And what about the fit duration, Doc? Seems like setting it down to infinity plus this one day, would be close enough… Nations been risen and passed away, to quote the famous lecture by sage Abu-Lala before his string of camels, while this river runs here and still has to, thru all those ages upon eons ever since before the beginnings of time.

Changes in the mountain rivers are pretty negligible, except for those in their names. Sure bet, the Stone Age hunters had other sound combinations as for this here stream because all flow and everything changes, handles as well… Now, taking into account the whole multitude of roamers that ever trod these banks, you can’t state who’s runnier: the dateless river of Varanda or irresponsible drifters and purposeful undertakers of any shade and warp in the spectrum. And here am I, a casual bum from endless series, neither the first nor the last by this omnipresent flow.

…extreme pleasure, bro, from your spectacular malarkey… and while you’re at it how ’bout pinning down this “I” of mine, eh?.

A minor spill, considerably dehydrated and motionless for the moment, stretched next to the good ol’ hole thru which all of the future tumbles away into the past—a relay-pipeline from a snotty noddy kid to a grumpy, flea-bitten curmudgeon, yet both share one common thing: this ubiquitous word of “I”.

…me too, me too!. don’t leave me out!. I’m also somewhere in between them those two, on our everlasting journey from the junior to the senior, for even though idling now on this bank I still go with the flow…

…whoa, man!. what are you up at? acting a freakin smartie?. who cares a flick about your quotation frills at this time of day?.

Yes, time remains the laziest in our assembly, uncaring, has dozed off in earnest about my one-person tent. The twilight outside the well-bleached nylon wall will snail for long along its way to thickening into the dark of night.

…right, then why not to whittle the drag away by something useful, eh?.

…like, to compose the letter promised to your daughter… what’d you say?. we’ve got the promises to keep, remember?. especially when there’s not a flake of chance to fall asleep so early…

…just only watch your mouth, pardner… easy about them those f-f..er..fumbling quotations?.

~ ~ ~

Hello, Liliana

Seems, I do start at last the letter promised to you at our encounter in Kiev… What for? To marshal a chain of self-excuses and belated explanations, to claim not guilty, absolve my flawless self?. Anything can be explained, yet none redone. However, given the word was given, I’ve only got to keep it…

Hard it was to stomach your official correctness and the excessive use of “You” in plural to keep me at a proper distance, “Of course, Sehrguey Nikolayevich…” “Not exactly, Sehrguey Nikolayevich…” Oboy! I began to resent my own patronymic, yet faced the flogging without a flinch, as fits a manly man.

Meting out “Daddy” to a stranger popped up from the Internet vistas is not an easy job, more so if he looks nothing like the Mr. Pretty Guy sitting in your Mom’s album… Some obscure mujik, gray hanging beard… Where is Daddy of your dreams who you’ve missed since your early childhood? You dreamed of that Daddy, not of this old man. No, thanks! Accordingly, our farewell hug at the railway station was just put up with—not a big deal for a woman nearing her thirties—and that’s it. The glacial ice retained its hardness, not a micro crevice cracked the cold surface, the gardens never splash in bloom, nor were they filled with lively cheerful chirps of blackbirds, thrushes, tits, and starlings injecting their joyous trills into the triumphant blare of fanfares at The Happy End. The stranger who failed to become anything but a stranger let you go and I promised write you a letter. That way we parted, two strangers, at the Kiev Railway Station for Long-Distance Trains…