The plough girl - part nine
By Diana the Valkyrie
Olga and the Monstrous Regiment of Women

Olga

What with the coconut stunts and the plough dance, I was raking it
in.  A thousand dollars in a shift, was not unusual. I was putting
it into the bank, so that when we kick the Russians out, when I
return to Novovysoke, we can get the village up and running again.

Or will we? So much time has passed now. And where are the villagers?
I escaped to the USA, but where are the others? I have to keep
hoping.  It's great here in the USA, but I miss my old life.

I was really enjoying my plough dance, and so was the audience. By
now, they knew that the plough was 600 pounds of steel, and there
was always a "wow" the first time I lifted it.

The dance attracted media attention, and I got invited on a TV show.
I did the dance, and then I was interviewed. They asked me about my
background, and in particular "How come you can lift so much weight,
so easily?" So I explained about the training of a plough girl,
and then I had to explain "Why plough girls and not tractors?" And
then they put a tape measure around my right thigh and asked me
how I found pants to fit (I don't, I wear skirts).

Then they asked me if I was married (no) and whether I had a special
guy (no, I have several). The male presenter wondered about the risk
of having sex with someone who can crush a coconut, and I explained
to him that one of the first things we learn when we start having
sex, is how to be gentle, because men are so fragile.

Then they ambushed me with a frying pan. I was supposed to roll
it up.  They warned me that this was going to happen, and I said
it was OK, but they didn't bother to tell me that the pan wasn't
aluminium, which would be easy. It was thick cast iron. And the
problem with that, is that cast iron doesn't bend, it breaks. So
I applied force to the pan, and sure enough, it shattered into a
dozen pieces and flew like shrapnel all over the studio. "Oops, I
did it again" was the line I came up with, and the audience laughed.

"So can anyone become a plough girl like you?" "A few can, most
can't.  First, you have to really really want it, you have to be
willing to give up a lot to be able to pull a plough. And you have
to start at a really early age."

Eventually, the interview came to an end, and the camera did a
close-up of my right thigh, and on came their next guest, a guy
who was restoring an old car.

Next day at the Golden Shower, I found that I was a bit of a
celebrity.  Apparently, being on TV had validated me somehow. People
came up to me to congratulate me (for what?).

And then Trudi turned up. I immediately recognised a plough girl,
and she wanted to talk to me. Where I'd taken refuge in the USA,
Trudi had gone to Germany. We went into the break room, and she
explained why she's crossed the Atlantic to see me.

"I want to go back to Ukraine," she said. "As do we all," I replied.
"Now," she said. "To join in the fight," she said, "we can't let
the guys do it all. We plough girls have a part to play."

She was proposing that we form "A monstrous regiment of women",
consisting of plough girls. We'd go behind the lines, and decapitate
the Russian army, by killing their senior officers. Kill the head,
and the snake dies.

"I tried that," I said, "before I left, I got fourteen of
them." "Soldiers," said Trudi. "We need to kill the officers, the
guys who tell the soldiers what to do, not the guys who do what
they're told." I could see her point. "And we need you to lead us."

"Me? Why me?" I asked. "I'm just a dancer." "No, you're an
inspiration.  You've come thousands of miles, and you still
have your plough. I had to leave mine." "You left your plough?" I
asked. "I had to," she said.  "We got out by aeroplane, and there's
a weight limit. It was either my plough, or five villagers. Hobson's
choice, really. I buried it deep in the forest, and cried as I said
goodbye. But you still have your plough."

"You know, that gold plough I dance with on stage, isn't my
real plough?"  "Yes, but so what? You still have your real
plough." I nodded, "Yes."  "You're going to be our inspiration,"
she said. "We're going back to Ukraine, and this time we're going
to send the Russians back where they came from."

This sounded good. "Sign me up," I said.

I told Mike about this, he said "You're crazy." I told Gary. "You're
insane" I told Jim. "You've lost your marbles." Everyone said the
same thing.  Why would I give up a safe, well-paying dancer job,
to go thousands of miles to get myself killed.

It was hard to explain. Words like "patriotism" have been so
debased, they don't mean what they used to. Americans think they
have freedom, and have forgotten what the word means. So I tried to
explain. "I just want to be a plough girl. Just me and my plough,
peacefully carving furrows in the field. And that can't happen until
the Russians go. But I can't wait for the guys to handle this -
it's been six months, and they're still fighting. It's time for us
plough girls to get into the war."

"You've never even handled a gun," said Mike. "I wasn't planning
to use firearms," I explained. "Then what?" he asked. "Think about
coconuts. Think about Flascetto. Think about the damage that a
plough girl can do to the morale of men when they understand that any
woman they see might be one of the killers and emasculators. Mike,
I have to do this. I can't just stand by, and let other people
fight my fight."

He sighed. "And if you win? Then what." "No - when we win. Then
we can go back to life as it was before." Mike shook his head,
"No, you can't.  This will change you for ever. And you can't go
back to how things were."

"We'll see," I said. "First, we have to kick the Russians where it
hurts, then we can make our country what we want it to be."

I cleared up a few loose ends, and booked passage to Hamburg. I
didn't take an aeroplane, because the weight penalty for my
plough was horrendous, so I took the Queen Mary 2. It was a ten
day cruise, and almost everyone on board was looking for nookie,
so I was expecting ten days of pussycatting.  It was like a giant
floating bordello. I shouldered my plough and claimed that it was
hand luggage, so I got it on for free.  Of course, it triggered
the metal detector, but it obviously wasn't a gun, so they let
it through. And one of the staff had recognised me from the TV
appearance, and asked for an encore, so I did a few steps of my
plough dance for her.

The staff on board the QM2 also recognised me, and asked if I'd
give them a rendering of my dance in the ship's theatre. Flattered,
I agreed, but I'd do it on evening one, to get it out of the way.

The promoted it heavily, and the theatre was packed that evening.
The MC announced "Olga, the plough girl, and her plough dance."
The ship's orchestra started playing the "Knight's dance", and I
came slowly on stage, the spotlights picking out my gold lam� dress,
then splitting to show both me, and my old plough.

The whole dance took about three minutes, and at the end, the
audience went wild, and called for an encore. So I did the overhead
lift and twirl again. The MC came back and told the audience,
"That's six hundred pounds of hard steel, being tossed around by
225 pounds of plough girl."






Read the full story at http://www.amysconquest.com