The Observer Effect. Undated

Natalya Sergeevna and Dmitry Stanislavovich did not return. Neither did Padma’s parents.

We went to the gompa, just to make sure. It is still standing, but it is no longer a monastery. It is merely an outline. Its walls have bled into the color of the sky, which is now uniformly gray, day and night. It no longer smells of juniper and yak butter there. It smells of nothing. The sound of the drum, like a heartbeat, that we heard on the first day — is nothing but a memory. Now, it is quiet there. Absolutely.

We returned to our village, which has also become merely a sketch, a rough outline. We are no longer waiting.

It is snowing now. Not snow, really, just gray ash falling from a gray sky. Padma sits on the cold ground and catches these flakes on her tongue. Alexey sits beside her and holds her hand.

I imagine his hand is very warm.

And in that moment, I realized. In all of my grandfather’s Triptych, in all its labyrinths of meaning, in all its complex structures and beautiful metaphors, there is not a single word about the warmth of a human hand. He described the world so painstakingly that he forgot to feel it. That was his greatest mistake. Our greatest mistake.

Perhaps that is why the world decided to take a rest from us? We thought too much and felt too little.

I am writing this, and the candlelight is trembling… Or perhaps it’s my fingers that are trembling. But none of that matters anymore.

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