#ensignspace

tatyana: 

it’s still not quite raining, but to say that it’s concretely not raining would be a bit dishonest. you check your watch again, more out of habit than anything— the 8 o’clock bus is late. you’re glad it doesn’t matter today. well, to you, anyway. the young woman next to you seems more anxious about it. she shifts her feet, fiddles briefly with a pack of cigarettes,. i shouldn’t say young— you assumed she was, just because it feels like everyone should be young today, should be exactly your age, should be young with you— but when you look closer (discretely, between long stretches of seconds spent of studying the subtle gradation of grays below your feet from entirely dry concrete to, well, it’s sort of genuinely raining now, isn’t it. you hope the bus pulls up close to the curb, you didn’t bring your umbrella) you find it’s hard to pin an age on her. so much the better, you think. you’d like to look like that one day, ageless. 

still, it bothers you. it’s none of your business, but for some reason you really want to know. you’d never ask a stranger anything normally, but again that feeling… maybe if you told her it’s your birthday, she’d tell you as a present? maybe she wouldn’t say it aloud, maybe she’d write her answer in your notebook, you think wildly, trying to remember whether or not you have a pen in your bag. the bus pulls up, yellow headlights cutting bright tired lines through the rain and morning fog. the door folds open with a creaky hiss, and the woman steps on without glancing at you. somehow, this hurts— should a stranger’s slight make you feel this way? on your birthday? automatically, you have already begun to follow her onto the bus, but something makes you stop. you step back under the plexiglass roof of the bus shelter, sit down on the corrugated bench, pull out your notebook and find your pen (you do have one!). 

as you wait for the 8:40 bus, you begin to draw yourself a birthday card. if the paper survives the strengthening rain, you’ll sign it when you’re done: ‘from the stranger at the bus stop’. why not.

just fyi, speaking about tanks lmao in russia almost in every city we have this kind of ww2 monuments: a tank on a stand/podium and the fun thing is that part of these tanks still can work hypothetically

BC THIS IS A HORSE...AND THIS HORSE IS YOUR FRIEND NOW

AS A HISTORIAN I AGREE!!!! you got the point right!!