Novella · Independent project, 2025–26
Feathers
Feathers is a novella set in late-Great Kentran War (1940s–50s). It surrounds the lives of 4 people – Josi, Vsana, Beneris, and Esol – four young Nemarians in the context of the war, and the wartime history of Nemares.
Synopsis of the full novella
Josi was a young man studying as a fine arts student in Regal College, a prestigious college in the capital of Nemares, Ali-Tura. Vsana was a young woman that goes to Regal College too but is a year younger than Josi. Esol was Josi’s male friend and studies as a political science student in Regal. Beneris was a childhood friend of Vsana. He was still in high school and lived a life without the pursuit of degrees.
On campus, Josi dedicated his time to sculpturing and spent hours practicing in his studio. Esol often spent time with him in his studio and around campus between his lectures. The two represented two different things that mirrored a central political conflict in wartime Nemares: individuality v. collectivism.
Nemares was largely a culturally rich nation, full of wealth collected from natural resources exports and centers for art, literature, entertainment, and drama. Josi was passionate about art and the freedom of expression of individual ideas. Esol was patriotic and believed art should be set aside for the greater good of the nation, to reunite revolutionary states and rise as a nation on top of Kentro.
Vsana was a girl obsessed with literature and rarely devoted attention to political matters. Naturally, Josi found reciprocation of his ideals in Vsana. He recognized himself through her, especially through her pain, as her father was a journalist and left her alone in the city by serving as a war journalist. They bonded over time. In the end, the damage of war settled between the countless lives of individuals in Ali-Tura, and their lives were pulled away from each other. Not death, but loss of ordinary life. No shells hit the city until years later.
Beneris was eager to explore the world outside. He wished to travel the world and was working hard on part-time jobs to save money for it. That desire was satisfied by the military ambitions of Nemares: to break neutrality and join the ongoing war in 1943. Being a soldier would ensure him to travel around the continent and, as promised in war ideals, the world. He enlisted shortly after marrying Vsana, and when their baby son was born, he was ready for the frontline. His fate was sealed like many others long before they boarded the train to the front. Nemares was not a nation prepared for war. That is a fact, and a fact largely dismissed by Nemarian nationalists and patriots, a fact covered by lies fed by the government when rallying war support, and a fact no patriot would admit despite knowing that less and less soldiers were coming home, because facing the truth would mean crushing their established beliefs.
When the war finally ended in 1950, Esol was forced to face the truth, and drowned in disillusionment and purposelessness. Josi, infuriated by Esol’s mental state, cut ties and ran away from the country, settling somewhere else. Vsana, ridden by grief from the loss of both her father and her husband, escaped the ruins of the city to the countryside with the only remnant of her life, her son, Tari.
Feathers shows the conflict of individuals and authorities, explores love and attachment, and shows how war and fanatical ideals kill people – not through bullets and bombs – but through consuming ideals, relationships, and the ordinary lives people expected to have.
Josi sat in his chair, his large studio dimly lit by one small oil lamp as usual. The windows were shut closed. The seasons were changing, and he didn’t want to get hay fever. The sun had barely risen. His room was masked by a calming shade of deep blue.
Josi repeatedly chipped bits of rock off the sculpture. It was a small bird the size of a palm, simple and delicate, its features giving it a high degree of verisimilitude. Josi yawned, rubbed his eyes, and continued sculpting. A bunch of bird sculptures, of roughly the same size, but different shapes and features, lined up on the table next to him. Some were flying, some sitting like a duck, some diving down, wings stretched out, some pecking below their wings, head turned to the sides. Josi had stayed up all night. He had already made seven of them.
He made some last hits on the chisel, refining the details and smoothing the curves, and he set the tools down. A small pile of white dust collected in a circle on the table. He wiped the eighth bird with a piece of cloth, and set it with the rest of the pile. He set his tools down and stretched. He looked around, and saw that he had run out of materials anyway, so he sighed and lay face down on the bed on the side of the room.
He was awake again.
He opened his eyes. The room was quiet. His chair sat by the table, skewed. The oil lamp burned on.
He heard three knocks on the door. He quietly shifted in his bed, pushing up his hair and sitting straight.
The sunlight had already arrived on the concrete floor of his room and was about to leave through the gaps of the door. It must be past noon already. Josi groaned, and relaxed as he realized he had no class that day.
Someone knocked on the door again. He quietly walked up to it and pulled it open.
“Oh! There you are…Hi.” Vsana’s soft voice broke Josi out of his sleepiness.
“Oh, hello,” he said in a tired voice. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Where were you…?” she asked.
“Hm?” Josi opened his eyes more, and saw Vsana looking back at him, examining, waiting for an answer.
“Oh. Crap,” Josi said to himself, looking away. “I forgot. I totally…” He clasped his face and groaned. “Unbelievable.”
“It’s okay, it’s okay…” Vsana smiled and said. “I was just worried something happened. The whole club was wondering where you were.”
“Oh, really? Wow,” he said. “Sorry I made you guys worry.”
“It’s okay, don’t apologize,” she said positively. “You are okay, right?” Josi noticed her take a step in through the door. He felt her eyes on his face, and as he bent his face lower he could feel them chasing him down.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.” He nodded eventually, and her gaze let go. “Why?”
“What do you mean, why?” Vsana said, a bit confused. “Of course I’d be worried… it’s not like I don’t care, or…” She trailed off. Then she got self-conscious and stopped speaking, then looked around.
“So,” she said. “This is your studio.”
“Yes. How did you find me here?” Josi asked, surprised.
“Well, I did remember you telling me that your studio was somewhere on the… west side of the main arts building, and…” She tried to remember. “You said that… you spend most of your time here. And, well, I asked around. And learned that this is your room!” She nodded at herself, then looked at Josi proudly. “So here I am!”
“Wait, I told you all that?”
“Yeah! At the book shop next to campus, down the main street next to the square. When we were hanging out…you don’t remember?” she asked, slightly anxious.
“Ohhh. Right, right.” Josi remembered. It was late winter, the streets piled up by the snow from the night before. She was wearing her favorite red scarf, her deep brown hair a nice pair with it. Josi wore a simple black jacket and brown trousers. Vsana pointed out his outfit was kind of boring. Josi said he preferred it simple. Vsana encouraged him to try out more new clothes.
“Sorry, I…my head’s still kind of hazy, I just woke up, so.”
“That’s okay,” Vsana said calmingly. She stood in her spot, turning around slightly to look. They had been close for months, ever since they first knew each other during the first week of this year, yet the silence never left. It always crawled in, between each sentence’s end, between their anticipation and the intricacy of feelings, their minds so close yet mouths so far.
“So…” she spoke. “Since you’re okay…I’ll just go then.”
“Yeah. Yeah, right.”
“…I’ll see you next time.”
With that, she turned around and slowly walked out. Josi realized her footsteps were really, really slow. Was it just his mind playing tricks on him, or his rushing thoughts slowing time down?
“If possible—” Josi’s foot sprang as he stepped to the doorway. Vsana looked back at him, a gentle smile on her face. It was like those eyes of hers were seeing right through his head. “I’d like you to stay,” Josi said, pushing himself against the wall, avoiding her gaze.
“For how long, it’s up to you.”
Vsana leaned by the doorframe, her arms crossed. The smile never left her face; if anything, it grew wider.
“I don’t have class for the rest of the day,” she said.
“Great. That’s great.” Josi pushed the wall away. He caught a glimpse of her face, then quickly looked away at the sculptures on the table, the ones he had made overnight.
“So you can stay?” Josi asked again, looking at her.
Vsana laughed. “Yes. I can.” Josi smiled as he let out a breath, then he walked towards the table.
“I do have something to show you, actually.”
Vsana slowly walked inside to the table. Josi noticed her looking around, then pulled his chair over to her, beckoning her to sit down.
“Thanks. You made all these?” she asked, looking at the eight birds scattered on the table among rock dust.
“Yes, um.” Josi pushed himself against the table with one arm and explained. “It was like a little practice. I got these spare rock materials…they are chiskads. White rocks. Soft and durable. Mined from quarries way down south. And they give off a nice, pure color.”
“These are amazing,” Vsana muttered as she examined them one by one. It was as if she was looking at a flock of birds on the ground, like those pigeons at the square right next to the campus main gate, pecking away at grains that almost always get lost between the cracks of rocks.
“They look…so real.” Vsana tried to reach her hands out, but stopped herself. Then, she looked at Josi.
“Can I…?” she asked.
“Yeah, yeah.”
Vsana looked around the table again. She spotted one, a bird with its wings stretched out, as if it were soaring to the sky, free and unrestricted. She gently cupped it with her hands, and smiled as she put it close to her face.
“I love these little guys…” she said. “They’re so cute.” Vsana held the little rock bird closely, her face tinted gold from the sun.
“You can take one, if you want.”
“Really?” She looked up at him, then frowned to herself and looked back at the birds. “No. I mean…these are your work, I shouldn’t…”
“You can.” He saw Vsana looking at him, unsure if she had heard him right. “Seriously.” Josi smiled. “I make these very easily, they aren’t too valuable for me to keep to myself.”
“You just made these for fun?”
“Yes.”
“How long did it take you though? Eight sculptures seems like a lot, regardless of their size…” “I stayed up the whole night…making these.” Josi looked at the table, remembering how he sat there while dawn broke, making the eighth bird, the one Vsana was holding.
“You didn’t sleep?” she asked, putting the sculpture down.
“Yeah, I…” He trailed off as he noticed Vsana’s eyes looking at him as if he had just broken apart. Then he scoffed. “What about it?” he asked with a smile, unsure what she meant. “…That’s why you woke up this late,” she said.
“Yes, slept from dawn to afternoon.”
“Don’t do that to yourself…”
“Do what?”
“…Staying up late.”
“I mean, I love making these little sculptures and stuff. Don’t you stay up late writing stories?” Vsana stayed silent. She fumbled around the sculpture in her hand, then sighed.
“Yeah…I guess I do.”
Josi shrugged with a smile. “See? I love my craft. As much as you love yours.”
“But still, don’t stay up late, it’s bad for you.”
“I believe I can say the same to you.”
Vsana looked at him again, searching for clues of lightheartedness. And Josi looked back, motionless, a faint smile on his face.
And she broke the gaze.
“But would it matter, really.” Josi sighed and said to himself. “You love imagining worlds on paper, words on lines, pouring through your heart, the emotions.” He looked outside the window, the setting sun shining in his eyes. “You love it, I know you do. You love poems as if it feels your heart and feeds you. I know you love writing. Why would I stop that? You love something, you break yourself for it, that’s the bittersweet reality. Stay up late. Overdose on caffeine. Don’t stop writing, if it keeps you alive.”
Vsana listened, sitting in her seat in silence. Josi noticed her looking at him again, then continued.
“I’ve lost count of how many late nights I’ve spent making a piece. It wouldn’t surprise me if I just had the most quality sleep of the month earlier. I’ve lost count of how many failed
sculptures I’ve made. I’ve lost count of how many mistakes I’ve made. I’ve lost count of how many materials I’ve wasted, how many tools I broke, how many times I accidentally cut myself.”
Josi saw her face flinch as he finished that sentence.
“I put on some disinfectant, wrap a bandage, keep going. Trying not to get my blood on the stones. Been like that for years. Since high school. Sometimes my hands tremble from the pain the moment I put my tools down. But I’d rather see my hands break than my sculptures unfinished.”
“…You love your artworks…?”
“They are everything to me. They are me. Everything you see. I remember each memory behind them, each wound on my hand, each sleepless night.”
Vsana held the bird tightly in her hands, looking at the sculptures put together in the corner of the room. “…But you just tried to give one to me.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Don’t you love it?”
“I do.”
“Then why don’t you keep it?”
“Because—” He stopped. His mind went blank. Vsana waited. They could both hear the clock tick on the wall.
“Doesn’t giving it out feel like breaking a part of yourself?” She broke the silence.
“Look, it doesn’t—” Josi laid his hands out in helplessness. “It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it.”
“Josi…”
“You keep that one, by the way,” he said to her. “The one you’re holding right now.”
“…I don’t think I should.”
“Keep it.”
“…No. Josi, I can’t.”
“I’m not asking.”
She felt it. His voice never faltered. She could feel it, as firm as the rock within her hands, the solidification of passion and obsession, blood and devotion.
“…Thank you…” she whispered.
“You are welcome.” He sat on the edge of the table, looking at Vsana preciously holding the bird, now hers.
“Actually.” Josi reached out for the bird. “I’ll do something.”
Vsana carefully put the bird into his hands. He picked up a thin chisel and said: “I’ll carve your name onto it. So you know it’s yours now.”
“That’s…sweet.”
“It’s no big deal. Who gave you the name?” he asked. The moment she started speaking, Josi started carving.
“Sana. From ‘Sanadari’, of course,” she began. “The mythology I shared during our first club meeting. Sanadari, she was a deity of fire. An ever-burning flame. It could mean a lot of things.”
Josi moved his hands repeatedly, over and over, the dust falling off slowly, smoothly.
“Fire. Heat. Passion. Warmth.” She raised her hand over her face, blocking the sunlight from the window. “Light. Clarity. Hope. Kindness.” She twisted her fingers around, the sunlight shuffling between, her eyes going light, dark, then light again.
“Amber. Sorrow. Longing…” She slowed down, lowering her arm. “Pain.”
Josi finished. He set the tool back onto the table, and blew on the stone, the remnants flying away. It revealed her name, carved delicately onto the left wing of the bird. He looked up, and saw Vsana hiding her face from the sun, her eyes quiet.
“Vasiki-Sana. Vasiki’s Sana,” Josi said. She did not move. “But your father isn’t…” He trailed off, unsure if he should finish the sentence or not. Unsure what to do. Unsure if speaking too clearly would make it too much. So he handed the little rock bird back to her.
“Here,” he said, holding the bird up. She gently picked it up, and saw her name carved onto the white soft stone. He could hear her whisper “thank you”, amidst the sounds of stiffened tears he wasn’t sure he got to hear. Then Vsana turned her head to look at Josi right in the eyes, and for a moment Josi stuck with the gaze, seeing there were no tears, only Vsana’s warm eyes being graceful and joyful.
There’s so much behind those eyes. Josi smiled and said, “You’re welcome.”
Lime green sprouts. Light blue breeze and cool shades. It was already the second half of the year. Campus life was the usual. Josi woke up to birds chirping by the window, crafted artworks till noon, walked through campus to grab lunch, and realized the roads were getting emptier. Less time to wait in line for food and more vacant tables at the cafeteria.
Tashara concluded the club’s year last week by announcing her sudden departure from college life, and perhaps life in Nemares as a whole. From what she said herself, Josi guessed her father had found them an asylum from war, in a place far far away.
Vsana wasn’t there that day. The last time she came to hang out with Josi in his studio, he broke the news to her.
“Hope they will be okay,” she said, with a subtle sorrow in her voice. A whole school of young students, going here and there in life, with the forces of war slowly crawling within. It seemed like it was just him and Vsana left now, apart from Esol, who was very much absent in Josi’s life the whole year to prepare for a crucial evaluation examination. It would end in June, right near the end of the year. It was just the two of them, enjoying the sunset again and again, in Josi’s rather empty yet lively studio room, together.
Vsana told him she kept the little rock bird in her dorm, next to her favorite mythology book. Josi simply smiled, and said he was glad she liked it.
“…Are you free this weekend?” Vsana asked, lying on Josi’s bed, playing with the bracelet on her right wrist, twisting the wooden pieces strung on it. Josi was sitting by his table, sketching the sculpture he was tasked to make by the end of the year.
“…Yeah…” he said, his eyes glued onto the paper. “What about it?”
Vsana hesitated, shaking the bracelet, then said:
“Would you fancy watching an opera?”
“An opera?” Josi kept sketching.
“Yes.” Vsana turned to look at Josi. “You’ve never seen an opera?”
“No. Only heard of them.” He leaned back in his chair and stretched. Then he scrubbed his hair with the other end of his pencil.
“It’s like…a theatre show, but it’s narrated through music,” Vsana explained.
“Yeah, yeah, I know what an opera is.” Josi chuckled and replied, then got back to sketching. “Then, do you wanna come?” she asked again. Josi sighed.
“I mean…watching an opera with you?”
“Yeah. It’s okay if you don’t like—”
“No, it’s not that,” he explained. “You like opera, right? I’m pretty sure.”
“Love it.”
“…It’s not that I don’t like opera, it’s…” Josi stuttered, trying to explain.
“You haven’t watched one before, so you are unsure,” Vsana cut in. Josi looked at her for a second, then nodded.
“Yeah. That.”
“There’s always a first time for everything, you know. Do you remember when you made your first sculpture?”
“That’s…that’s different, Vsana, like…” Josi knew his words were falling apart on
themselves. Vsana tilted her head as she sat on his bed, looking at Josi.
“Fine. I’ll go with you. Uh,” Josi sighed and scratched his eyebrows with his eyes closed. “When?”
“Their next show is Saturday. 5:45 PM.”
“Okay, great. I’m free at that time. Where?”
“National Opera House.”
“Cool.”
Josi had never ridden the Loop line before. He had to examine the underground map for a whole minute to figure out how to get from the Stem line to the Loop line. And he had to count the stops to the National Opera House, tapping each station along the way while muttering “one, two, three, four…”, then count his coins to make sure he had enough roples for the trip and back.
Eight stops in total. That’s sixteen roples for a round trip. Josi frantically counted his coins, and relaxed when he realized he would still have four roples left. He lined up at the counter and put down eight roples on the tray.
“To where?” a young man behind the counter asked.
“National Opera House.”
Josi could see the man’s eyes counting the coins, then frowning back at Josi.
“The price is ten roples. You only have eight here, lad.”
“Ten? But it’s eight stops.”
“Prices have gone up. For trips longer than five stops, additional two roples fee.” Josi counted again. He stared into his wallet as he realized he would have no coins left when he returned after the opera. He held back, his mind running. This was all he had left for the month.
“Are you able to pay or not?” the man asked, a bit annoyed.
“Yeah, um.” Josi picked up two more roples and put them onto the tray. “Here.” The man retrieved the tray and returned to Josi a paper ticket.
“Move along, please. Next!”
Josi moved past the gate as he cursed himself for not checking the prices. But he probably would’ve bought the ticket anyway. Vsana was probably already out there, waiting.
He landed on the sidewalk again, the sky already getting dark. He had never been to this part of the city before. It seemed to be a business street, despite the shops and the roads being rather empty. He walked past door fronts, clothes shops, accessories, grocery stores, bakeries, all lit up warmly but with barely any people inside. The opera house was just a short walk down the road. Josi found himself at a large square, and an old-style building behind the square, with the words “National Opera House” on the roof.
He saw Vsana after the first gaze of the building. She was already by the main gate, waiting. He ran across the square, up the stairs, to her.
“You are here!…” Vsana noticed him, as he pushed himself up on his knees, panting.
“Yeah…sorry I’m late.”
“No, you are just on time. It’s okay. Let’s go.”
They walked through the gate together. It was well lit inside, with large, fancy chandeliers hung on high roofs, painted with art depicting mythology.
“Wow…” Josi exclaimed, as he walked around with his head up. Vsana laughed and said, “It’s not that fancy…come on.”
She led him to the ticket booth.
“Vsana, I…”
“What?” she asked.
“I don’t have enough money…”
“I’m buying the tickets,” she said, and led him forward.
“Is that okay? Really?”
“What? Of course it’s okay.” She didn’t loosen her grip on him. They got in line for the ticket, along with the crowd. “You are gonna love it, I swear.”
Josi noticed a poster on the side of the booth as Vsana bought their tickets. He overheard her asking for seats close to the stage, preferably in the middle. The poster showed a young warrior, dressed in ancient armor and standing in the silhouette of a glaring sun, unwavering. “What’s this show about?” he asked Vsana as she led him into the auditorium. Josi stepped through, and the space towered above him immediately. He had never seen a room this huge before, with a red velvet curtain in front, vintage walls and architecture on the sides, and rows and rows of seats lined up in front of the stage.
“Come on, our seats are near the front.” Vsana led him along. Josi suddenly felt a bit sick from all the things he was seeing. He sat down in his seat, and breathed through his nose.
“You okay?” Vsana noticed him as she settled down. Josi quickly nodded and smiled briefly. “It’s a lot, isn’t it?” she said.
Josi nodded again.
“This will be the best opera you’ve ever watched. It’s about the young warrior Sanadari, how she brought light back to our world.”
“Your name origin?” Josi was surprised. Vsana nodded excitedly, and sat back into her seat. The crowd settled. The auditorium went quiet, as the lights dimmed and the curtains unveiled. Josi watched closely. The set, the spotlight, the faces of the performers with emotions written all over their eyes. He had never watched something like this, let alone felt like this before. In his seat, eyes forward, heart quietly beating, taking the moment in.
Sanadari saw the darkness. She felt for the people of the world. She wished to bring light back to this world. So she fought, on the skies, among the stars coated by the darkness. She fought. The stars shimmered. She fought on. On the stars, next to the clusters, right at the heart of the sun, she fought. And she was burned. And she fell, slowly, back down to this world, like fire, like rain, like dust. Her mother knelt on the grass fields, flourishing under the newly brought sunlight, and wailed as the ashes of Sanadari fell into her own arms again. She held it, like a newborn baby, and she wailed, tears shining under the sun like pearls, like stars. My angel, my sunshine, I can’t see the light anymore.
The voice, the music, the melodies, it hit Josi right inside. And he sat there, sitting down with this new sensation, with this newly gained memory, of him sitting in the opera house for the first time in his life, watching a tragedy play on as he seemed to feel every inch of it like it was no stranger to him after all.
He saw something shine. At the corner of his eyes. On the corner of her eyes. Vsana, her face forward, eyes brittle, a single teardrop falling down, the light, so bright under the stage light, slowly diminishing, like a star.
Josi quietly watched, as the show went on, the actress sang on, the auditorium still pitch dark, as if her tears were the only thing glowing. It fell down, like Sanadari’s ashes, and Josi had this sudden urge to just…raise his fingertips up to it and hold it there, letting the tear drain away, the dampness linger on both of their skins. He wished to cup it inside a jar, like how Sanadari’s mother kept her daughter’s burning soul inside a glass jar, so it would be kept forever as it glowed, shimmered, vibrated with light and heat.
But where did that wish come from? he asked himself. Where did the urge grow? Was it always there? Josi didn’t know. He couldn’t see clearly, surely not in the auditorium’s pitch darkness, where he couldn’t even catch Vsana’s face clearly, only her tears, her fragile, vulnerable, precious and priceless tears. So he sat back, looking at the stage as the actress raised her final pitch, sang her final note, and the silence echoed with her fantastic voice, and the lights came on with a sudden clunk and his ears exploded with applause, applause,
applause. Everyone stood up. He sat in his seat, unable to move, unable to hear a word from the overlapping noise, thinking perhaps she wiped her tears and stood up, praising along with the crowd, or perhaps she sat in her seat, pinned down by emotions, the traces of tears very visible on her face.
But Josi didn’t look. Josi didn’t bother to look. He wished he had. He hoped he wouldn’t. He knew he shouldn’t. Something inside him, a burst of flame, the scorching pain, told him from the moment her tears manifested, that this wasn’t his star or his ashes. And Josi, finally drained by the mythology and the philosophy, accompanied Vsana out of the auditorium along with the crowd in silence, the most human sound possible.
“Josi?” Vsana spoke. They were walking side by side on the sidewalk, walking towards the underground entrance.
“Yes?”
“Do you remember when…” Vsana shrank her shoulders, then sighed. “At the start of the year, at the literature club…Tashara said we both had this…flame…inside.”
“I remember.”
“…What do you think the fire means?”
“For you?…”
“…For the both of us.”
They continued walking. It was as if the large crowd behind and in front of them, many of those who had been at the opera house, pushed them forward step by step.
“I’m not sure,” he said.
The store fronts glowed on their left as they went past. The stars and moon above were moving with them.
“Perhaps it’s just the art within us.”
Josi could tell she was deep in her thought. He could see Vsana lower her head slightly, silently, as he answered her question.
“I see,” she finally said. They were at the underground entrance.
“Where are you headed?” Josi asked, as they both stepped down the stairs leading to the station hall.
“Home.”
“You don’t stay on campus?”
“Not for the weekend, no.”
Josi realized he had nowhere to go but campus. It was his home. Unlike Vsana, his own solitude, in the studio, by the oil lamp, by his inanimate sculptures, was the only thing he could find closure in.
Josi was seeing Vsana less and less.
The year was close to the end. Spring had reached its height and the flowerbeds had begun to grow. The campus was getting emptier. Recruitment laws, escaping to the countryside, perhaps even death.
Josi had no idea where Vsana was. They hadn’t spoken since watching the opera together. That night, they walked out of the theatre in silence, side by side. They parted ways at the subway station. Josi watched, standing on the platform, holding the ticket he bought with the only coins he had left. He watched as Vsana stood on the other platform, waving him another soft goodbye before the train came tumbling in.
There was nothing much on her face. Perhaps a bit of worn-out sadness in her eyes. Josi didn’t know what that meant.
There’s too much behind those eyes. He walked onto his train.
