The Origins of Boris

Some of you may wonder what I'm doing awake at this hour. I'm waiting up for Boris, my friend the Russian spy, to get in from the airport.

Boris and I met at my obscure school in Wales, where Boris was charged with covertly monitoring Welsh agriculture. This being Wales, Boris chose to disguise himself as a sheep, which was relatively easy, because Boris is a sheep.

After smuggling himself in to a care package from my mother, Boris and I first met. Boris is about a foot and a half long and fluffy. He has a black face and ears and a friendly smile that makes him very popular with the ladies.

When we first met, Boris didn't speak at all, but one night when I had spent a particularly unaccountable period at the pub, Boris started talking to me.

"Hello," he said, in a thick and (I feel) very plausible Russian accent. "My name is Boris. Have you seen, perhaps, any official agricultural documents hanging around?"

Over the next several weeks, Boris would talk to me whenever I had a little bit to drink. Pretty soon after that, he started talking to me all the time. Soon after that, he started talking to my friends. And by then, of course, he was already hitting on women.

When I left Wales, Boris came with me to school, where he became involved with a Mexican beauty and Zapatista sympathiser, but that's a story for another day.

Women love Boris. The fluffiness, the accent, something about him drives them crazy, even when he's half-dazed with drink and seran wrap. Once I walked through the dining hall at my college with Boris poking his head out of my messenger bag, and no less than four seperate women in a five-minute period came up to him and yelled "Oh! What a cute lamb!" I finally had to tell him, "Boris. Stopping hitting on the pretty girls in the dining hall." He would not listen.

Despite his hard- and fast-living ways, Boris is a good friend to have. There's always vodka in the apartment, I know where to find a good poker game in the city, and I always feel safe because if anyone ever broke in, Boris would just call a hit on him. My only nagging doubt about Boris is that I think he might secretly be Latvian, but don't let it get around.

Tonight, I'm waiting for Boris's flight to get in from Bratislava. All of his missions are confidential, of course, but many involve an amoral, expressionless penguin named Phibs who, coincidentally, also lives in my apartment.

This particular time, I believe Phibs was involved in some sort of kidnapping of a subcontinental princess and the replacing of certain nuclear plans of attack with forged protocols that would mean any nuclear escalation would ultimately destroy walruses around the world. I believe Boris was successful in foiling these plans and rescuing the princess, but I'll know more after he gets back, any moment now.