The boy groaned, but the sounds of his complaints already felt distant and vague, coming from a place where they would not disrupt K.’s hands and eyes.

They were met at the emergency ward by three orderlies. K. gripped one tightly by the forearm.

“Listen. Are you doing intake? Write this down. Patient is six years old. Place of residence, Snizhne. You’re dealing with a crush syndrome case, multiple fractures. Tourniquets have been applied.” He glanced at his watch. “Novocaine block administered. Thirty-four minutes ago. One hundred millimetres in each pre-outer fascia. Twenty-one minutes ago. No relatives.”

The orderly looked stunned.

“You did this on the road?”

K. saw the other two orderlies leaving.

“Well, it looks good, no?” said Grumpy. “He was in alright condition. He even smiled at me as we arrived.”

“His chances are pretty poor actually,” K. answered, picking empty syringes off the ground.

“Let’s come back in a couple of days and find out.”

K. shook his head.

“No. I don’t want to know.”

The steel tracks crept along the road, blaring, and leaving a trail of ripped-up tarmac in its wake.

Loud voices and the clinking of dishes emerged from the cafe patio in the park. A wake. They were burying the mother of the boy they had just brought in, as well as three others from the same building. It was a small town. All the wakes were organised in the same place.

“Did you hear about a guy on the third floor who survived? His wife was coming back from the shops just as the bomb was dropped. An explosion, boom, dust, everything collapses, and her husband, he was just in his underpants, he’s catapulted out of the window with a mattress. And plop. Him and the mattress fall to the ground! She runs up to him yelling, checking to see if he’s alive. And he gets up, shakes himself off and asks: ‘You didn’t forget the bread, did you?’”

“That’s new. Not seen that before,” said K., pointing to an unfamiliar vehicle with large missiles on the sides.

“It’s a Buk,” said Grumpy.

“Not like any I’ve ever seen in the library.”

“Funny guy.”

K. lit a cigarette.

“I didn’t know they had these things.”

“Me neither,” Grumpy scratched the back of his head. “The Ukrainians are going to get a nice surprise now.”

He saluted. The passengers of the escort car waved back in response. They drove close behind the rocket launcher, down a street. K. turned away.

“This place is a cancer. It kills people, living cells.”

“You’re on the wrong side, brother.”

“I heard that before. The man who said it is dead now. So I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to make sure. Evil deserves compassion. Everyone deserves compassion. Even the killer. He deserves to die. And compassion.”

“You contradict yourself.”

“No. Unfortunately I don’t.”