The Fur Heist: A Plague Report

A pair of idealists perform a daring media stunt to draw attention to Coronavirus time social apathy.

Here's one more yarn about Coronavirus prayers, and this is a action-comedy actually inspired by the films Ecape from Sobibor and Men at Work. Thanks so much for reading (signing off),

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"Ajay and Simian Satan were Algerian-American twins who were Ivy League (Dartmouth College) graduates and political cartoonists writing for the New Yorker and Radical.com. They were frustrated by the talk of cynicism regarding political mismanagement of resources and crime patrols in troubled cities around the world during the Coronavirus pandemic. Ajay and Simian Satan decided to go underground and become part-time vigilantes and called themselves Deadpool and Daredevil. Deadpool (Ajay) and Daredevil (Simian) sought to plan a daring heist of a major worldly commodity and advertise the daring on an Internet blog meant to encourage dialogue about Coronavirus idealism challenging notions of cynicism towards commodities governance."

"Ajay (Deadpool) and Simian (Daredevil) decided to travel to Moscow (Russia), where underworld crime continued to be a problem during the Coronavirus quarantine around the globe. Deadpool/Daredevil eyed a special crime-world fashion-show held in Moscow in April 2020, hosted by the nefarious druglord Ivan Pasha who intended to advertise a number of extremely expensive women's fur coats as a proud statement of criminal wealth defying the dismal despair of Moscow during the Coronavirus outbreak. Deadpool/Daredevil first went to the fur coat display in a Russian park where Pasha was showcasing his collection to a fashion editor. Deadpool/Daredevil took iPhone photos of the collection."

"Ivan Pasha was ruthless and evil. He controlled half the narcotics traffic in all of Russia. He was almost as powerful as the Russian politicians that tried to make Moscow function with money during the frustrating Coronavirus quarantine. Deadpool/Daredevil knew they'd be challenging a real man of darkness if they were to pull off this incredible modern-day stunt aimed at toppling notions of power-driven narcissism and cynicism. Ivan Pasha was tediously careful about all kinds of security at the fur coat fashion show he was hosting that April. He was very serious."

"The fashion models recruited to wear the extremely expensive fur coats at Ivan Pasha's fashion show were incredibly beautiful and eager to make a good impression for the Moscow fashion editors who sought to market the event as a proud showcase of functioning urban life in the face of pandemic paranoia."

"Ivan Pasha even constructed an indoor small ice-skating rink so his Russian girlfriend and Olympic ice-skater Martika Pasternak would showcase her incredible skill during the intermission section of the fur coat fashion show. It was during this intermission ice-skating performance that Deadpool/Daredevil would have to perform the daring heist of the fur coats."

"The entire event was held in a newly built ornate Russian mansion in Moscow owned of course by Ivan Pasha. Deadpool/Daredevil went up to the mansion gate just as intermission was about to begin and Martika Pasternak was set to perform her special ice-skating dance in the indoor rink. Deadpool/Daredevil explained to the hired Moscow army guards that they were municipal garbage and waste disposal workers sent by the city to investigate a potential underground leak in the basement pipes of Pasha's mansion, a leak which could potentially release dangerous fumes and aggravate Coronavirus quarantine-time general social fears. The guards were shocked to hear this, but Deadpool/Daredevil possessed professional intention and a city truck and uniforms and were allowed inside the mansion."

"Deadpool/Daredevil proceeded to the basement to work on the leak, which was completely fabricated with some night-before tunneling work under the mansion. Deadpool/Daredevil ushered the supervisor to enjoy the ice-skating show and allow them to work on the leak discreetly. When a security man decided to enter the basement anyway to see the progress, Deadpool/Daredevil shot him point-blank with their silencer-pistols and buried his body underneath the basement tile in the area they tunneled underneath the night before."

"Deadpool/Daredevil then ran to the upstairs floor and proclaimed to the security guards of Ivan Pasha's mansion that the leak was very extreme indeed and required immediate evacuation of all the guests inside the mansion. As the guests were ushered out, Deadpool/Daredevil, dressed in city work uniforms, instructed everyone not to walk outside with any items or coats or things and just wait outside until the interior was properly fumigated and disinfected. While everyone, including Ivan Pasha and Martika Pasternak, was outside waiting for the work to conclude, Deadpool/Daredevil lifted all the fur coats from the showroom rack and placed them in their trash-bags which they brought. Deadpool scurried through the tunnel and placed the bags in an area of the tunnel easy to access from afar later. Deadpool then rejoined Daredevil as they fumigated everything and gave the impression that the entire mansion was cleansed. As they walked out, they informed Ivan Pasha that they had to confiscate some of the personal items in the mansion, including all the fur coats, so they could be properly cleansed in a city work-area. They then drove off in their truck with trash bags filled with plain old junk."

"As the guards re-entered the mansion and noticed all the fur coats were taken as stated by the city men (Deadpool/Daredevil), they began the tedious process of inspecting all the other details of the otherwise well-maintained mansion of Russian drug-czar Ivan Pasha. Deadpool and Daredevil raced to their underground tunnel entrance where they could scurry down and procure the actual bag of expensive fur coats placed there by Deadpool earlier. They escaped the tunnel with the bags full of the fur coats and simply hopped onto a stolen minivan and sped away outside Moscow. When Russian policemen found the abandoned city truck just left on the outskirts of Moscow, they were just confused and wondered if they'd been hoodwinked by two maniacs."

"Deadpool/Daredevil made an anonymous Internet blog back in America about the theft of the expensive fur coats from Ivan Pasha's fancy new Moscow mansion and suggested that as modern-day citizens and everyday people as well as people of influence carried on with their day-to-day activities during the Coronavirus quarantine experiences, human beings might be compelled to ponder how the thoughts of amenities and luxuries and even prestige in this time of dread awakened everyone to the reality of plague related dismay. Romance had to be sought actively. That was the message."

"Deadpool/Daredevil actually ended up selling the expensive fur coats on the black market and using the money to purchase all kinds of Coronavirus artworks which they posted on their Internet blogs and/or donated to prestigious art museums in New York and Los Angeles. This was the final bolt in their very eccentric mission to highlight the perceptions of value and frailty in a time when human beings needed to come together to meditate on the general threat of global danger."

"Since no one was able to deduce that Ajay (Deadpool) and Simian (Daredevil) were actually responsible for the theft of the expensive fur coats from Ivan Pasha's Moscow mansion, a New York political cartoonist named Thomas Nast suggested that the idealistic blogs of the Satan brothers represented a new age heroism necessary to promote crisis-time rhetoric. This editorial, in the New Yorker, inspired American film-maker Woody Allen to make a sardonic picture about accidental spirituality in times of human crisis titled Men at Work, starring Charlie Sheen as Ajay and Emilio Estevez as Simian."

AJAY: No one will ever catch us.

SIMIAN: They don't care about the fur coats, man.

AJAY: I know, but incidentally, we used the money to buy plague art.
SIMIAN: That was truly a Robin Hood deed, my brother.
AJAY: Ivan Pasha is pure evil anyways.
SIMIAN: Heck, he got strange accidental publicity for the whole fiasco.
AJAY: Maybe he'll decide to become a devout citizen and philanthropist!

SIMIAN: You never know; money is everything.

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"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)