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It's hopeless, I’m hopeless.
The lights of the classroom hum away in their soothing, piercing melody. Winter’s winds howl and murmur beyond the buildings walls. The teacher’s voice gurgles out what might be Russian, it's hard to tell.
It's hopeless.
Exhaustion is a thick, heavy blanket.
I’m hopeless.
I can’t recall what hour it was when I finally put my head to my pillow last night. Much, much too late. I can’t even recall what exactly I was working so fervently on, the dull ache in my wrist tells me I must’ve been writing.
And now the world’s beauty is passing me on by. Vadim’s friends joke under their breaths, it was probably funny and I can’t appreciate the humor in my stupor. Ah how lowly. How selfish of me to prioritize my own self aggrandizing hobby over my ability to appreciate your design.
So I ask you to forgive me. It's selfish of me to even dream of forgiveness, but still I must.
Well, you’ll also have to forgive me even more because even now I’m fighting the urge to nod off.
It's a hopeless battle but somehow I make it to an armistice.
Perhaps it's you who guides my feet down the halls, I know for sure it wasn’t me. Although polar night had long ended the afternoon was still murky. The cold wind carefully picks and prods at the gaps in my scarf and at the hem of my dress. What precision.
“Asya!” Something that isn’t the wind.
“Asya?” a mitten baps my shoulder, I turn and almost stumble in the snow.
“Woah, steady there.” It's Marina, wait… Was she waiting for me? She usually has plans after school so that’d be- Oh!
“Ah, we had plans, didn’t we?” I manage, it's like my mouth is full of water logged sand, I struggle through each phoneme.
“Yeah I thought you were going to blow me off, I could hardly believe it. Actually, about that, are you alright?”
“Hmm? Oh, yeah, I’m fine, just a little tired.”
“Oh I see, you know in the past I always thought you were the kind of girl that made sure to always get their proper sleep before school.”
“Sorry for not meeting expectations, I usually am.”
Marina poked me in the cheek with her mitten. Soft.
“Don’t apologize for that, geez. Anyway I won’t have you collapsing out here so let's go.”
Marina began to trudge through the snow, I step into her footprints and follow. She’s a little taller and that makes her stride hard to match. Still easier than carving a new path in unbroken snow though.
I pick up one foot and place it in front of the other.
Each footfall is just short from where Marina had stepped, I love the way the snow scrunches and compacts beneath my weight. I love its weight on the tip of my valenki as I pick my foot up.
Dim as you are, you are still so pretty. The buildings of our city are silhouetted by your sourceless glow of a groggy sun through the clouds. The sort of diffuse light that makes you look soft as cotton. Which you are for humoring me so, for letting me get away with so much.
It's not a long walk but the first sprouts of numbness creep their way down my face and up my fingers. The snow looks so inviting like this, to sink into and become immersed in it. To drift off the numbing embrace.
“Quieter than usual today?” Marina asks from in front. She’d been talking before, probably.
I’m sorry for not listening properly. It's just that you are too distracting and I’m too tired to manage my attention. I’m sorry for making excuses too.
“I was lis-” no, I shouldn’t lie so much. “Sorry, I think I’m dozing off a bit.”
“While walking? That’s pretty impressive honestly.”
I bob my head from side to side, “Is it?”
“For sure.”
We’re here. My breath comes out in puffs of vapor as Marina punches in the door’s code. Faintly I can hear blood rushing in my ears. The world shifts and blurs as my eyelids drift close.
“Good god girl, you must really be tired, come on.” Marina grabs my hand and pulls me through the door.
We made it to her door by some miracle. Well not some, your’s.
I begin to unbutton my coat when Marina speaks up.
“The radiator’s been acting up so you might want to leave your coat on.”
I consider. The apartment is still warmer than outside, although she’s right that it's cooler than normal. Just minutes ago I found the cold of the snow to be inviting, I’d be a hypocrite to reject it now.
So I pull off my coat and hang it by the door and then join Marina in her apartment’s living room. There’s a couch but she’s decided to sit on a cushion on the floor. The TV is on, the news it looks like. With how isolated we are as long it's not the V Corps rushing across the Fulda Gap it probably won’t affect us.
I take the cushion beside her.
She gives me a glance. “How are you not cold like that?”
“It's fine, I’ve learned to appreciate it.”
“Hmm.” She gives me a disbelieving look and takes my hand in hers.
“Oh you’re plenty warm. You’re not sick are you?”
I shake my head. “Like I said, just tired, I feel fine.”
She’s yet to let go of my hand, if anything her grip is firmer now. Her brow creases and her eyes focus on me. I feel like I see the gearing of her mind spin away behind her eyes. Assessing, calculating, simulating. Whatever result her model spits out it moves her to get up.
All I can do is watch as she scoots her cushion behind me with her foot, she then plops down.
“What are you doing?”
“Well the radiator is broken right? But you’re plenty warm right?”
I don’t know if I like how this math is adding up.
“I suppose I am.”
“So…”
Two arms wrap around me and pull me back.
“Hey!”
I feel my back press into Marina, her legs are to either side of me.
“Too boney for you?”
She’s warm, her coat is still on but her arms aren’t through the sleeves and so it drapes around us like a blanket might. It smells like the cafe a little, a little like the black tea she drinks. The arms around me don’t loosen.
“It's fine.”
“Good.” I can feel her voice reverberate in her chest as she speaks. As if supported by melting wax my head falls back and rests against her collar. A miracle. A treasure so far beyond my worth. Thank you, thank you for giving this to me. Even if it's just for now, even if you take it all and more tomorrow, thank you.
“Are you asleep already?”
I blink my eyes open, they must’ve closed at some point. I can only see one side of her face from this vantage. Her lips are softly curved up, the usual energy in her eyes have been replaced with some far more relaxed. I’m honored, truly, to be allowed to see this facet of yourself.
“Not yet.” I murmur.
“Aren’t you just the dearest thing?” Her check rubs against the top of my head. I'm unable to resist any longer and my eyelids fall shut.
The TV drones away.
Marina’s chest expands and contracts, her heart tapping softly against my back.
Wind rattles the window pane.
Marina traces nameless shapes on my apron.
It's warm. But it's not like the heat of the fireplace, or the summer sun. It's not the heat that rises from within during a hard run, or clings to the skin and under cloth. Maybe it is like being in a hypersaline lake, or in a hydrothermal vent. Or a shallow, sunkissed sea. Or maybe it's none of these things. It's like the warmth I feel for you. Something that bubbles up from my bones, stirs and mixes with my blood. Induced within me by your grace. It makes me think of long ago. Stupid of me, to reminisce on the past with the present being what that it is before me. I know, I know. I should really learn to love today more than yesterday, and tomorrow more than today.
There’s somebody knocking at the door.
I feel Marina take in a breath, “It's unlocked! Come in!” she calls. Her voice is loud so I press my head harder against her.
“Ah, too loud? Sorry.”
I think I say something, I don’t know what though.
Somebody has closed the door behind them. I can hear the shuffling of fabric, the snaps of laces being unhooked from boots.
I turn my head and crack an eye open.
“Could you really not come let me in?”
“Its just I got my hands kind of full here.”
“And what exactly could you be so busy wi- oh.” Ira pokes her head from around the corner of the entrance way. Seeing her, my heart sings a little. What a wondrous day.
“Ah.” Her face is stuck in a peculiar expression, it's red too but that’s probably from just coming in from the cold.
“What’s up?” Marina asks.
“Should I, um, come back later?”
“No no, actually I kind of have to uh, use the lady’s room, so can you take her?”
“Take her?”
“Yeah, yeah. Hey? Asya? I need you to get up for a minute.” Her arms slide away from my waist.
“...Alright.” I push my back up from where it rested against Marina, her coat falls away and I’m quickly reminded that the radiator isn’t working. Marian gets to her feet behind me, I decide to follow suit and pick myself up off the ground. Gravity clings to my limbs, I feel like I should be sore.
“Wait, hold on for a sec. What were you two even doing?”
“Isn’t it obvious? The radiator broke and she’s like a space heater.” Marina brushes off Ira’s question before disappearing into the hallway.
My legs feel just ever so slightly unsteady under me. Ah they’re probably partly asleep.
Ira watches Marina as she leaves, then turns to me.
She’s giving me a similar look to Marina earlier.
She takes a step forward, hesitates, then takes another. Isn’t that just adorable? I’m tempted to walk up to her and save her the trouble, but I’m so spoiled as it is I can’t help but watch her bashful approach.
A hand reaches out and hangs in the air between us.
Ira’s face contorts into a scowl, “what am I thinking?” is written across her face.
Ah that’s no good, I can't let her courage go to waste, so I take a step forward and her fingers brush against my cheek. For just a moment it is like touching a live wire. The tips of her fingers slide against my skin and her palm lays flush against me. It's pleasantly cool and smooth. Not quite ice, polished granite maybe? Marble?
“Oh you really are warm. You don’t have a fever do you?”
I shake my head, her hand sways as it maintains contact. Stray flakes of snow drift off Ira. Her finger trembles slightly below my ear.
“You’re cold though, it's nice.” It has a different flavor than the ambivalent chill of the apartment’s air.
Ira’s eyes aren’t quite meeting mine. “I see.”
Her hand drops away, it doesn’t quite find its place by her side. She shifts her weight on her feet.
I can see her gaze trace the side of my face, the wall behind me, then they focus on me.
“Can I…?” She asks vaguely. Adorable. Adorable. My heart swells so much it hurts. To think she, who now stands before me, once threw a chair across a room, held a compass like a blade.
I nod and take a half step forward. Her arms are apart and fold around my back. It's an awkward hug but I don’t mind in the slightest. It's just like her.
It's very different from Marina.
Her arms are cold but there’s a definite warmth rising from beneath her breast. It's a little like strong sun on a fall day, chilled air but unmistakable heat on the skin. The smells are different. Tobacco and smoke, the traces of the January air, medicine that’s gone bad. Ah this is no good. I’m really so hopeless aren’t I? I can’t manage to reopen my eyes and I feel my strength bleeding into her.
Warmth, warmth like the sun. Sometimes distant, sometimes hard to see, sometimes it shies and dips below the horizon. But in her arms I can feel her temperature rise to match mine, my heat must be flowing into her as hers ebbs into me.
“Asya? You’re getting kind of heavy?”
“My bad.” I try to pull away but Ira instead carefully follows me down.
My head drifts and ends up on her lap. It's very soft with her skirt, apron and those baggy pants she wears. The apartment’s floor is not that soft, but since it's you I can't complain. Perhaps it's because of the contrast that I can fully experience the softness of Ira’s lap. So, really, thank you floor for being so rigid.
“Hey look at you, good job.” Marina says as she enters the living room.
“Marina.” It's only a word but I can hear the pleading edge to Ira’s voice.
“You want me to take her back? She looks so comfortable though.”
“She’s mostly against the floor, that can’t be nice.”
Try as I might, the conversation fades into the haze of dream. Soft and heavy chains linked to just as plush anchors pull me under.
The glow of a cigarette, to be combusted and inhaled, to pass through the channels and halls of her lungs, to diffuse into her blood. To be exhaled, to curl and whisper beneath her tongue and through her teeth. To be carried into dry winter air, I dissolve into moisture of the clouds and snow back to earth. My eyes flicker open.
It's dark through the window, the TV is on some documentary.
Gentle fingers work their way through my hair. Slowly they push out then draw in, as gradual as the tide. Somebody has placed a cushion under my body and pulled my coat over me. That alone almost fills me overflowing with joy. It's so warm within my ribs I’m astonished I’m not incandescending. I twist my head a little and glance up. Marina leans her head against Ira’s shoulder, whose head rests against the top of hers. Ira’s eyes are closed and she breathes softly through slightly parted lips. Marina is a little awake and gives me a small smile as our eyes meet.
Today was a miracle of miracles.
I will never be thankful enough for it. For you.
Even if tomorrow is a different day, a day where I am allowed nothing I will be just as thankful.
Because today I am allowed to see this. To feel this love. For you, for them. And I suppose because you, them and I are all the same, I might, I might just feel thankful for myself.