Read Julia Lukshina's "Mist," published today in B O D Y!

Thank you, B O D Y, for publishing this deceptively peaceful story by Julia Lukshina! As a child, the narrator stays awake to observe the mist shrouding the fields behind the dacha, a fascination which gradually coalesces into an inspiration (or an obsession). I enjoyed translating the subdued irony in this passage:

Once I was able to hold out for three nights in a row without sleep. By the end of the experiment, I felt light as a balloon, but on the fourth day I fell asleep while I was weeding the potato beds. My grandma discovered me in among the flattened plants and apparently thought I’d fainted. A sickly city child poisoned by fresh air. That’s the only thing that explains why I wasn’t punished. She warmed up my feet with a mustard plaster, for some reason, then swaddled me tight in her most prized possession—an Egyptian camel hair blanket—and sent me off to bed, ordering me not to get up until the next morning.