The Quiet Catharsis of Igor Isaenko
The following pages were found in a Children’s Hospital in Mazyr, Belarus, by an American journalism student during the filming of a documentary. I Dear Reader, whom I do not know, who may never be, I write not for you but for me. I write because I can’t sleep. I write because Polina is dead. Currently, I’m drunk from three capfuls of vodka on a three-day empty stomach. I have Nurse Natalya to thank for this. She is the only one who knows how destroyed I am. She is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a mother, and I know she thinks of me as a son. Like any good mother,...
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