Photography - 501 Words

Not great, but an attempt at a historical drama piece:

SNAPSHOT IN TIME

(MOSCOW, 31ST NOVEMBER 1934. COURT SESSION IS JUST ABOUT TO START. MR. KONRAD IS SAT IN THE DOCKS ON TRIAL.)

VLADIMIR: You know what needs to be done?
KONRAD: You say it as if I have a choice...
VLADIMIR: Oh you do, just choose the wrong one and your whole family will suffer and not you. Understood?

(KONRAD NODS. AS HE DOES VLADIMIR WALKS OFF STAGE LEAVING KONRAD ON HIS OWN)

JUDGE: Will the defendant please rise.

(KONRAD STANDS)

JUDGE: Please declare the sworn oath of the right honourable Communist Party
KONRAD: I declare, that I shall speak the truth for the good of this court, for the great leader Stalin, for the communist Party and for the sake of the motherland.
JUDGE: Mr Sergei Konrad, you stand in front of the court accused of plotting to overthrow the government from your position of authority as part of the the Politburo. Do you plead guilty or not guilty?

(LIGHTS FOCUS ON KONRAD)

KONRAD: They give me options, but they know that there's only one thing I can do. This was never meant to happen. "I had Potential" Lenin used to say. Apparently not enough to convince Stalin though... I'd worked with Lenin through it all. From the start in 1917, who was there? Me. We would work side by side and we showed promise. We were the revolution. The new Russia that the country so badly wanted and needed. But something changed... That something was the leader.

Lenin's death shocked everyone, myself included. I'd known that he was growing weak but I presumed it would pass. How wrong I was. And that's when the mistake happened. Stalin was never meant to come into power. I knew the truth all along, but it was a case of me and whose army? I was on my own, and I knew if I dared question him, it would be my head on the line much like the rest of them... I suppose it's funny saying that now because it is. A 'secret ballot' they called it. But it was anything but that. I've got to give it to him, he's a wise man that Stalin fellow, he has ears and eyes everywhere. I dared speak for fear of being singled out. We'd all just sit there and watch as the dreams of our great country fall apart right in front of our eyes. Stalin had crushed our hopes for a better future in his hands and when we finally thought we could be our own person but it wasn't to be. I voted against as did 70% of the people there that day. That 70% are now dead. He's trying to make an example of us, show how you don't want to mess with him. He is always right. He is the power. He is the Future.

I look round at the Soviet media everywhere. The reporters await the story, the photographers want their shot. They don't know the truth of it all. It's all a facade, an image, much like Stalin. The reality of it is Stalin isn't the way he has portrayed himself and neither is this trial. I might as well be stood on stage because this is just an act. The fact of the matter is they have me pinned against the wall. My wife, My Parents and even my kids are all imprisoned in our own home. I speak out of place again and they will be no more. Although thinking about it, maybe it would be the best. No good father would ever want their family to grow up in a world like this. Nonetheless, I can't escape fate. It's me that should suffer for 'my crimes'. Change has happened once. It will happen again. I just hope for russia's sake it's soon.

(KONRAD TURNS TO FACE THE JUDGE)

Guilty your honour.
JUDGE: Very well. Sergei Konrad, you are hereby convicted of treason against Stalin and the communist Party. The sentence for such a crime is to be hung. Please prepare yourself for the punishment of your crime. You have 5 minutes. Da zdravstvuet Rossiya mat (Long live mother russia).

(THE COMMUNIST NATIONAL ANTHEM PLAYS WHILST A NOOSE DROPS FROM ABOVE. A SPOTLIGHT FOCUSES AS KONRAD POSITIONS THE NOOSE AROUND HIS NECK. AT THIS POINT A TRAPDOOR MAY BE USED TO REPRESENT HIS DEATH AS THE LIGHTS AND SOUND COMPLETELY STOPS AND BLACKS OUT)