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24 Amit Bobrov
Drentwych was like a bizarre dream to me, it resembled
nothing I knew in my homeland. The trees were towering

and huge, dwarfing any man who stood before them. The
surrounding stone walls and tall, armed guards speaking in
their barbaric language gave me a very strong feeling of being
a miniature man surrounded by man-eating giants. Then there
were the cold, chilly winds and the snow. It was the first time
I’d ever seen snow, and I tried to grab a few flakes to study,
wondering all the while why snow turns to water upon touch.
I was tiny compared to all of this. I was just a small boy. My
parents had just died, and I really did not know how to cope

with that — with everything. In my own way I concluded that
people are like snowflakes; unique and fragile. I couldn’t really
think about anything else.
I walked rather aimlessly around town, uncertain of my
steps, and lacking the adult direction which all children take for
granted. I was awed, at first, by all the novelty around me. Yet as
the spell lifted, I saw the place as it truly was: wretched, just like

my homeland only in a different way. It was like a story being
repeated by a dull bard, where the characters have different
names, and the scenery is different. Yet somehow, they all play
the exact same role as the sad stories you’ve heard before. A
smelly bucketful, which may or may not have been dung, poured
out a window, broke the spell of childish wonder. I noticed how
the snow mingled with the filth, becoming an oozing, repulsive
substance which I did my best to avoid. I nearly bumped into
a stump-footed man lying in the snow and waste — probably

half-dead by the looks of him. He was covered head-to-toe
in filthy rags, and underneath them he wore a dirty soldier’s
uniform.
Obviously he had been injured in battle and left to beg for