Once, you were the best of the best, defending the motherland against all the enemy could throw at it. Cutting edge, all shiny metal, you set records and went all around the world, the sky had no limits for you. When you got older they painted you in camouflage, loaded you up with bombs and rockets and you got to see the ground at altitudes you never flew before, and you loved it. Eventually, they used you to train new pilots, but one managed to break your back on landing. They gutted your insides, repainted you one more time and shipped you off on the back of a truck to some far away airbase. You were mounted on a concrete base, remembering the deeds of airmen of the past, and witnessed, with pride, many a parade. Conscripts cleaned and washed you on a regular basis, and you felt loved.

Then a thing called Glasnost came, no one came to wash you anymore, and with all of the troops gone, you stood vigil over a deserted airbase. The sounds of jet engines long gone, replaced by the howling winds, you feel corrosion setting in more and more and wonder how long you get to gaze up at the sky. Birds now land on your fuselage, showing no respect for your clean lines. As you weep tears of oil and rust you dream about what once was, and never will be again.....