Elena leaned back and closed her eyes, the scent of the trees filling her lungs. The world had grown old and tired, full of legal appeals and shifting borders, but here, under the shade of the Young Guard, she remained exactly who she had always been.

"Thank you, Eje ," the girl said, breathless and flustered, checking the screen for cracks.

A young girl, perhaps twenty years old, tripped over a stray root near the bench. Her phone skidded across the pavement. Elena leaned forward, her joints protesting, and picked it up.

"Elena, look!" a voice called out in her memory. It was Viktor, leaning against the very same tree she sat near now. Back then, the boulevard was the heart of everything. It was where they had their first date, walking from the with a bag of warm apricots, their fingers sticky and their laughter ringing louder than the bells of the passing trolleybuses.