A Most Professional Specialist

(Signs of the Times is a work of fiction based on true events. Views expressed are the characters’ own. Viewer discretion is advised.)

Ivan saw the post as scrolled through Facebook. He saw it again painted on a billboard later that day when he walked with his wife, Iryna, through Moscow.

“Highly professional specialists are needed. Highly professional specialists are needed. Highly professional specialists are needed,” the sign said.

His wife turned to him.

“Don’t you think Kat would be good for this?” she asked. Ivan stopped walking. He straightened the corners of his mustache. He reached for his wife’s hands.

“Is she a professional specialist?”

“Of course she is,” Iryna said. “She’d do well.”

Dinner was quiet that night. Ivan, Iryna, and their daughter Kat sat around the oak table in their apartment.

Kat had dyed purple hair. She wore a beanie regardless of the temperature inside or outside. Her nails were painted black. She did not wear makeup. She spent her days playing video games. The week before, she built her father a new computer from salvaged and black-market parts.

They ate pelmeni with dill sour cream. The metal utensils clinked against the dishware, accentuating the silence. Flecks of white hung to the tips of Ivan’s beard hairs.

“The mission in Ukraine seems well,” Iryna said.

Ivan had just taken a spoonful of the dumplings into his mouth. He chewed with his mouth open.

“Yes,” he said. “A great opportunity to start a career.”

He looked his daughter Kat in the eyes.

“Perhaps,” she said.

“Yes,” Iryna chimed in. She took a sip of water to clear her throat. “It is good. They need highly professional specialists.”

“What does that mean?” asked Kat.

“Exactly what it says,” said Ivan.

Ivan and Iryna continued eating. Kat looked around the apartment. The bare walls. A few medals from her father’s service in Georgia hung on the wall.

“I thought you didn’t want that for me,” Kat said.

Ivan prodded the last pelmen on his plate.

“Times change, Kat. We must change, too.”

Weeks later, Kat became a highly professional technical specialist. She didn’t know what that truly meant. She was given a gun. Told to call in coordinates for thermobaric rockets. She never knew her face could feel so hot without catching fire. That she could not feel anything at all. After all the rockets. Nothing. Just like her father.