Excerpt
"Aren't you scared to stay here all alone?" Hryhoriy asked Water, watching his new, oddball friend roll out his sleeping bag. "I wouldn't stay here even if you paid me."
"It's not as scary as you think."
"What about rats?"
"Rats aren't scarier than wolves."
They heard heavy stomping.
Yuriy and Boss hauled a small diesel power generator upstairs, setting it down in the hallway. Yuriy also brought a duffel bag and placed it by the window.
The sun no longer felt warm as they left, and the solitary resident of this strange building still had some housekeeping to do. He worked on it until late afternoon, running back and forth with an ax. He needed a lot of firewood.
Outside the window, the forest loomed black. The trees had lost their primeval state and now looked despicable and uncomfortable. It was not the doom of old age; it was the helplessness of youth. The forest resembled an animal at a live lure training facility, its teeth and claws ripped out, being torn apart for someone's entertainment.
He heard a truck roaring by on the highway.
The stove had poor draft, and the room filled with smoke once the fire flared up. Water wanted to cook something for dinner and boil water for tea. He would then put out the fire for the night to avoid poisoning by charcoal gas. He could fix it tomorrow. Smoke hung in a thick cloud. Its stench, mixed with the fir tree scent, overpowered the smell of the old room. Water suddenly remembered he had a radio and tried to catch a signal, but it would not switch on—the battery was probably dead. He fiddled with the radio for a bit, then put it back into his backpack. It would've been more fun with the radio on. The water came to a boil.
Was he scared of sleeping here? No, surely not. The only thing he was scared of was water. In the early days of his adult life, he decided to try to understand his fear, to study it, but never to fight it. He believed he would conquer his fear of water by understanding it. So, he started that journey.
The body without water—that one was clear. It meant a definite death. Standing in the shower for hours was easy and not scary at all. But stepping into the water slowly, feeling the cold with your skin… One step after another. He could tolerate it and wade into the water up to his waist. He could probably venture even further. But when the transparent surface wavered with his every breath… When the body of water pressed relentlessly against his own weak body… It was unbearable. He wanted to scream and run away. But what if he tripped and fell? It would be the end. This was his biggest terror. He could not let that happen, no matter what. So, he would walk out of the water calmly and breathe again only once he reached the shore. Collapse on the ground, pressing against it with his whole body. Run away from fear toward love. Fall asleep on the shore, his teeth chattering, and walk on water in his dreams.
It took him a while to reach even this stage. At first, he found it hard to take a step. With each new attempt, he relied on his experience and muscle memory—until the body of water pressed against his chest…
It was important for him to enter the water without any clothes, not even underwear—pristine, nothing on, only like that.
He read books and watched movies. All books and movies he could get his hands on; research articles on the memory of water and its genetic code, even those full of actual madness and nonsense. But his brain craved even more information.
Later he decided to spend more time by the water, without breaking its surface. Spending nights by the water calmed him, while long walks along the river banks provided plenty of information. He walked along all the rivers in his region, from the sources to the places where smaller rivers merged with larger ones. Hundreds of miles, countless nights in the open air by the water. Hundreds of campfires, hundreds of sunrises. Even the sea. Water travelled to it in winter. The emotions he felt walking on the frozen surface of the sea became a radically new experience for him. Strolling on the sea, walking a fair distance away from the beach, feeling the ice under his feet, tons of hateful saltwater underneath it.
After these experiences, spending a few nights at the abandoned factory felt mundane. Rats scurrying around? So what? The fire was burning; the room was more or less warm, he was safe from the wind, and his sleeping bag provided good warmth, too. He had dinner and drank his tea—it was all good. Only the radio did not work properly, but he did not really care. Silence was his friend. On the second floor, the cell reception was choppy. Downstairs, he could probably only dream about it. The lake was close, too, napping under the ice. He felt awful in the water but fantastic near it.
