Basil is four years old boy of our neighbours Pat and Jerry. He is very curious, funny, always eager to help everybody to do anything.
It’s a nice spring day outside. I plant seedlings today, and Basil comes to our garden with his own little trowel. He squats next to me, and starts digging the soil with a joyful smile, explaining that he is helping me. We finish planting, and go to our house to greet our two cats. Basil loves pets, he has a cat Cindy and a dog Nicky at home. He helps me to put food in cats’ bowls, and then he drinks his favorite chocolate milk which I always keep in my refrigerator just for him. Basil has the cutest smile I have ever seen in a child, and when he smiles his upper lip half-rises so funny… He recently had a surgery to fix so-called a harelip.
Basil’s mom and dad adopted him from Russian orphanage about two years ago. There are rules that allow foreigners to adopt Russian orphans who are sick. No healthy children are available for foreign adoption.

the orphan home —
its neglected yard filled
with dandelions

18 years ago, life has stopped in this city. It was a nice spring day. All habitants have been put on military trucks, and taken away without their belongings, money, pets, toys… even without their papers. Everything was left behind, all their past lives were left behind.

A day before, Chernobyl nuclear reactor had exploded.

ghost city …
wind sings a lullaby
to a crippled doll

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