Status Updates From Степь

Night in the steppe is deafening. It's pitch black, and the chirring in it pierces your body with a thousand needles. It's hard to sleep; the entire steppe seems to be launching itself in your direction. The nighttime steppe is an army of archers aiming their electric black arrows directly at you.
Meanwhile the grasses keep whispering, whispering about some mortal danger...

...by talking about insects and smoke, each man was indicating to the other I won't hurt you.

“Sitting there, I thought all of old age must be like this lonely gaze into the distance, a gaze toward something unreachable. A solitary disappointment and an internal audit, and a kind of nostalgia for the world you’ll soon be obliged to leave. An unbearable longing for the future and an impotent rage at a world that will remain the same even without you in it.”