Frank and Poupka

Frank Upjohn and Poupka Green were born in the mind of an English writer and were the dearest of friends, living in a small country town. Their friendship began in childhood, when they played together in the yard, built makeshift huts, and dreamed of grand adventures. Yet, despite their shared love of travel and exploration, each possessed a distinct trait of character. 
Frank was calm and deliberate, inclined to weigh every circumstance before acting. His attention to detail often saved them from trouble. Poupka, on the other hand, was his exact opposite—impulsive, merry, and delighting in risk. She had an uncanny knack for finding adventure where no one else would even think to look. 
One day, the friends resolved to set out on a journey that would change their lives forever. They had heard a legend of a lost city deep in the Amazon jungle, a place brimming with treasures and mysteries. Despite warnings from the locals about the perils of the path ahead, Frank and Poupka ventured forth. 
Their travels were filled with peril. They crossed raging rivers, pushed through dense forests, and faced wild beasts. Yet it was their friendship—their unshakable faith in one another—that carried them through every trial. 
At last, after weeks of wandering, they found the lost city. It was a staggering sight—ancient ruins draped in greenery, guarding the secrets of a forgotten age. Within its walls, they uncovered relics of the past and knowledge beyond price, things that might have altered the course of the world. 
But the greatest lesson of their journey was this: the true treasure lay not in gold or artifacts, but in the companions with whom one shares the adventure. When they returned home, Frank and Poupka became famous, yet their hearts remained true to each other and to the spirit of discovery that had led them to that wondrous place. 

Upon their return, Frank and Poupka realized that the years of travel and revelation had left an indelible mark upon them. Now, they wished to share these visions with the world, to capture the beauty and magic of the wild places they had seen. And so, they resolved to become artists. 
But Helen of Troy the Third told this story differently.


PART ONE
 
Brooklyn, 1927 
The streets are shrouded in evening fog, the lamplights barely piercing through the haze of smoke and damp. In a city like New York, there’s always room for adventure—especially when Frank Upjohn and Poupka Green are involved. 
Frank—tall, slouching, with a perpetually sour expression, but with hands that can pick any lock. Poupka—small, wiry, with a sharp tongue and an even sharper knife tucked in her boot. They’re not a couple, not friends, but partners in crime, and tonight they have a plan: robbing a bootlegger’s warehouse owned by none other than Al Capone. 

Chapter 1: The Plan That Couldn’t Fail
 
"You sure the guards leave at midnight?" Poupka lit a cheap cigarette, squinting at Frank. 
"Paid two guys to start a brawl at the bar next door. It’ll work," Frank grumbled, checking his lockpicks. 
"If it doesn’t, we’re dead." 
"If it doesn’t, I’ll cover you." 
"Bullshit." 

Chapter 2: Everything Goes Wrong 

The guards left, but the warehouse wasn’t just holding crates of whiskey—Capone’s younger brother, Nicky, was inside with a couple of thugs. 
"Well, shit," Poupka hissed, pressing against the wall. 
"New plan," Frank growled. 
"What new plan?!" 
"The one where we stay alive!" 

Chapter 3: Escape or Die
 
Gunshots, shouts, a chase across rooftops. Poupka leaps over gaps between buildings, Frank fires on the run, aiming for streetlamps to vanish into darkness. 
"You said this would be easy!" Poupka yells, diving into a dumpster. 
"And you believed me?" Frank rasps, grabbing her arm and dragging her into an alley.
 
Finale: Splitting the Loot
 
Morning finds them in a cheap motel room, dividing their haul—a stack of cash and a bottle of whiskey. 
"Never again," Poupka says, pouring herself half a glass. 
"Till next time," Frank smirks. 
And they clink their glasses, knowing damn well this isn’t the end.
 

PART TWO

Paris, 1929 
In the corner of the caf; Le Chevalet Bris;, Frank Upjohn sat drumming his fingers nervously against a bottle of absinthe. Before him lay the latest issue of Le Monde Artistique, featuring a scathing review of his recent exhibition: 
"Mr. Upjohn evidently believes that splashing paint onto a canvas and calling it 'Cosmos—Decomposition' will make the world hail him as a genius. Alas, the world is not so easily fooled." 
Frank crumpled the paper and tossed it under the table. Just then, Poupka Green burst into the caf;—small, electric, her eyes blazing. 
"Frank, I’ve got an idea! she whispered, flopping into the chair across from him. You want a scandal? You want them talking about you?" 
"I’m already a laughingstock in every other review.! 
"No, listen!" She leaned in. "We swap a painting at the Suprematist exhibition at the Lef;vre Gallery." 
Frank raised an eyebrow. 

Chapter 1: A Plan Worthy of a Dadaist 

The "New Horizons of Suprematism" exhibition was set to open in three days, featuring works by Malevich, Lissitzky, and other masters. 
"You’re suggesting we sneak one of my pieces in?" Frank smirked. 
"No. I’m suggesting we sneak in a real painting—a landscape, a portrait, something classical. And sign your name on it." 
"…You’re a genius." 

Chapter 2: The Night Before the Opening
 
The gallery was guarded, but Poupka had a key (obtained from a lovestruck security man), and Frank had a canvas painted just the day before—"Morning in the Provinces", an idyllic, deliberately bucolic countryside scene. 
"They’ll think it’s a new manifesto," Poupka whispered as Frank hung the painting between two black squares. "That you’re "deconstructing Suprematism through a return to figuration." 
"Or that I’ve lost my mind." 
"Even better." 

Chapter 3: The Scandal of the Century 

At the opening, critics at first walked past Frank’s piece, assuming it a mistake. But when the gallery director shrieked, "Who hung this?!", everyone realized—it was part of the show. 
"It’s… brilliant, murmured one journalist." He clashes the archaic with the avant-garde, forcing the viewer to reconsider the very nature of art!" 
"It’s a provocation! fumed another." 
"It’s Upjohn, sighed a third." He’s always one step ahead. 
By evening, "Morning in the Provinces" was declared "the death of Suprematism", and Frank—"the only honest artist of our time." 

Finale: Dividing the Spoils (of Fame) 

At the Le Chat Noir bar, Poupka raised a glass of champagne: 
"Well, genius?" 
Frank sipped absinthe gloomily: 
"Now I’ll actually have to paint. You’ve ruined my career." 
"No. I’ve made you a new one." 
They clinked glasses, knowing full well they’d dream up something even more absurd tomorrow.
 

PART THREE 

Moscow, 1931 
The studio was cluttered with empty Pernod bottles and scraps of newspapers blaring headlines like "Scandal in the Kremlin!" Frank Upjohn was attempting to write his final manifesto. 
"Suprematism is dead," he muttered. "Cubism is bourgeois vulgarity, Dada is yesterday’s news. Even bankers wear ties with absurdist prints now..." 
At that moment, the door burst open—no, rolled open, because Poupka Green entered on all fours, an open umbrella strapped to her back. 
"Frank," she whispered, "I’ve found the Truth." 
Frank sighed: 
"Last time "the Truth" turned out to be mushroom soup you poured into the Tuileries fountain." 
"No, listen!" She sprang up, shaking off the umbrella. "I haven’t slept for three days. And I’ve realized: art is a waking dream. We must paint not with colors, but with dreams!" 
Frank reached for the bottle: 
"Did you eat Brie before bed again?" 

Chapter 1: The Manifesto of Oneiric Realism 

Poupka pulled a crumpled paper from her pocket: 
"1. The artist must sleep with open eyes. 
 2. The brush is a spoon with which we eat the subconscious. 
 3. If the painting doesn’t move—you’ve done something wrong." 
"We’re holding an exhibition," she declared. "Dreams nailed to the wall with fear. You handle the theory, I’ll handle the hallucinations." 
Frank considered it. This was either genius or a symptom of malaria. 

Chapter 2: The Night of Creation 

They stole five kilos of wax from a sculptor’s studio, melted it in a bathtub, and poured it onto canvases. While Frank pasted scraps of his old manifestos onto them ("for meta"), Poupka: 
Finger-painted with cuttlefish ink; 
- Sewn dead pigeons to the canvases ("they symbolize the underflight of thought"); 
- Chanted spells in broken Sanskrit (copied from a cheap occult magazine). 
By 4 AM, Poupka unveiled the masterpiece—"The Innards of a Snail, Seen Through the Lens of Eternity." It was her hat, filled with egg yolk and fish bones. 

Chapter 3: Vernissage in Hell 

The "Le Cauchemar" ("Nightmare") Gallery only agreed to host because its owner lost a card game to Poupka. 
Visitors recoiled before: 
- "Self-Portrait as a Forgotten Name" (an empty frame with a mirror, promptly shattered by a critic mid-rant); 
- "Dance of Lonely Eyelashes" (clumps of mascara dangling from threads); 
- "Scream, No. 49. Piano" (a gray-green meadow with phallic chicks—now feathered and squeaking when touched). 
"This isn’t art, it’s clinical delirium!" shrieked a former NEPman. 
Poupka promptly doused him in paint and announced: 
"Now you are art. Congratulations!" 

Finale: Eternal Dream 

By dawn, the police shut it down—officially for "unsanitary conditions" (the dead pigeons), but really because Poupka convinced three visitors they were "part of the installation." They sat in a corner chanting, "We are Mr. Upjohn’s dream." 
"Well?" Poupka asked, climbing out of the police station window. "Do you believe in Oneiric Realism now?" 
Frank, wiping pigeon droppings off his face, sighed: 
"I believe you are my longest, strangest night." 
They vanished into the alleyway, leaving behind a trail of fish bones and absurdity.
 

PART FOUR

London, 1933 
In the basement of an abandoned circus that reeked of cheap whiskey and rotting elephant hide, Poupka Green was brandishing a walrus skull (where did she get it?) and proclaiming: 
"The gods are dead, but their shadows got stuck in the cracks! We shall worship these cracks!" 
This thoroughly convinced twelve drunken sailors, two prostitutes, and a monk who had fled his monastery. 
Frank Upjohn, perched on a dynamite crate in the corner, was putting the finishing touches on the icon of their new cult: "Saint Anarchy with an Oyster for a Head." 

Chapter 1: Revelation in a Gutter 

It all began three days earlier when Poupka, after drinking some dubious potion from a Romanian fortune-teller, saw the face of the true god—in a puddle by the docks. 
"It was... like an empty bucket, but smiling!" she gasped, explaining it to Frank. "It told me to sell pieces of heaven to the sailors!" 
Frank, long accustomed to her epiphanies, asked: 
"And what does heaven look like, according to you?" 
Poupka dumped a pile of broken mirror shards onto the table: 
"Here it is. Everyone will see their own." 

Chapter 2: Rituals for Lost Souls 

By morning, they had: 
- A holy book (a stained tavern menu plus a wine-soaked children's coloring book); 
- 12 commandments ("Thou shalt not lie" was crossed out and replaced with "Lie creatively"); 
- A congregation (mostly those who had nowhere else to go). 
Poupka led the service: 
"Brothers and sisters! You are all gods who’ve forgotten they’re gods! (pause) Who wants proof?" 
She handed out "pieces of heaven" (broken glass) and made the congregation stare into them until they saw something. 
"I... see a castle!" cried one." 
"That’s your frozen fear!" Poupka declared. 
"I see my mother..." trembled another." 
"Then she must’ve just found a wallet!" Poupka concluded cheerfully. 
Meanwhile, Frank sold "holy relics": a nail ("this pinned Prometheus himself to the rock!"), a stained handkerchief ("the Virgin Athena wept into this!"), a mummified rat ("Socrates' first disciple!"). 

Chapter 3: The Apocalypse Is Canceled 

Word of the Church of Shattered Mirrors spread through the city. The basement soon flooded with: 
- Poets (seeking new metaphors); 
- Thieves (stealing blessed rhymes); 
- Policemen (who came to shut it down but stayed because Poupka called them "the chosen angels of order"). 
Everything collapsed when a real madwoman arrived—old Lady Vernisien, who insisted she was the reincarnation of Joan of Arc. 
"Your church is a farce!" she shrieked. "Only I know the truth!" 
Unfazed, Poupka retorted: 
"Of course you do. You’re the Antichrist’s daughter." 
The old lady was so delighted that she gifted them her mansion. 

Finale: New Messiahs 

A month later, the mansion burned down, the old lady was carted off to an asylum, and Poupka and Frank fled to Beijing—with a sack of "holy artifacts" and a new plan: 
"You know what’s in fashion now?" Poupka mused, studying a map. "...Let’s start ...on the Isle of Dead Calm!" 


PART FIVE

The Isle of Dead Calm, 1935 
The island wasn’t on any map. This was, of course, because Poupka had drawn it herself in the margins of a stolen atlas with a mix of squid ink and laudanum. 
"It’s the perfect place," she declared, balancing on the ship’s railing as Frank clutched his hat (and stomach) in the gale. "No wind, no rules, no reality!" 
The locals—three fishermen, a one-eyed dog, and something that might have been a very old tortoise—disagreed. But by sundown, Poupka had convinced them they were "the last guardians of Atlantis’s dreams," and Frank had traded their sack of fake relics for a leaky rowboat labeled MOONSHINE EXPRESS.
"We’re not sailors," Frank muttered as the island shrank behind them. 
"We’re not humans either," Poupka corrected, stuffing his pockets with mothballs. "We’re cosmic dust with bad habits. Now row!" 

Chapter 1: The Rocket That Wasn’t There 

They found the "spaceship" in a Marseille junkyard—a rusted water tower Poupka swore was "a lunar pod in disguise." 
"Look!" She kicked it. "It hums!" (It did not.) "And it’s full of star charts!" (They were grocery lists.) 
Frank sighed: "We’ll die." 
"Only if gravity remembers us." 
By dawn, they’d "modified" it with: 
- A stolen periscope ("for celestial navigation"); 
- A coffee can labeled FUEL (contents: jam and gunpowder); 
- A parachute (actually a wedding dress). 
The launch was less "giant leap" and more "drunken stumble upward." 

Chapter 2: Moonwalkers Among Lunatics 

They crashed into a crater full of sleepwalkers. 
Not metaphorical sleepwalkers—actual ones: pale, slow-moving figures in nightgowns, murmuring about "the cheese tax" and "the rabbit’s revenge." 
"Lunatics!" Poupka gasped, delighted. "Literally!" 
Frank, nursing a bump from the "landing," squinted. "They’re just… asylum escapees, right?" 
"No!" A voice boomed. "We are the Moon’s original inhabitants!" 
Entered The King of Lunacy, a towering man in a bathrobe-cape, crowned with a colander. He explained: 
"Centuries ago, Earth sent us their madmen. We welcomed them. Now we sleepwalk through eternity, dreaming Earth’s forgotten dreams." 
Poupka, already scribbling notes: "Can we join?" 

Chapter 3: The First (and Last) Lunar Art Exhibition 

Their "retrospective" included: 
- "Footprints of the Invisible" (blank sand); 
- "The Silence of Expired Time" (an empty hourglass); 
- "You Are Already Here" (a mirror tied to a stick). 
The sleepwalkers adored it. 
—Genius! yawned one. It’s like my aunt’s funeral… but vertical. 
Even the King applauded—then sleepily sentenced them to "eternal artistic torment" (a nap in a crater). 

Finale: The Earth’s Pull
 
Waking up, they found the rowboat floating beside them. 
"The Moon’s rejecting us," Frank realized. 
"Or we’re too sane now," Poupka groaned. 
As they fell upward (downward?) toward Earth, she shouted over the wind: 
"Next time, let’s invade the sun!" 
Frank closed his eyes. "…Do they have alcohol there?"