The white milk splashed over the rim of the blue saucer, wetting the dry autumn grass. Artyom did not look up when another heavy cardboard box slid across his porch floor with a dull scrape.
“You have six weeks before the lease starts,” Vera said. She stood on the bottom step, clutching her large leather purse to her chest as if it held all of her father’s remaining days. “The movers need to know how many crates to bring.”
Artyom slowly bent down and set the saucer near the edge of the wire fence. He rubbed his left wrist with his thumb, right where his military watch had rested forty years ago.
“The garden is not finished,” Artyom said, his Eastern European accent turning the words thick and slow.
“The garden is dead, Papa,” Vera said, placing a warm hand on his shoulder. “Some things are worth keeping, even when they take up space, but you cannot live out here in the cold anymore.”
Artyom turned his face away from her, staring at the dry gray soil near the bottom of the fence. He did not want to see the stack of empty packing boxes piling up in his hallway, waiting to swallow his life.
A cold wind was blowing, but in his mind, it was the dry, biting gale of the Pamir Mountains at Point Seven. He remembered sweeping the gray shale dust from the trench floor, the coarse broom bristles catching on the jagged stone.
“This dust gets into the bread,” Silas said, pulling his oversized wool collar up to his chin. “It gets into the water. My eyes feel like someone rubbed salt in them.”
Artyom did not answer, his broom stopping near a deep fissure in the trench wall. Inside the dark, narrow crack, two tiny, liquid eyes glistened back at him in the dim mountain light.
Silas did not see them, his gaze fixed on the gray valley below as he adjusted his collar again. Artyom quietly pushed a tiny piece of dry mutton toward the opening with the tip of his boot. He believed the secret of the crevice belonged to him alone, unaware of the eyes watching him from the watchtower.
By evening, the chill of the high outpost had settled deep into the mess hall timber. Artyom stood before the high wooden counter, his hands flat on the rough boards.
“A double portion of dried bread today, Soldier?” Captain Miller asked. He did not look up from his ledger, tapping his brass pen against the open page.
“The air makes me hungry, Captain,” Artyom said.
Miller stopped tapping his pen, his sharp eyes lifting to study Artyom’s face. The Captain knew every man’s ration down to the ounce, and his silence stretched until the oil lamp on the wall flickered. He knew Artyom had been lingering by the trench wall after hours.
With a swift scribble, Miller signed the paper slip and pushed it across the wood. “Do not let me find your ledger short at the end of the month.”
The memory dissolved as the shadow of a red baseball cap fell across the dry grass of Oakhaven, Ohio. Dennis stood near the property line, his face flushed and his voice carrying over the creak of the wire fence.
“I told you twice about that wooden box, Artyom,” Dennis said, pointing a thick finger at the weathered pine crate hidden behind the tomato stakes. “You are drawing pests to this whole block.”
Artyom stood in the gathering dusk, his arms hanging loose at his sides. He knew Dennis was an orderly man who liked a clean lawn, but surely a neighbor could understand a small box. Artyom did not know that Dennis had already signed the formal complaint paper at the county office that morning.
“It is only for the wind,” Artyom said.
“I am not going to ask you again,” Dennis said, pulling his cap lower over his eyes. “Next time, I call the county warden.”
Dennis turned and strode back toward his porch, his heavy boots crushing the dry leaves.
