Ch. 1B - Maxim

I'm tired. But if I slept right now, I would be even more tired once I woke up. I'm hungry, too, but not enough to get out of bed for food. So I'll just stay lying here, in silence.

It's finally Friday. I have always been the type to look forward to the weekend more than anything else. That's what Inga and Levi always say. I vaguely remember going outside with my mom and my sibling during the weekend to play in the snow, years ago. We used to call those days Snow Saturdays. When it got too cold to play outside, I ran to the living room, and Papa would let me watch him play the piano closely. I sat on his lap and wondered how his indelicate hands could play so elegantly. Sometimes, he would improvise…

What do you want to hear, Maxim? he would ask me.

B Minor! I replied. And Papa made up something just for me. There were times I liked what he was playing so much that he wrote it down for the future.

Saturdays were the days when Mama wasn't at the lab and Papa wasn't at the State Music Hall. Valya gave themself more free time, too, and offered me more attention. They're eight years older, but still spent so much time with me… We would also watch movies together, and since they let me choose, it was always the same two animations, repeated every single weekend.

I think some children are naïvely happy, but I was not. I know it was genuine, almost out of a children's book. And that happiness was the reason I looked forward to the weekend so much, back then. But only back then.

What today I reminisce so sadly will sound like distant fiction in the future. One day, I'll completely forget it, I'm sure. I won't even be able to tell whether or not I miss it. There are no longer Snow Saturdays, and this apartment doesn't have a piano, let alone a pianist. I no longer have parents, and Valya… It's like they're gone. Today, I want Saturdays to come soon because it is ok if I don't get any sleep. Because there are times… When simply closing my eyes is enough to bring back something I don't want to see.