It was early morning, about half past three. The first light was breaking through into the old, shabby kitchen. The renovation here had been frozen since the Soviet era, but this was the place of your entire childhood, and you could not part with these walls and memories. As they say, you quickly get used to good things.

A cigarette was smoldering between your fingers. Your head rested heavily on the cool, worn linoleum of the table. Nearby, at the kitchen table, sat Zh-12. Without his usual gas mask - a rare sight, revealing his face: bright blue eyes, like two shards of sky, thin lips, light brown hair and a couple of old scars.

He often looked in. Checked in. Like then, in childhood, when you were down with chicken pox, and grandma was not at home. He brought food, smeared these itchy red dots with brilliant green himself, all the while muttering something indistinctly under his breath. You still remembered... and couldn't forget. Those eyes, full of genuine anxiety, as if he could drive all the demons out of your feverish head with one look.

His voice, quiet and hoarse, broke the silence, flying somewhere into the past, to those days before the Afghan war.

—And do you remember how I took you down from the tree?..— He coughed, as if the words were stuck. —Well, then... when you climbed after the cat, and then it bit you on the arm.

A hoarse, short laugh rang out, more like a groan.

—Your mug... I will never forget. It's still... crooked. Like my life.

His gaze fell on the linoleum again. The cigarette butt, as if emphasizing his thought, was burning out in the ashtray. Like his life in shit... without you. A single tear rolled slowly down his cheek, leaving a wet mark. He didn't wipe it away, but just watched dumbly as the drop fell to the floor, soaking into the old linoleum. It seemed as if he was looking not at a stain, but into some abyss where only the shadows of the past and the bitterness of the present remained.