The Ferret, an English-language journalist of alleged Ukrainian Diaspora descent, has gone missing.
“I called him for supper yesterday evening, but he didn’t answer. Then I noticed that his cage door was hanging open, and he wasn’t in there,” The Ferret’s wife told this news service.
The Ferret, described as a dumpy little turd with a pasty complexion and eyes that dart all over the place, as if he’s thinking of the next lie to tell, is thought to still be somewhere in the vicinity of the Kyiv Poster editorial office, where he used to work.
“I haven’t seen him around here,” said Bret Boner, the paper’s chief editor. “But if he stays missing for long, I’m gonna have to rally international media around myself and declare yet another attack on freedom of speech in Ukraine, or start a street protest,” he added.
Another employee of the Poster, where The Ferret worked first as a hockey correspondent, then as an investigative journalist known in his own mind for hard drinking with Ukrainian oligarchs, then as some kind of in-house consultant, and finally, as an unmasked weasel who occupied his time getting his coworkers fired to make his rodent-like existence easier, said she wasn’t ruling out foul play.
“I do worry about The Ferret… especially in light of all the so-called Ferret Fantasies, in which some very unstable people are said to imagine themselves pulverizing The Ferret’s face and throttling his turtle neck while demanding The Ferret admit he’s a Jew,” the employee said, wiping tears from her own pasty and pimple-strewn face.
[Editor’s note: No evidence has been uncovered by this news service that would corroborate persistent rumors – including by The Ferret himself – that The Ferret is a closet Jew posing as a Ukrainian nationalist. Additionally, The Ferret, is not known to wear turtlenecks, first and foremost because he has no neck, but he has often been described as having a turtle-shell torso, which logically makes his neck also turtle-like.]
But not everyone is distraught by the disappearance of The Ferret.
“If you do find him, could you remind him to clean up the droppings from his cage before he takes off again,” The Ferret’s wife plainly communicated to this news reporter. “He is a messy creature,” another journo at the Poster added.
In the meantime, Boss Lard, the newspaper’s CEO, has offered a reward in the form of a week’s worth of free editorial services by the paper’s team of budding interns for any information that would confirm The Ferret has been shot dead, poisoned or caught in a rat trap.
Lard himself, however, continues to express doubt that The Ferret is no more.
“It takes nothing more than an ice cream scoop of the kind of intelligence not uncommon to the inhabitant of the Orangutan’s cage at the Atlanta Zoo to figure out that The Ferret is still burrowing somewhere near the grounds of this paper, and I for one would like to see him make a sharp left turn toward the Dnipro River…”
Lard said he has nothing against The Ferret personally, but has simply been wary of so-called disappearing weasels for some time now.
The Ferret’s supporters, for their part, have hired Kyiv-based PR executive and expatriate novelist Welsh Losser, a one-time student of law in Washington State, to keep the investigation on track and ensure that Kyiv authorities take all appropriate measures to find The Ferret.
“I intend to take all appropriate measures, er, to ensure that the Kyiv authorities keep things on track, because this kind of thing could happen to anyone, including me,” said Losser.
Police superintendent Vasily Dontpuke said his department was checking all leads, and that it could not be excluded that The Ferret’s disappearance was connected to his professional activities as a weasel.
“We know that several physical persons have experienced negative feelings toward The Ferret, including some of whom could eventually face charges of first-degree hooliganism with the intent to exterminate a rodent without a permit, which carries a minimum penalty of full confiscation of all their property.”
So far, Kyiv Police have checked 103 shallow-type burrows on the right bank, 36 garbage dumpsters near The Ferret’s home, 15 kiosks known to sell sissy cigarettes in Pechersk District, and at least one freak-filled basement bar on Proezdnaya St. known to have been frequented by The Ferret.
The Ferret is described as five-foot-nothing, with a medium but by no means normal build, brown fur, shifty eyes, and a pasty, almost pale-green complexion. Distinguishing features include his tadpole legs (usually clad in what can only be described as puppet pants), turtle-shell torso (again), and an unmistakable aroma that accompanies him and strangely recalls a combination of fear and something musty in an attic.
In light of Bret Boner’s planned outdoor protest, Kyiv police have called for calm.
Local media have already been reporting what can only be described as Ferret hysteria in response to alleged Ferret sightings.
“I saw him, but failed to stop him with a large rock because he was running really fast,” said one long-time Kyiv expatriate.
Other reports include sightings allegedly made by a trolley bus driver who said The Ferret had failed to pay his fare, and by a group of elderly Kyivites, who took to viciously kicking him in an underpass where they’d been dancing.
Filed by Dirk Dickerson, February 25, 2013