Pérez - 5/8 Radio #235

Apartment 91, fifth floor. Ilya slowly stirs cheap coffee in an old mug with the picture of the Egyptian pyramids (his younger sister brought it from vacation in Hurghada about ten years ago). Just one more day to endure. Then he'll head to the train station in the evening and hop on the suburban train. It will be hot and stuffy in the carriage, his shirt will instantly stick to his body. Outside the window there will be graffiti-adorned concrete fences, garage cooperatives, auto repair shops, old houses, vacant lots, new houses, more concrete fences, other people's dachas, and finally, dense forest. He'll get off at a station with a funny name and walk along a sandy road between fields overgrown with tall grass. In the country house inherited from his grandfather, it will smell familiarly of an old books. Ilya will brew strong coffee in his favorite red polka-dot mug (for some reason it will taste better than at home) and, sitting on the porch, will listen as unfamiliar nocturnal birds sing beyond the fence in the twilight-darkened pine forest. The itching need to transplant the distant raspberry bush growing by the tilted barn will swiftly push out all other thoughts and desires. He will finally take a deep breath—feeling oddly pleasant and serene, as if he had turned on Perez's mix for 5/8: radio.