Natasha’s Dream

I wonder where she is now, on what continent and on which side of the Atlantic Ocean or the Equator.

We were planning to get married. I drew a sketch of her taking a nap and soon turned it into a painting of her dreams about the color of our future. To us 23-year-olds it appeared clean, bright, and vibrant. We didn’t know this would be our last time together, with a host of ridiculous reasons and circumstances pulling us apart.

33 years later I found this picture hanging in the guest bedroom of my parents’ dacha. I shudder to think about the long list of guests staring at it from the squeaky old bed. I chided my parents for their simple-mindedness and took the picture out of the frame, replacing it with some tranquil landscape.