The old woman opened her eyes, blinked a few times, and sat up in bed. She turned this way and that, peering at the objects in the small room: a low, narrow bed with fairytale figures carved in the ... [+]
"And so it turned out that only a life similar to the life of those around us, merging with it without a ripple, is genuine life, and that an unshared happiness is not happiness, so that duck and vodka, when they seem to be the only ones in town, are not even duck and vodka." - Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago It's far too late; the sun already teasing clods of frost and gilding the vacant lot with unwanted light, but we're still up, drinking beer and staring at the globe on the kitchen table. 1986. The once-shimmering oceans—diluted to a gray tincture—lap at phantom states like the USSR, by f