mountains.
“I think the mountains have gotten closer,” Sasha said to their parents at breakfast. The Laniks were seated at their humble square dinner table, eating their humble porridge, during the humble morning hours. Despite the crude ash staining and varnishing, Otec took great pride in the table. He had made it long before the manufacturers came with their rumbling vehicles and replaced most of the hamlet’s humble tables with wooden slabs on metal sticks. Sasha, however, was embarrassed by the family table and if they had friends, they would avoid bringing them over.
“Is it now?” Matka said without looking up. She kept her eyes on her bowl—also crudely stained and varnished—and shovelled down spoonful after spoonful of the soggy oats. Some grains stuck stubbornly to her face, oats slowly collecting in on the corners of her mouth. Noticing this, Sasha instinctively wiped their mouth with the back of their hand.
“It really is!” Sasha insisted as they put their small calloused hand back on the table. “The mountains look taller! And wider too!”
“I think it’s just your imagination,” Otec took the pipe out of his mouth to smile down on the child. He gestured at the bowl with his carefully sanded pipe. “Now finish your oats. We have a long day ahead of us.”
Sasha grimaced and looked back at their bowl. They obediently picked up their spoon. “Yes, Tata.”
The Laniks continued on their breakfast in blissful silence until the spoons clacked against the bottom of the bowls, wood on wood. They helped each other rinse the cutlery and then, one by one, put on woollen layer after woollen layer. After each Lanik was sufficiently bundled up, Otec placed his heavily mittened hand against the metal door. He let out a sigh of relief. The cold did not seep through the thick fabric.
After Otec cranked the door open, it was time for the Laniks to get to work. During the winter months, Matka and Sasha tended to the cows in the barn. However, Otec had said that this year, Sasha was old enough to help gather wood with him.
They lived on the edge of the forest that encircled the mountains that Sasha looked out at each morning. They weren’t the only family that lived on this boundary but Sasha wouldn’t have been able to name a single one. Sasha would squint out at the horizon to no avail—they could never see the next farm over. People liked to keep to themselves.
“Alright,” Otec said, his voice muffled from the scarf wrapped tight around his face. The only piece of Otec’s face that Sasha could see were the sparkle of his eyes peeking out through the air tight goggles. “As long as you can see the house from the trees, we’ll be alright.”
Sasha nodded, quite literally bouncing up and down with excitement. It was his first time venturing into the forest.