Here's the start to an alternate history story I've been working on. This is my first foray onto alternatehistory.com, so hopefully it's the right sort of story for this site.
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October 10, 1967
Arkhangelsk, Russia, USSR
“Triumph for Communism! Man walks on the Moon!” That was the headline. The man reading the paper knew it wasn’t supposed to be that way, but he didn’t seem to care. Neither did the children on the creaking swingset nearby. It was a cold morning. The occasional gust of wind sent dry leaves swirling through the drab courtyard.
The man shifted on the bench and turned the page. It was his own fault that he was here, one wrong guess and several days by train in the wrong direction. He would rather have seen Bondarenko’s historic launch in person, but it was too late, and now he was reading about it like everyone else.
A grainy black-and-white photograph of a rocket caught his eye. It was with an article on how the Soviet space program progressed through the years — the inevitable success of Marxist-Leninist science, of course. But it wasn’t the rocket in the picture that caught his eye; it was the two men standing next to it. “Von Braun and Korolev,” read the caption. And there they were, the inventor of the German V-2 rocket and the head of the Soviet space program, shaking hands.
The man smiled to himself; now he knew what was different. Just a few more jumps and he could set the marker. He stood up and walked away, leaving the paper on the bench, fluttering in the breeze. Time to catch a train.
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October 10, 1967
Arkhangelsk, Russia, USSR
“Triumph for Communism! Man walks on the Moon!” That was the headline. The man reading the paper knew it wasn’t supposed to be that way, but he didn’t seem to care. Neither did the children on the creaking swingset nearby. It was a cold morning. The occasional gust of wind sent dry leaves swirling through the drab courtyard.
The man shifted on the bench and turned the page. It was his own fault that he was here, one wrong guess and several days by train in the wrong direction. He would rather have seen Bondarenko’s historic launch in person, but it was too late, and now he was reading about it like everyone else.
A grainy black-and-white photograph of a rocket caught his eye. It was with an article on how the Soviet space program progressed through the years — the inevitable success of Marxist-Leninist science, of course. But it wasn’t the rocket in the picture that caught his eye; it was the two men standing next to it. “Von Braun and Korolev,” read the caption. And there they were, the inventor of the German V-2 rocket and the head of the Soviet space program, shaking hands.
The man smiled to himself; now he knew what was different. Just a few more jumps and he could set the marker. He stood up and walked away, leaving the paper on the bench, fluttering in the breeze. Time to catch a train.
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