[The grim tragicomic saga of 200 goes on. I have skipped forward again a bit at this point and will post Sections 12 to 15 at a later stage.]

One night

in Washington and Kseniya and Zhenya are whisked off

to a clandestine STD and early abortion clinic

and onto a bus.

Kseniya stops off at a gun show on the way

to buy a pink high-velocity automatic rifle,

a kick-ass pistol and fistfuls of ammunition

and another morning-after pill. She gives the change

to a pro-life protester demonstrating outside,

and poses lewdly like Wonder Woman

for other tourists on the coach.

“Look at me. All American, gun-totin’

girl,” she dances, as Zhenya sleeps

off last night’s speed balls and gin,

dribble drooling down over her snoring chin,

missing the desert landscape

of fields ravaged by pesticides

and heavy metal tumbling by.

*

Half-way through the desert, the guy

stuck in a seat next to Zhenya is worried

by her shallow breathing and the way she

is slumped over him chucking up

white baby-vomit over his business suit.

“I didn’t pay for this,” he complains.

Driver pulls into the nearest town

and Zhenya is stretchered off into Medicare.

*

Other passengers stomp angrily around.

“She gets this free, does she?” some meathead barks

“while I pay God knows what every month to my HMO.”

Driver is on the cell to his controller who is worried about legal liability should he just drive on.

Other passengers are complaining and threatening to sue.

Kseniya jogs alongside Zhenya like a security detail as she is wheeled swiftly on a gurney through the overcrowded hospital wards. Nurse pulls an eyelid back and seeing the state of Zhenya’s pupils exclaims “Jesus Christ” and plunges a syringeful of naloxone into her arm. Zhenya starts to revive.

In the rush, Kseniya has left her newly-purchased firearms on the back seat of the bus, like Christmas presents around a tree.

“Should these be left lying here?” someone inquires.

Driver trundles back up to have look. But one passenger has already picked the pink loaded rifle up and is taking aim, finger trembling on the trigger.

“Drive on,” he demands “I gotta a job interview tomorrow in Tucson I can’t miss.”

Driver has a direct line to law-enforcement in his ear and gets the call in before he is shot.

The SWAT team turns up swift as a gang of ninjas. They appear calm on the walkie-talkie negotiation channel but a sudden scare spooks them and, in an instant, their panicked bullets riddle the bus. The gas tank goes up like a bonfire into the dry nocturnal air.

*

Zhenya is wheeled into the overworked doctor’s office in mid of night.

“She needs her meds,” Kseniya says and they are duly prescribed.

Zhenya spends the rest of the night in a chair staring

into space hooked up to a tube.

“Where’s the bus?” they wonder when they finally get outside.

A smoky gasoline-tinged smell taints the early-morning air.

Zhenya hangs around the doctor’s car, waiting for him to get off

work. “You want drugs?” he asks. “No. Just a ride to Vegas.”

“There’s a thank you fuck from both of us in it for you,” Kseniya smiles

as they fill the car up with gas. Doc is secretly scared

but aroused by these two Russian girls.

“You were off that coach that blew up?” he asks.

“Nothing to do with us,” Kseniya moons into his eyes

drifting off the freeway into hers. “All you Americans crazy,”

she adds. “I kinda like that.” Zhenya groans on the back seat

and pops another pill. “Hell! She shouldn’t be doing that,”

Doc turns round and exclaims, almost swerving off

into oncoming traffic. “Just chill, baby!”

Kseniya coos, laying down her face

in his lap. “Just drive on. Do no harm.”