(1.1) Low Flying Brooms

Winter 1985, St. Petersburg, Russia

Hindered by dark overcast, the sun shone at mid-day’s mark over the western satellite-states of the collapsing USSR. Bitter winds laughed in their unwillingness to lament their icy grips from the land. To this gesture, the sun patiently waited, knowing one day soon the land would give way to the warmth of its rays and thrive again beyond the winter’s reign. For eons the deathly cool preceded the life of spring, as it would be forever…

Walking the streets of St. Petersburg were the throngs of the unemployed; a gift of the new General Secretary’s economic strategy. A decent majority of these poor souls were homeless, an even larger majority feared for their well being with the political instability, all seemed to be hungry. With basic human needs unfulfilled man will turn to drastic lengths to live. As was said, ‘no God can stop a hungry man.’ With the former being true, it’s found that morality isn’t as set in stone as most zealots would have you believe. Rather, it constantly teeters on a scale measuring the cost of life and the willingness to forfeit virtue.

Although the propaganda being shouted across radio waves would suggest the new patriarch, Mikhail Gorbachev, was improving the state of affairs, the corruption inherent within the empire suggested otherwise. The tightly knit mafia had grown stronger and taken outright ownership of Russia’s banking and military power. But it would take time for the new leader of the country to filter out the crime that had for so long sat in the shadows of the underground. It was in this time that the people suffered most. However, through despair, humankind can truly show its resolve and resolution…

“Dmitri! Stop teasing!”

Her blue eyes gleamed in excitement as the girl, who was three days away from being a ‘big-girl-of-8-years-old,’ tried jumping in order to snatch the half-loaf of bread from her brother’s hand. Falling short and catching the boy’s forearm however, her thin frame managed to pull the bread closer to snatching level.

“Ow, stop pulling so hard Sof’ya, at least say please like a proper girl.”

Dmitri was still breathing heavy, each exhale hung in the frigid air. His arms shook, not due to cold, but from his hasty getaway.

In youthful spirit his younger sister quickly released his arm and did a curtsy, mockingly.

“Please Mr. Dima,” her stomach gurgled and she broke into a pout.

With a slight laugh the thirteen-year-old kid, broke off a fist sized portion of the loaf and handed it to the waiting hands of his sister. Almost instantly she started devouring the poor bread. Playfully he messed her hair as the remaining loaf went into the deep, empty, pocket of his overcoat.

“But Dima, aren’t you going to eat?” Cheeks puffed out with unchewed chunks.

After shaking some snow drift off his coat the boy sniffed and put on his best tough-man voice.

“Nah, I’m not hungry right now, plus it’ll leave more for us to eat later,” Of course he said that last time, “Come on, I’ll race you home!”

Together, the brother and sister ran to the loft complex that they called home. Here, they were able to use a spare cleaning room as their house. The landlady of the place didn’t seem to mind much, and neither did the kids, being that they were parentless. Sof’ya had been too young to remember their mother dying from tuberculosis, and Dmitri never even knew their father. It had almost been four years since they lost their mom, but somehow fate had watched over the two.

For a while they’d lived with their detached uncle, but when he was arrested for larceny the pair had to make due on their own. Even though thievery had ended the pair guardian-less, it now was the staple provider for the two. For his sister’s sake, Dmitri would do anything, even under the pain of knowing that it would break Mother’s heart to know her son had become a petty thief.

Shaking away those bleak thoughts Dmitri moved the never used buckets out of the way to reach their bedrolls packed away on the single shelf in the room. Next to the bedrolls was a box wrapped in old newspaper, inside the box was Sof’ya’s birthday present. They couldn’t afford anything for last year so this one would be special enough for both years.

After grabbing the two blankets Dmitri hopped down from the bucket, unfortunately one of the brooms didn’t seem to take a liking to being disturbed and showed the boy’s head its dislike through the clever use of gravity.

“Ow, son-of-a,” he rubbed the welt forming on the back of his head.

Sof’ya covered a snicker and walked over to her brother, her tiny hands gripping his coat sleeve to pull him down awkwardly and give his head a peck.

“There! All better!” Her face lit up with a smile, “Dmitri, do you think I can sleep next to you tonight? It’s cold over here.”

Sof’ya was always given the closest spot to the warmest part of the wall, where the adjoining loft’s stove happened to be.

“Sure thing brat,” he would always call her teasing names. That was their way, an unwritten brother-sister law of saying I love you.

With a sigh the bedrolls were re-layed out, this time with an eye keeping watch for low-flying brooms.