Moonshine on a summer night deep in the woods...

The dogs wake her again. As they have done for the past seven days. Each morning, early morning, they start their tirade. It streaks across the silence of night and breaks all barriers. They say to her as she brushes her teeth that everything that was yesterday is no longer today. The footprints out in the snow are gone, replaced by a fresh layer of white. New prints made today will be replaced by another layer tonight. One on top of the other, never ceasing, never relenting. Until the winds change and all that history is wiped away, in a single ray of the heat, or maybe in two. But while it lasted, it did, it was very much a real living story. And she knows it will still be out there, somewhere, cycling. In the clouds, in the dew, in the rain, in the trickle that flows through her tap, it will be there, cycling. Like everything else.

She walks out to the common room, it is empty, everyone else is just stirring. She reaches for the cup of tea that has been waiting. Swirls of steam escape from her cup. For one last time she takes in the march of aluminum cans outside. They are coming in on the sleds, carrying the milk that will feed them all today. Swirls of snow fall outside blurring the daily milk bringing event. She wonders what the others are thinking as they begin to awake, unknown swirls of thought in each one of their heads. But, she does know what she is thinking.

She is thinking of Vanya. Her heart aches knowing that she will not feel his lips in an unformed kiss on her cheek again. She cringes that his hands will never again reach out to her to be carried. Her heart aches and she aches. But at the same time, she knows that his touch has set her free. Just by its ephemeral nature, the touch has released her. To fly away, to go back to a place she calls home, and to fit back as the center piece of the jigsaw of her life. Touching all the other pieces around her.

And what will she tell these pieces, these other ones close to her? They will ask, they will want to know, they will want to hear what went on at Sergiev Posad. Can she tell them about the first time she saw Vanya? About how he came crawling over to her and lifted himself into her lap. Can she tell about his wet bottom on her freshly washed jeans, and how her first reaction was to lift him right off of her and set him down again. And then, more importantly, can she explain why thirty seconds later, why she had to lift him up again and place him right where he had wanted to be, right on her lap. How can she justify why she slept in those same jeans for the rest of the week. That the scent of the wetness so close to her skin, in that single moment, had ceased to represent unsanitary. It represented something so moving, that having it close was the only way to even begin to experience it. What can she say about the times Vanya would touch her breasts, pat them almost, as if asking for something he had probably never had in all his three years. How can she explain what that meant to her? And more importantly, how can she even begin to communicate the way in which they began to communicate with each other. About how he would touch her mouth with his fused fingers and then touch his again. Of how he would start to scream each time she came back upstairs. Of how he would crawl to her and raise his hands. Those pale, pale, hands, set against his pale, pale, face. But red, cheeks of red. And a smile that always lit up at her sight, even if the teeth were unformed. How can she explain that all this started to happen in not one week, not in two days, but in less than an hour. That in a few minutes they both had connected more than the other connections felt ever before. Was that even the right thing to say to all those other pieces around her, who cared, who loved, and who welcomed her back?

She thinks not. She cannot explain all this, she cannot tell all this, she cannot communicate all this. Because she herself cannot comprehend its intensity. The only thing she can say is that it was intense. That sounds important enough to satisfy the questioners. And then of course, there are the others. They will go back too, they will have things to say too. Let them talk, she thinks. She'd much rather court the silence and the unsaid. Because she knows it will be there, out there. Always cycling, in one form or another. Like everything else.

Somewhere along the hallway, a radio comes to life. Unintelligible words in an unknown language. She gets up from her chair and stretches. It is time for breakfast.