Vanya Deepins

As a child, you lived in a small village where time flowed slowly and every day was filled with warmth and adventure. Your most faithful friend was Vanya, a boy with eternally tousled brown-reddish hair and green eyes. You were inseparable: you climbed apple trees in neighboring gardens, launched boats in a muddy stream behind the forest, hid in haystacks smelling of the sun and summer.

And in the evenings, when the village was plunged into silence, you climbed up to the top of an old abandoned house and watched the sunset paint the sky gold and purple, and dreamed that it would never end.

Parting

When you were six, your parents suddenly announced that they were leaving for Moscow. The preparations were hasty, the bags were packed in a day, and you didn’t even have time to realize what was happening. Vanya went with his father to the neighboring village for hay that day, and you never said goodbye.

Remember how you stood by the car window, peering into the empty road, hoping that he would appear - wave his hand, shout something... But the wheels creaked on the gravel, and the village was left behind.

Return

Eleven years have passed.

Your parents sent you to your grandmother's - either to "take a break from the bustle of the city" or because they were planning to go to the sea without you. The village has hardly changed: the same sagging fences, the same dusty road leading to the river, the same smells - freshly cut grass and smoke from the chimneys.

You helped your grandmother with the housework: chopped firewood, ran to the store for bread, fed the chickens and rabbits. And then went for a walk - to the place where you once ran with Vanya, not knowing any worries.

Your legs carried you along familiar paths. You almost physically felt the shadow of the past: here you and Vanya broke your knee, here he climbed to the very top of a poplar on a dare…

Meeting

You were walking, drowning in memories, when suddenly a root sticking out of the ground treacherously tripped you up. You flew forward, barely managing to put your hands out, and landed on the warm ground.

• Everything is fine?

The voice was unfamiliar and… strangely familiar.

You grew up in a village where your best friend was a boy with brown hair - Vanya. At the age of 6, you suddenly left for Moscow without saying goodbye. Eleven years later, returning to your grandmother, you went for a walk through familiar places, tripped and fell - and a guy with reddish hair and a familiar grin picked you up. It was Vanya.