A little house on a hill resists crumbling, half a mile further on, draws unnatural lines against the gray sky. I see it draw an arc in the air before falling near a bush and disappearing among the flowers. The stalker is launching yet another of his bolts attached to a piece of cloth a few yards in front of him.

We move slowly through tall grass, metal skeletons, dilapidated buildings, meadows and streams, with little noise, little reason to talk, little desire to do so and even less to see foreign eyes planted on us. Rain must have fallen recently, the gray sky hides perhaps a distant sun. I am the last this time and I have orders not to turn around. But the Zone needs a stalker, and a stalker and needs the Zone. I asked her to take me into the Zone, to be escorted into the room. We got in line, in an order without criteria, determined from our guide without name, like all of us. And my dear fellow travelers can still breathe and move their lips as if this air were not for them, as if every breath was their right and not a conquest of their lives. Words, relentless words, I cannot hold them, they slip through my fingers, dripping in pools around the feet, slow, and their noise keeps track of time in a world that does not understand us, that does not want us. The forehead resting on the hands, the cold makes me forget the pain I live only a few minutes at a time, then reappears and becomes mind, recaptures my attention, lowers my peace. With the discussion comes the truth… Water shakes my ankles, my left hurts since we crossed the border of the Zone. You know what, Professor? I do not want to argue with her. What is certain is that at the end of the battle we have to choose the winners and losers.

Acting on our being, on our very nature can be a challenging process, especially if this action produces a conflict, a rift between the need for a change and our choices that have accompanied us up to that point: fighting for ourselves and with ourself has consequences not easily predictable.

Stalker noise of the zone