon? That’s just demonic. I prefer our stop sign.” Sophie grew pensive for the moment to realize that she was becoming unnecessarily maudlin over a building.