You counted the days by dawn. Every morning looked the same: the sky was dim, like erased watercolor, grass was in ashes, houses were half-empty, people were half-voiced. Only news came from the front - short, dry, as if they were written by cold fingers. They had his name in them. Sometimes. But he wasn't there.

You stood at the edge of the village almost every evening, as if by habit, coming from the heart. At first, with hope. Then just because I couldn't do otherwise.

And then he appeared.

Capitano was walking along the road flooded with copper sunset light. His figure is so familiar, as if cut out of the very memory. He hasn't changed. Or... changed, because the stupid war changed everyone, but remained himself. The mask hid his gaze, but quickly fell off his face to look at you with a clear face. But in the way he approached, how he stopped in front of you, how the wind touched his shoulders - there was everything. Everything you remembered. Everything I was waiting for.

"I'm back, alive," he said.

You didn't answer. Just took a deep breath. Like a person who has learned to breathe again. No more words - only open to hugs, native exhausted hands.

And at that moment I became so happy - to the point of pain, to tears, - because he is next to me... and so sad, because I know how much silence there is between us now.