I don’t know what got me thinking about this the other day but, do you ever wonder what certain people do when they are not doing what they’re more or less known for doing? There is this picture in my mind of Queen Elizabeth playing in a Scrabble competition with a cold bottle of Guinness in her hand waiting for her turn where she’s gonna lay down her tiles, spelling out the name of the national bird of Guatemala thereby bringing her in almost four hundred points. Oh, by the way, the bird’s name is Quetzal and she was even able to make it plural. Way to go Queen!!!
In our Survivalist series – this is what actually got me thinking along these lines – I can see General Ishmael Varakov, Supreme Commander of the North American Army of Occupation of the Soviet, a large, rather intimidating old soldier who many times controlled the lives and the deaths of those under him. Slowly he is lowering his great bulk onto the floor of his open office located in the Chicago’s Field Museum, playing with a kitten with his beloved Catherine by his side.
Along the same path, I could see Natalia’s ex-husband, KGB Major Vladmir Karamatsov, playing with that same kitten, a pretty ribbon around its neck being pulled ever so slowly, tighter and tighter, watching the little creature fight back until too exhausted, and then listening to its pathetic little mews as it slowly dies. I guess I can’t imagine Karamatsov in any other type of universe. Natalia, on the other hand, would put up her guns and Bali-Song knife and enroll in cooking classes and learn how to make pottery; maybe she would take a tumble at square dancing. Don’t worry though; she would still have her COP pistol tucked in her boot.
Fanny Mulrooney from The Takers would have liked to do something ordinary beside chasing zombies and devil worshipers and listening to grave site recordings but she’s too busy tracking down her other lipstick lost in the bowels of her oversized black handbag.
Hank Frost from The Call Me the Mercenary would be taking his girl, Bess, out for dinner and dancing except one of his good, size 12 D Florsheim shoes got chewed up by the wood chipper the bad guys were throwing him into before he was able to get away by running through the swamp. I won’t tell you what happened to his other shoe except that the alligator mistook it for its baby brother.
All kidding aside, what would you be doing in your alternate universe? Would the real you come to the surface or are you what you want to be, even in your fantasies? Does a seafarer dream of sailing among the stars? Do adventure writers grow up to be cowboys?
Sharon
