Agency Side

Mari looked at the flames licking the sides of the steel trash can. Her employees huddled together in the cold around the fire. She turned to see one of the writers, Anna, on her phone. Her face was illuminated in blue. The sound of jets echoed through the opening of the subway tunnel. 

“What are you doing?” Mari said.

“Checking the news. Why?

“What’s it say?”

“Irpin is liberated. Putin’s leadership in question. American idiots are eating up Russian propaganda.”

“What happened in Irpin?”

Silence fell over the group as Anna scrolled through her phone. Mari stared hard into Anna’s eyes, trying to read the news off the reflection on Anna’s watery corneas. 

“Did you know someone in Irpin?” Anna asked.

“We all know someone in Irpin.”

“Right.”

The other employees went back to staring at the fire. It was just another Wednesday in downtown Kyiv. Mari was young, a self-starter who stumbled into some money. And, instead of throwing it in a bank, she built an ad agency. From the ground. She built the agency at the height of the Maidan Revolution. Her first client was herself. Day and night she pushed herself to create the best pro-democracy propaganda. She passed out leaflets at soup kitchens, at protests. She tagged buildings with stencils and spray paint. 

When activists started asking where it came from, Mari waited til the revolution had rolled on and the kidnappings stopped. Then she took credit. And her agency was born: Propaganda Inc. 

But somehow, in the subway of Kyiv, she couldn’t bring herself to do it all again. The office had been bombed. Electricity was spotty. Her employees were fleeing. But Mari had nowhere to go. 

She offered hazard pay to anyone who would stick around. She said they’d work on breaking the invaders’ morale. There were only 5 of her 47 employees who signed on. Those were the employees who followed Mari into the subway, into the darkness with oil-drum bonfires and silently crying mothers and their numb children. 

“What if we just tell stories?”

“What do you mean?” asked Anna.

“What does it say about Irpin?”

“No details.”

“Just that the Russians are gone?”

“Yes.”

“Tell that story.”

“Based on what?”

“Based on getting the fuck out of here.”

Anna looked up from her phone. She reached into her pocket and procured a wrinkled pack of cigarettes. She opened up Twitter. She began telling the true story of Irpin.