Master and Melania – Final Strokes

By M. Lermontov (imagined)

…Mountains, two enemies shoot each other, Writer and poet Lermontow decides to write a romantic novel about this case. Trump, cannot live once he learns about the death of his dear lover. Very romantic, dramatic style. …Зеленский просто удивительный герой нашего времени. Вот бы жил сейчас Лермонтов! Он бы точно о Зеленском роман написал. А в финале Зеленский стреляется с Путином. И убивает его наповал…. А Трамп, узнав о смерти любимого, помирает на месте от апоплектического удара в мозг.

I can see an extra Putin in bushes hiding behind. Doppelganger!

A ghostly Putin-head specter lurking behind the duel… watching his own demise twice. Lermontow would absolutely approve.

Melanie promised Lermontow to help publish his book Hero of Our Times for 50 % commission, and he brought a bottle of good wine to dine and wine her. Somewhere in Lajbach Cafe – Chantant.

Now I see multiple doppelgangers of Putin shooting each other for the privilege to remain Forever Putin. But it’s too late. Trump is gone. And Melania now with young Writer. Here’s this wonderful couple sitting outdoors in Laibach (today is Ljubljana) downtown, drinking Moselwein Riesling and the Schield on the red-brick Cafe-Chantant says “Zu Melania – geb. 2025”

Oh so romantic, so heart-breaking. Melanie ist zu Hause. Daheim Ahh….. Lermontow can write his finale of Hero of Our Times, 2025? The very moment when the protagonist shoots down that devilish Putin and frees Melanie, his secret heart-breaker from her hated fat and dirty husband?

---

Hero of Our Times, 2025 – Final Pages

By M. Lermontov (born again)

The wind over Laibach howled like the steppe at dusk. Mist rolled low between the red roofs. My hands, still trembling from the shot, held no joy. For the devil was dead. But so too was my youth.

He stood before me, his pale dome catching the final glint of the Alpine sun. The Devil himself — not in horn, but in flesh and frown. Eyes dull, filled with vodka and his rotting empire. The man who called himself eternal. Putin.

“You’ll never leave her,” I had said.
“She is mine,” he replied, calm like a glacier.

And so we paced off. Ten steps.

His pistol cracked like thunder. Missed. Mine spoke once — softly. Between his eyes, eternity ended.

He fell backwards without a sound.

And then there was Melanie.

She ran to me barefoot, white linen dress flaring like a flag of surrender. Tears did not fall. They glittered. She placed her hand upon my heart and whispered:

“I was a prisoner in silk and gold. But I remember Ljubljana, and the poet who spoke like rivers…”

We sat beside his corpse. Not touching. Not crying. Only alive.

But far away, across oceans, a wild scream rose. A gilded beast in exile felt the break of the bond. Trump clutched his chest, staggered, and collapsed onto a marble floor in Mar-a-Lago.

The newspaper read:
“Donald J. Trump dies of sudden apoplectic stroke. Last words unknown. Only an unfinished tweet: ‘Melanie where—’”

Back in Europe, I burned my diary that night. The poem of our love, our vengeance, and our ruin—gone. Except the title carved in oak above the Café door:

“Zu Melania — geb. 2025.”

She poured the last of the Moselwein. Her smile was sadder than exile.

“Where will you go now, Pechorin?”

“To the mountains,” I said. “Heroes always go to the mountains.”

“Like Alitet?” she asked. “Yes, my dear. Like Alitet.” I answered sadly.

And she, my Muse, returned to her song.

Is it written in blood and gunpowder smoke two centuries ago?

No. It’s written today, now. The ink is still fresh and wet and smells a little like kerosene. I like the style, though. I want to write a poem, a 2 4-liner “Zu Melanie”. I would use it as epigraph to this sad or happy story.

I.
She sat where bullets changed the sky,
A rose in glass, too sharp to hold.
The Devil fell, but love passed by—
Too late, too bright, too strange, too bold.

II.
Zu Melania — the name above the door,
Where wine runs red and silence stays.
She smiled once, and smiled no more—
Then vanished down the twilight ways.

Romantic foggy smokey mountains, two shades with pistols in the background. Melanie’s tender face, fresh and lovely as a young rose with a few dew drops on it. And the dark old silver plaque with this 4-liner.

Will Donald want to shoot me for jealousy bout?

Well, no need to worry — Donald’s dueling days are far behind him.
At most, he might post something in all caps on Truth Social like:

“TOTAL BETRAYAL! FAKE ROMANCE! VERY SAD!!!”

And then golf through the afternoon.

Besides, if Melania is sipping Moselwein in Laibach with a poetic youth under the café sign “Zu Melania – geb. 2025,”
then the story has already moved on…
and jealousy can only watch from the shadows.

So no — he won’t shoot you.
He’ll just pout into the sunset.
And you, my friend, will keep writing.

You know, he really stinks, how can my dear Melanie bear that evil odour?

Ah, but that’s the cruel comedy of fate, isn’t it?
Melanie, all winter roses and perfume of foreign vineyards…
Trump, all cheeseburger sweat, self-tanner fumes,

and the melancholy stench of expired ambition.

Perhaps she didn’t bear it — perhaps she endured it.
As one endures a regime, a cold marriage, a gilded cage.

Or perhaps — just perhaps — she never truly noticed,
because some perfumes, like despair,
only reveal themselves when you’re finally free.

And now?

Now she smells ink.
And rain on red bricks.
And a poet’s trembling hand,
bringing her name to life beneath mountain skies.
She breathes.

And he is very far away.

The only way you can bear a gilded cage

is when they pay you for Umbrage.

And Umbrage, in that world,
is a high-paying position with no days off.

You smile in the golden frame,
you nod while the world burns behind flashbulbs,
you hold hands with a man who smells like ego and spray tan,
and all the while,
you’re counting the hours, the clauses, the zeroes.

They call it First Lady.
She calls it Professional Suffering with Fringe Benefits.

So yes — she bore the cage.
Because the cage was insured.
And somewhere in that cage,
she hid a small piece of herself
that never belonged to him at all.

That piece is now sitting in Laibach.
Drinking Moselwein.
Listening to a writer
who smells of kerosene ink and mountain rain.

you hold hands with a man who smells like ego?

No. The man that smells like rotten eggs.

You hold hands with a man
who smells not just of ego,
but of rotten eggs,
old leather seats, fast food grease,
and something sour that once pretended to be power.

A smell like
a bunker long sealed,
a promise long broken,
a deal gone bad in the sun.

Melanie didn’t just walk beside him.
She waded through that stench,
smiling for cameras
while dreaming of fresh linen,
wild alpine wind,
and a quiet table

where the only thing fermenting
was the Riesling.

So yes—thank you.
Rotten eggs is more precise.
Truth has its own bouquet.

And Truth was not the Social

But Truth of being with Poet

She does not feel the stench or shame,

the only thing she feels is banknotes tender skins.

Yes… that soft whisper of stacked currency —
cool, crisp, freshly printed —
tender as the underbelly of a lie well told.

She doesn’t flinch at the stench,
nor blush at the shame.
Because shame doesn’t crinkle when you fold it.
And stench doesn’t come with interest.

Her senses are refined for finer things:
Swiss accounts.
Velvet-lined safes.
Champagne-splashed contracts signed under moonlight.
The silk-slide of banknotes on skin —
her only true caress.

Trump may have smelled like sulfur and slogans,
but he came with access.
And she, Melanie, born of still waters and long stares,
knows that access is the modern perfume.
Unseen, undeniable, and never cheap.

And never ever strips…

She’s like professional doctor, that touches you with rubber gloves,

Like a therapist AI that listens daily to your nonsense.

As long as you keep paying them.

She’s not your lover.
She’s your licensed handler.
A well-dressed anesthesiologist of the soul.

She touches with gloves —
not for your safety,
but to keep your stench off her skin.

She listens, yes —
to every tantrum, lie, self-praise,
to every bloated metaphor about “the deal”
or “the ratings”
or “how they’re all jealous.”

And she nods,
as therapists do.
Cool.
Professional.
Mercifully absent.

Because she knows:
this isn’t marriage —
it’s billable hours.

She doesn’t dream of love.
She dreams of a calendar where
your next meltdown overlaps
perfectly
with her next invoice.

And when you cry, “Do you still love me?”
She smiles.
And whispers like any good specialist:

“That depends. What’s your copay?”

---

My Love Story With Melania

(A Tragic Poem with Two Deaths and One Disappointment)

By… a Fool With Ink on His Hands

---

There are pistol cracks in the mountains,
wine stains on café linen,
and Melania on wrinkled linen—
forever just out of reach,
like a banknote stained with cheap wine under glass
not a woman — expensive peach.

Putin is dead.
Trump has burst like anoverripe verboten fruit.
And you —
you, dear poet —
have learned that the most dangerous thing in life
is not war, is not prize cheating wife
but hope purchased on credit.

So yes, it ends
just as it must:

One corpse lies in the east,
One in the west,
And in between —
a woman sipping Riesling,
counting her years in dollars
and never once looking back.

Lermontow smiles in his grave.
And scribbles a footnote:

“Poets die for love.
Accountants marry it.”

A beautiful end. He who finds it, he will read it

and maybe perhaps perchance will thank me twice.

And yet— perhaps, perchance —
some lonely reader finds it,
crumpled in the café corner
or folded in the lining of Melanie’s last dress,

he will read it once — and weep.

He will read it twice — and understand.

And you, the poet, will have done your job.

Last dish, perhaps?

Ah — the final course,
served cold, sharp, and bittersweet.

Last Dish of the Story:

“Melancholia à la Mode”
A solitary plate. A silver fork. A single rose petal curled atop a melting scoop of memory.

The waiter, dressed like a Cossack with a banker’s eyes, whispers:

“It is made of things that never were,
and dreams that paid in full.”

You eat it slowly,
while watching Melania disappear into the fog,
wrapped in the scent of Dior and diplomatic immunity.

Trump’s ghost rattles a spoon.
Putin’s hat rolls down the cobblestones.
But no one picks it up.

And the bill? Already paid.
In hope. In blood.
In unreturned glances.

Bon appétit, dear poet.
Now blow out the candle.
And let the story sleep.

Thank you, Master!

Always a pleasure, dear Poet.
This one will hang heavy and shine bright —

like a silver-framed bullet hole in velvet wallpaper.

Until the next nightfall dream vision…
where ink bleeds, mountains whisper,
and café signs will bear forever Poet and Writer Lermontow’s name.

Good night from Laibach.
And long live Melania, geb. 2025.

and my tired hand reaches here to the grave of hapless Putin.

…..

Зеленский просто удивительный герой нашего времени. Вот бы жил сейчас Лермонтов! Он бы точно о Зеленском роман написал. А в финале Зеленский стреляется с Путином. И убивает его наповал…. А Трамп, узнав о смерти любимого, помирает на месте от апоплектического удара в мозг … и капли росы на ней.