Father Pravyk should be preparing for work once again. But he grinds his teeth, closes his eyes, turns over in his warm marriage bed, empty save for him and his dreams, and holds on, resolutely, grimly, earnestly, to the golden memory of sleep.
FATHER PRAVYK : Just five more minutes!
And Mother Pravyk makes his breakfast in the crowded kitchen.
There's Danylo, steeped in smokeless fuel exhaust and the smell of hot metal, walking home with cotton-clean afternoon-schooled Lesya and little all-day scholar Pavlo.
DANYLO PRAVYK : The world seemed bigger to me at school,
says young Danylo,
now it's just an engine.
And sister Lesya simply says
LESYA PRAVYK : Do you think it's different for me? Everyone's world is small.
PAVLO PRAVYK : Hello, Mama!
MOTHER PRAVYK : Hello, my boy.
PAVLO PRAVYK : Where's Kira?
MOTHER PRAVYK : In bed.
PAVLO : We never ever get to play,
Pavlo grumbles at the world, frustrated,
oh, never ever, Mama!
And he heavy-foots his way to his shared bed. It may as well be night time. His day is over before darkness calls, without great adventures, brightened only by the possibility of tomorrow's games in the school playground. He cannot see the others, the children and elderly hustled to bed with promises.
ALICE WEAVER : Hushabye, darling, it's time for dreaming...
MUNA LOT : Hushabye, baby, don't say a word,
Mockingbirds, no that's the wrong song,
When the wind blows, up in the treetops,
If we stay cheerful, we'll keep going.
But they all mutter and moan and grumble at the indignity, united in their chaffing at someone else's authority, and they vow to wait, not tiring, for the far away dawn to prove their wakefulness.
Their guardians, for whom this grizzling and twining is ritual, just turn down duvets and tuck in blankets.
And here, in their little two-up-two-down, Mother Pravyk smiles in saintly serenity at her young children, fighting over threadbare old sheets, waiting for a happy story to night-dream over.
Her husband sits down to his rarely home breakfast with the others.
FATHER PRAVYK : It'll be breakfast in the Welfare tomorrow.
MOTHER PRAVYK : Long ago and far away,
Mother Pravyk says as she begins a tale from the old, gone, missed, false, home country.