Chernobyl Prayer: A Chronicle of the Future

My best friend was called Andrey. He had two operations, and then they sent him home. He was supposed to have a third operation in six months’ time. He hanged himself with his belt, in an empty classroom, when all the others had run off to the physical education class. The doctors had told him he mustn’t run or jump. He had been the best footballer in the school, before the … surgery.

I had a lot of friends here: Yulya, Katya, Vadim, Oxana, Oleg … and now Andrey. ‘We will die and become part of science,’ Andrey used to say. ‘We will die and everyone will forget us.’ That’s what Katya thought. ‘When I die, don’t bury me in a graveyard. I’m afraid of cemeteries. There are only dead people there, and crows. Bury me in open countryside’, was what Oxana wanted. ‘We are going to die,’ Yulya said, and cried.

For me, the sky is alive now when I look up at it. They are up there.