Summary:

I got up from bed as I did every morning. It was cold but I dealt with it as always. I stepped onto the old floor; it creaked as I walked upon it like always. I walked to the kitchen of my house and opened my ice-holder, and picked up a block of ice and set it down into a pot to let it evaporate. The ice-holder, a device I invented myself in fact. One day I figured out to make it when I was bored, and was also running out of my water supply that I brought with me when I came here. I have been here in Russia for so many years now I forget what day it is, what month it is, what year it is. I live in the eastern part of Russia, in the northern parts of Siberia, so isolated, so peaceful for me. I haven’t left the area around my house in so long. I live here sustaining myself on melting ice into water, and I have a green house in the basement for vegetables and fruit. How I hated fruit and vegetables when I came here… but in order to be self-sustaining and stay out of the putrid world outside, I must eat it. I came to terms with fruit and vegetables sometime after coming here. I grow vegetables here by building the green house deep underground where it is warm even here in the mountains where it gets to be rather cold. I don’t even know how I’ve lived here so long, alone. The first months I was freezing, I was tempted to leave my home due to the harsh winters… but I managed. I bundled my clothes into the same robe I haven’t taken off in so long. I know what you might be saying to yourself… I’m just a crazy old hermit who uses the word “long” and “alone” a lot, but quit whining and listen to my story for a little while.