Ashes in His Beard

Based on true events.

The train hissed like something alive.

Leonid Kulik slammed the cabin door shut and sat hard on the bench, breath fogging between his knees. His beard was crusted with snow. His coat steamed faintly. Outside, the Siberian landscape flickered past: endless trees under endless white.

He pulled the folded letter from his pocket. The paper was creased, thumb-worn.

“Your assignment is approved. Proceed to Vanavara. Begin collection of data. You are expected to represent the Academy with professionalism and discretion.”

He read it twice. Folded it again. Tucked it back into his coat. The samovar clanked somewhere down the corridor. The train swayed.

A porter leaned in through the half-open door.

“You going east for gold?” he asked.

Kulik didn’t look up. “No.”

“What then?”

“I’m going to find where the sky fell.”

The porter watched him for a moment, then muttered something and moved on.

---

In the dining car, Kulik sorted through the letters again.

Peasant reports, scribbled in thick ink, some over ten years old: animals dropping mid-step. Birds falling dead from the sky. Heat with no fire. Thunder with no clouds.

One read: “The trees knelt to it.”

He underlined it in red, twice.