Wisps of warm air danced off his lips and into the cold night as he trudged off the bus and down the street. He breathed in and out, sharp bursts of air. His lungs were still unsteady, even though the long ride back was quiet and uneventful. Perhaps if he were in a more nostalgic mood, he would have watched the shapes his breath made as they spun through the air. Reminisced on the fluttering of snow onto his skin as a gentle storm began. It was a white Christmas, a delicate one, the kind of idyllic winter that he would one day crave when the world burned red on a summer day in a foreign land. But he was not in that mood. Not a poet tonight, he had not been one in a long time. He moved with his eyes cast towards the ground, shuffling down familiar paths in his thick winter layers. Into an old building, and up creaky steps. He spoke to no one, ignored the couple arguing in the hallway, ignored the yipping dog. There was the twist of a key that nearly jammed and snapped in the cold lock. Then, the must of stale air and the quietness of an empty home greeted him at the door. A home that was so quiet he could hear his heart beating out of his chest. His breathing was still not calming down. Dmitriy was hungry; surely that was all there was to this tremor. He walked past empty walls and a rocking chair covered in knit blankets, and lit the fireplace. A rush of heat eased the cold out of his fingers, but his heart still beat too fast. Too heavy. He removed his heavy garbs and exchanged them for a lighter woven sweater, and set out for the kitchen, hunting for something to quell the quiet beast that had been unfed all day. He got his hopes up when he found his container of Olivier salad in his refrigerator. But as soon as he scooped a bit into his bowl, he smelled the sour tinge of chicken and eggs gone bad. A waste. He had been reluctant to throw the dish out all week so that… Dmitriy thought himself foolish to save so much of the dish for *him* when he was not here. The container was dumped, and Dmitriy scavenged for something else, perhaps simpler than the salad. He moved through his kitchen as if it were the operating room, no room for error, no room for mistake, deciding upon a new course of action quickly. With a meal in mind, he set out picking up each utensil carefully and slicing or stirring with intense precision. Macaroni was cooked, ground beef was fried, then it was mixed with onions. Salting, peppering, and soon, a simple dish of makarony po-flotski sat in front of him, ready to devour. Long ghosts of steam slithered into the air above it, savory and hearty. And in the warmth of his own home, he almost took the time to admire their shapes. He held his fork tight, twirled it between his fingers, but hesitated, hovering above the macaroni noodles. He could not bring himself to eat what he had made. He sat there, as if his body had been frozen in the storm outside. Hand gripping the fork perfectly still above the plate of hot food. Perfectly good food that he had cooked a hundred times before. He looked down. He could see the child lying on the table in front of him, perfectly still. He could see the rise and fall of their ribs come to a slow halt as their eyes went blank. He could feel the scalpel go dead in his grip. He could feel the hand of his nurse grip his shoulder, pull him away to the next room, the next patient, the next child, the next corpse. Too many dead children these days. Too many dead in general, even in this Cold War. Too many lights snuffed out when they could burn so bright, so many hollow bodies that would never dance on this earth again. He had seen all the ways a human puppet was shorn from its strings. Disease, poison, beatings, and stabbings. Acts of god, acts of nature, cruel acts of the universe, or even crueler things done at the hand of a man. He looked past his plate and put the fork down. He slowly looked at the seat across the table. A seat he had so rarely seen filled these days. He looked at the steam, pictured the wisps forming into the figment of a shape of a person. Broad, tall, haggard, and relentless. He tried hard to picture the shape laughing, but the image was hollow. He blew the steam away and did not eat a single bite. ❖ As he was lying in bed, the edge of sleep approached him in the form of effervescent half-dreams, his anxious mind taunting his tired body. Cruel phantom sensations: cutting away with the bonesaw until his shoulder ached; the repetitive movement of sewing across a limb; closing the eyes of someone too young, cold on the table. He was almost asleep when the lumbering woke him up, and he sat upright. He folded the blanket off his body, snatched a box of bandages from the shelf, and hurried out of his room to where a dark shape had collapsed on the couch and lay still. The figment of a shape of a person. Dmitriy hung in the doorway, waiting to see the shape turn towards him as he exited his bedroom. There was an instinct to leap to action, do as he did this morning when the ones from the reckless gun fight or automobile crash were rolled in. But he afforded himself a small selfishness and just stood there, tracing the contours of the shape with his bleary eyes, waiting for it to make the first move. To speak, to summon, to admit its defeat. Without even turning to face him, in the smallest voice, half-alive or half-dead, the shape spoke a single slurred word. “Sorry.” Dmitriy replied in turn. “Emi.” There was a long quiet, before Emil slurred another word. “Help.” With a ragged sigh, Dmitriy moved to kneel beside Emil. He grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him onto his back. What he saw across the man’s face was something he had seen a hundred times on a hundred patients, but somehow he felt the pain so much more clearly when he saw it on this figment of a man. He took a napkin and wiped the smear of blood off his cheek, and Emil just closed his eyes, slipping into the hungry maw of sleep. Black eye, possible broken nose, messy bandages peeking from under his shirt, and… From the slurring of words, Emil was possibly drugged as well. What a lackluster job. “They put you under anesthesia? What kind? What operation was needed?” No response but small breathing. Dmitriy cursed once or twice and began to disrobe the man, pulling away coat and shirt, and undershirts. His fingers moved across the body slower than they did to patients, though he would never admit this. The bandages mostly wrapped his torso \- the main source of grief was near his stomach, a knife or bullet wound that must have gotten too close to an organ. He ran his finger down the man’s chest, skating his nail down a fresh scar that was poked out of the bandages. Dmitriy shivered, despite being near the fire, despite being the one awake and dressed, then shook his head with annoyance. “I told you this job was no good. You see? You feel this?” Dmitriy poked Emil hard in a bruise on his torso, and the man let out a huff of air but did not wake. “I told you not to... Ten thousand rubles, my ass,” Dmitriy muttered. He wiped away excess blood, rebandaged the stained dressing, made sure everything was clean and neat and orderly, then, when it was all done, shimmied the man into fresh clothes and draped one of the knit blankets from the rocking chair over the man’s body. He stood in the dim firelight, watching the man for too long, making sure the ribs were rising and falling as they should. Then, before he turned to return to his bedroom, he walked to the kitchen table. Several bites had been taken of the macaroni. Dmitriy scoffed and shook his head. “Of course you tasted first.” Dmitriy went to the bathroom to wash his hands, but the water was too cold. Intensely, freezing cold, so he waited for it to heat up, standing there, staring in the mirror, hands resting on his sink. His heart had finally slowed, his breath finally a gentle rhythm. He would just close his eyes for a bit. The shift was over. He could rest. He felt himself drifting off there where he stood. ❖ Dmitriy opened his eyes in front of the mirror in the restroom. He blinked a few times, almost startled by the glow of his features in the reflection. He was washing his hands. Yes, his mind must have just wandered. He lathered pink foam into his hands for a long time, staring down at his fingers, then exited the restroom back into the kitchen. “Dmi, you alright?” Kal asked. She was wearing a white dress, marking things off a checklist. Her tall devil horns rose to almost touch each other in a halo, emitting a divine glow brighter than his. Dmitriy blinked once more, glancing around at the stainless steel appliances. He gave her a curt nod, and she returned a wide smile. “Hope you’re not too frazzled by the koi pond situation \- the fish are perfectly fine and- “ Kal began but Dmitriy shook his head. “No. I am okay. I am just glad the devil and the girl failed. Quite a ridiculous attempt.” Dmitriy stretched his fingers, rolled his head trying to ease his strangely tense muscles. Kal’s look softened. “We’ll be alright, I’m sure the stonewardens will catch it next time. They’ll be on high alert these next few days, for sure.” After a moment, she clicked her pen and looked around the kitchen, then back to him. “You look hungry, mate. Feel free to cook something up, or I can heat a breakfast sandwich if you’d like\!” Dmitriy waved a hand to say no. “It is alright Kal. I got it. Thanks.” “This is your kitchen, my friend. All yours,” she said with that fierce smile of hers, and he nodded. “I’ll be back in a bit after an errand. Pollux is out in the main room, so feel free to bother the lad if you need anything, alright?” She passed him, clapped him on the shoulder, and exited down the hall. Dmitriy shook his head as the fog over his mind faded. She was right. This was all his. Here, he felt weightless, drifting from pantry to station, spinning each utensil in his finger with ease. He knew instinctively what he was craving. Macaroni was cooked, ground beef was fried, then it was mixed with onions, salted, peppered, and soon a simple dish of makarony po-flotski sat in front of him ready to devour. Long ghosts of steam slithered into the air above it— He stared at the steam, admired the way something so simple could be magical. Drifting like serpents, or ghosts, or spirits. He held his fork tight, twirled it between his fingers, speared a noodle, and began to eat.