Two weeks later, we left Janhvi. She had cut his paintings with a knife. We left her alone. The camp for Russian children was waiting for us. I went there with curiosity—to see how an unstructured mind approaches creation. As Pablo Picasso once said, every child is an artist.

When we arrived, the counselors were confused. Two painters from the city. We looked out of place. Romualdas wore a large bamboo necklace—you could hear him before you saw him. I walked in red flip-flops shaped like shells. People watched us carefully.

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We began working with the children. They grabbed every color at once, mixed everything into a single brown mass, and spread it across the canvas. Out of a hundred, one might return to paint again the next day. That was enough to understand—this path is not for everyone.

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We lived in a small cabin. My cat Laska was with me. She kept disappearing into the forest, and there was nothing to control. I let it happen. Sometimes she returned and left something under the bed—chipmunks, mice. That was when I understood: she had the option to leave, but she stayed.

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It was summer. There was income. We worked from morning until late evening. Forest surrounded everything. I started carrying large stones and built a floor behind the cabin. Then I painted it with petroglyphs. The cabin—an old mobile structure—we cleaned and painted as well. Symbols, markings, fragments. On the door, Romualdas painted a large horned figure. It disturbed people so much that the assistant director kept trying to cover it.

In the main hall, he made a large abstract work with a black figure. I painted portraits of Iroquois figures—on the same land we were occupying.

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We each had our own group of children. They did not listen. You had to raise your voice to be heard. I found myself doing things I had never imagined—forcing order, telling them to sleep, threatening consequences. Then Nika appeared—multicolored dreadlocks, a drifting presence. She entered our orbit without effort.

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After work, we went into the forest—me, Romualdas, Nika, sometimes others. Almost every night. The path crossed an iron bridge with an old American flag hanging above it. Before the bridge, there was a cemetery. People from the camp would go there to drink.

Romualdas sometimes lay flat on the ground and spoke from there. We brought a speaker. He played heavy music. For me, the bridge remained different—Radiohead, Everything in Its Right Place. We stayed there for hours, then moved deeper into the forest, sitting on cut stumps. He could lie there as well, trying to sleep. We slept very little. Lived on coffee.

At night, animals moved around us. You could hear them clearly. Sometimes there were sounds that did not match anything familiar. At times it felt like he was no longer speaking from the same place—like he was shifting somewhere else, entering the same state without painting.

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On his birthday, he suggested going to a lake marked on the map. Private land. No path. We pushed through thorns. The others fell behind. Only the three of us remained.

We reached a stream. Nika said it scared her. Romualdas struck a tree trunk in the water. I told them we should leave and lit the area with a flashlight. His eyes reflected green. She leaned toward him. I turned and walked away.

On the way out, I heard branches breaking and voices. Owls began screaming. I wanted to go back but could not find the way—only thorns.

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That night, I thought: I hope nothing happened out there.

In the morning, they did not show up for work. I was sent to find them. On the trail, a large black snake lay across the path. It moved away slowly. I reached their tent. They came out.

Nika had beaten Romualdas. He could barely stand. He said he had seen spirits of Native Americans, that they had guided them out, that the space had broken. They had come out of the forest at dawn—wet, without clothes.I never understood what that was.

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I stayed in the middle. He moved toward rupture. I held a center point. A human is not an extreme.

We worked there for two months. Many people, many situations. The unexpected part was this—we appeared the most unstable, but we were the least dangerous. Others carried more, but kept it hidden.

We returned to the city. First to New Jersey, to Nika. Katya was there as well. We lived together for a time.

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Later, I suggested going to Kaaterskill Falls. The three of us. At a gas station, we pulled a tarot card—death. I noted it and moved on.

We arrived at night. There was a drought. The waterfall had reduced to a narrow stream. I still felt a sense of presence. I went into the water. I mentioned casually that people had died there taking photos.

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Nika heard it differently. As a warning. As intention. She convinced Romualdas of the same.

After that, we separated. I argued with Katya and Nika. Later, it became clear how they were making money. I went back to Sam. Romualdas stayed with Nika.