Moscow, Russia - September 1991

Ivan can feel a slight ticking to the air in the early morning. Mishenka, the overly large and fluffy grey cat, rises with him, bowing before Ivan as he stretches and arches his back. He purrs, lazily dragging his tail-just the very tip of it-across the rumpled comforter. If Mishenka hears the ticking, he does not acknowledge it.

A cold front of wind envelopes the building of Ivan's Moscow apartment. The blinds and drapes are drawn, the lamps are off; the only light is that from the digital clock on the range that Ivan can see from his bed. It is quiet. Quiet, save for a steady ticking he believes may only be in his head.

Ivan and Mishenka sit with each other for a good chunk of time-two hours, if he is reading the clock correctly-unmoving and tense. Although it is mid-morning, Ivan does not dare leave his room in fear that he will wake his sisters. They are. . .strained, right now, he can feel it in the air when Natasha walks passed him, or when Katyusha refuses to meet his eyes. He savours this silence, relishing in the fact that for once in many long years he must not do all the talking. He can simply sit back and be silent just as he always wants to be.

At eight-thirty, Mishenka leaves the nest of his master's bedspread and plops onto the floor, a deep and healthy thunk follows after the thick cat. He gives Ivan one last look over his shoulder, almost saying I warned you before tottering off into the kitchenette and starting at his breakfast of ashen cat food.

Ivan can hear his older sister as she walks past his room. Her wool socks pad against the old wood flooring. Mishenka offers a gargled sort of noise-that cat has never actually meowed in his entire life-in greeting before going back to eating the grey lump Ivan left him the previous night. Katyusha kneels down beside the hulking cat and scratches his ears, whispering compliments in hushed Russian. She turns and looks down the hall straight into Ivan's room and briefly locks eyes; the ticking in Ivan's head crescendos for a few moments, then goes back to pianissimo once Katyusha looks away.

He sees the alteration in her eyes, but does nothing. Instead he stands and reaches over for his scarf, tying it into a butterfly knot around his neck. He hears Katyusha begin to make breakfast, eggs hissing as they hit boiling water.

"Good morning, Vanya," Katyusha says. Ivan has to step closer to hear her; her voice has gotten so quiet these last few years.

Ivan pauses. "Ah, yes, good morning sister." Katyusha does not turn from the range, focusing on the poached eggs. "I trust you slept well?"

"It was fine," she deadpans. Her voice is terse, cold. It matches the pitch of the ticking in Ivan's head, and he fights impulse to physically bat it away. He twitches.

"Are you well, Katyusha?" he asks. This time he is genuinely concerned for her health. Usually she is vibrant and energized in the morning, giving him stifling morning hugs and making gratuitous amounts of breakfast dishes for the three of them. She usually laughs and chatters and makes witty comments, bringing the sun into the whole house simply with her smile.

Today the sung hangs dead in the sky.

"Yes yes, Ivan, I'm fine. Please leave me be," she answers. Katyusha's shoulders and hunched and there are dark circles under her eyes.

Ivan steps back out of the kitchenette and into the living room where Mishenka has taken to clean himself upon the old leather sofa. It is a sad piece of furniture, one of the few things that Ivan had kept from the time of his long spats with Cuba, Turkey, and the United States. Torn, faded, and ugly even when it was in style, the sofa is a sad reminder of what Ivan used to be, and yet he can't bear to rid himself of it. Much like his scarf.

The cat gargles at him in greeting before busying once again with his lower leg. Ivan nods his head. "Good morning to you as well, comrade."

There is little more than ticking and snapping water and the sound of Mishenka's sandpaper-tongue throughout the apartment. Ivan begins to doze off on the couch. But before he completely goes under small but firm arms grasp his shoulder.

"Big brother."

"Natasha."

And so they sit.

"Big brother, why do you screen my calls?" Natasha asks. She looks up at him with bright blue eyes that are more curious than spiteful. "I get quite lonely you know."

Ivan forcefully exhales through his nose. "I must be out on business when you call me, Natasha, because I had no idea-"

"Nevermind then," she says. Ivan can feel her grip intensify, becoming more like a restraint than a fraternal hug. She sees through his ruse, but says nothing.

All seems well to Ivan, the feelings of misgiving are fading into the back of his head. The ticking slows down. Peaceful moments are shared between him and Natasha, whom, for once, is not hellbent over wooing or marrying him. This is something he could get used to, and he is quick to ingrain the moment into his long term memory.

He can't remember if a time quite like this one had ever occurred between himself and his sisters. They were always too loud, or spaced too far apart. They have never been close-oh goodness no-but they have never been estranged either. Natasha curls onto his arm, and Mishenka begins to purr once more, pooling at his feet.

He embraces this. Natasha is calm and acting her part as the little doted-upon sister; Katyusha as grown into a proper woman, and he, Ivan, he has everything he needs to live. Ivan is not used to this kind of love.

Ivan's happy illusion is dented as Katyusha pokes her head out of the kitchenette and politely clears her throat. Natasha lifts her head up, blinking at her sister before removing herself from her brother and the sofa. She daintily steps over the cat's oozing belly, gathering up her nightdress, and heads into the kitchen. Katyusha smiles at Natasha, but not at Ivan.

On the far side of the room, Mishenka sits in front of the sliding glass door. Back straight, paws squared, eyes forward, ears erect. He is every bit the military cat Ivan thinks he has made him into. But Mishenka-'Little Misha' when Ivan needs him most-is more than just a fat, direct cat. Mishenka is the one friend that knows Ivan's every dark secret and insecurity. Ivan loves that cat, more than he probably should.

And so it worries him that Mishenka does not feel the stick of the air, the ticking that prattles on, constant in the day like the heartbeat of some invisible beast. He does not know if it is good or bad, and consequently if he should want it to stop or not.

Ivan feels the morning hours glide past him, watching them go by through the same window Mishenka sat before. He doesn't move, the ticking giving him a sense of tension in his nerves.

Natasha finally emerges from the bedroom she shares with her sister, a modernized version of the blue dress she was so attached to during the Second Great War. She smiles adoringly at Ivan, the starts of crow's feet about her eyes. "I love you, brother," she says.

"I love you too, Natasha," Ivan answers, his voice somewhat dull from the mechanical repetition.

"No, no, I truly love you brother. You would never let anything happen to me, because we're meant for each other," she says again, hurriedly and more excited. "And you love me too, so everything will be fine, so much better! Big sister is just jealous that she doesn't love you the same way."

Ivan looks up at Natasha's happy face. It seems so surreal, desperate. The ticking goes to double time as Natasha stares at him, and he struggles to respond. "Yes, of course. . ." is the best he can manage.

He watches his young sister pull on her galoshes and overcoat, checking for her gloves in her pocket. "I am going to visit Toris, brother," she explains. "He said he very much wanted to see me," she pauses, "but I'm not going to stay for very long." She turns and heads out the door.

The sudden reversion to her obsessive nature sets a heavy weight on Ivan's heart. Guilt, regret, fear. Perhaps he should remove the organ, inspect it for any damages.

Mishenka trots over to Ivan after Natasha leaves, his fat belly swinging back and forth like a pendulum. Ivan welcomes him into his lap, a reassuring weight that all of his secrets and dreams are still somewhere safe inside Little Misha. He turns about, looking down the hallway and peering through the doorways of his apartment.

"Have you seen big sister, Mishenka?" he whispers.

Mishenka answers him with a pensive gargle.

The silence elapses once again. It unsettles Ivan how quiet his day has been compared to how his visits with his sisters usually go. Today there is no yelling, no embarrassed crying, no doting, no shuffling, no depth to his sisters. Natasha's neurosis is some what reassuring but the stunning silence of Katyusha is simply too suspicious. He reties his off-white scarf, doubling it over and slipping the loose ends through the loop.

Finally he stands when he hears dishes crash in the other room. Mishenka flops heavily to the ground and scampers into Ivan's room. Another crash, and this time a wail or a curse.

"Sister what is-" but he is cut off and Katyusha throws another dish onto the floor.

Katyusha fumes at him, eyes hard and narrowed. The distress and anger on her face looks unnatural and ugly. Her face, usually set with encomium, is distorted and foreign to Ivan's eyes. "No!" she screams. "You are not my brother." Katyusha grabs a dirty bowl and flings it to the floor, crying. There is a fine layer of dust within the kitchenette.

"Katyusha!" Ivan shouts. His voice is low, quiet, but still with authority. Katyusha continues to belabour the dishes. "Stop it-"

She looks up at him and clenches her fists. "No, you, you stop it, Ivan. You're so stupid, Ivan!" she screeches at him, at the air around them, at the room, at herself. She has cracked like a ceramic bowl in too-strong hands.

Ivan doesn't understand. The shouting, the breaking, the ticking oh god the ticking. The cacophony overwhelms his mind, and for once in a long time he his genuinely afraid of his older sister. His kind, lovely Katyusha that raised him to be so level-headed is terrifying him out of his mind. He is not used to this kind of fear.

Katyusha groans once again, grabbing the phone and ripping it from the jack. Her eyes are teary and her face is red. "You have ruined me, you ugly, shameful thing." She hefts the phone and throws it hard across the room, aiming for Ivan's head. He ducks at the last moment, once he finally comprehends that he is not hallucinating.

"I hate you," she says. She is shaking and mad, a new unfamiliar set of emotions has laid claim to her round, heart-shaped face. Ivan feels his spirit break. His synapses and so full of the ticking and a burning mixture of fear for his life, and fear for his reality. All he hears is a frantic clock.

All he wants is for the quiet to return; why can't they all just be quiet?

"We are a family, Katyusha. Do not do this to your brother and sister." He is desperate but tries not to let it sound out in his voice. He holds onto his scarf, hands coiling around it like a python.

The words hang in the air for a few sagging moments. Katyusha bares her teeth at him. "I hate this-this grouping, this cage you've trapped us in! We are not a family, Ivan." She steps forward as Ivan backs out of the kitchenette. She eyes his hands on the old scarf. "Why do you still have that?" She reaches out to grab it, her hands more like talons than like soft fleshy fingers.

Ivan continues to back up until he feels the wall at the base of his spine and remains silent, face stoic. He doesn't understand what's going on around him. It must be some sort of trick, some sick joke Natasha and Katyusha have planned. There is no reason that his dear older sister should be attacking him, in his own home nonetheless.

He hopes in the back of his mind that Mishenka is safe under his bed; he does not want him to see such tragic things.

"Ivan!" she yells again. She latches onto the scarf and tugs. "Did you hear me? Why do you still have that?" Sweet, kind, amicable Katyusha hisses at him like a puff adder. Ivan lowers his eyes and tilts his head away; Katyusha slaps him hard across the jaw.

Tick tick tickticktickticktick.

The sting on his face is perhaps one of the worst pains of his life. Big sister was not supposed to hurt him, she was supposed to love him! Protect him! He is the younger brother, the one that is brave and charismatic but in return he is supposed to be nurtured. All his work of trying to keep his sisters happy has dissipated.

Ivan wants to cry. Ivan, the great white bear of Russia, wishes nothing more than to whimper and hide, escape this horrible moment in some obscure corner of his mind. He tries to defend himself but nothing comes. He has no fight left in him. Years of the Cold War with constant threats and bickering, and his own home torn to sunders and rebuilt time and time again, it has all fallen at once, right now, and taken everything out of his bones and brain.

"Answer me." Katyusha stands there before him. She is white and constant like a ghost haunting his mind. Intransigent. Her voice is not lilting or jovial like it was not too long ago. The scarf seems to be wilting in her grasp.

Still he says nothing. He turns quickly, hugging the wall as he flees into his room and deadbolts the door. Katyusha follows after him, screeching like some sort of monster. She pounds on the door, throwing something heavy at it, and yells at Ivan once again. "Don't run from me, don't run from me, don't you run you coward." Frantically Ivan looks for Mishenka and almost pulls the furry grey tail from the cat as he locates him under his bed. Mishenka makes a noise of indignation, but soon overcomes it to clutch Ivan's lap.

The two hear Katyusha bang on the door a few more times before she walks off, strings of curses and vehement yelling following behind her. Ten minutes pass with no sound, then the front door is opened and slammed shut. Katyusha is gone.

And then: Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

He looks about his room: clothes strewn everywhere, drawers upturned, sheets balled up and away in the corner. She has gone through his things while he was daydreaming in the sitting room. He sees one of his other scarves-an older one that Katyusha made him, it's horribly tattered and pink-cut into thirds. The empty vodka bottles he hides under his bed are scattered the floor like fallen soldiers. His old scarf is wrinkled and close to choking him from his sister's surprising grasp.

This is a rare moment of weakness for Ivan. Surely he's been through worse things, seen death and decay, but this was a new sort of injury. His heart-although known to fall out every now and then-feels separate from his body. He is not used to such extreme emotion and reaction, only shallow blips of what he should feel. But this-this betrayal, this abuse is entirely too real. Ivan does not like real things; he tends to stay happy by remaining in his mind.

All Ivan wants is for everyone to be one with him-friends, companions-but at the same time to be all alone. He wants the feelings but not the people, because the people-like Katyusha has shown-only take what the need and leave him to bleed.

He rearranges the sheets to cover his mattress once more. They no longer feel safe or warm, and he does his best to ignore the feeling. Mishenka purrs as if he is trying to drown out the horrible ticking within Ivan's head.

Finally he cries. He lies down sideways on his bed, his front flush with the wall. He tugs Mishenka to his chest. The cat curls up, his hairs poking into Ivan's nose, but Ivan does not stop. He wails and sobs, although he is completely mute. Everything comes rushing out like rainwater breaking through leaves in the gutter. All the walls he has put up in his mind crumble and wash away as every harsh realization comes back to him. He trembles from the feeling of the world crushing his body. He shakes from the force of how real his sister is.

It is late in the day when Katyusha comes back with Natasha in tow. Both are unusually quiet: Katyusha out of anger and Natasha out of sadness. Katyusha shrugs off her coat and mittens, peeling Natasha out of hers as well. Ivan is still in his room, although now sitting in a corner adjacent to his closet, playing with Mishenka's soft declawed paws. Mishenka grips at him with baby fingers covered in fur.

He does not make to move as he hears his sisters walk into the apartment, speaking quietly to each other and ruffling their clothes. The ticking has subsided.

The door squeaks slightly as it opens. A blond head pokes through, topped by an elegant black satin bow. Natasha gives a small smile and waves at her brother. She gestures down: "The book end was already here." The door nurses a new dent.

"I'm sorry I was gone so long, brother, I hope you'll forgive me," she says.

Ivan rubs Mishenka's fat underbelly as the cat sprawls out before him. "Don't worry yourself Natasha, you did nothing wrong."

Natasha pauses and her gaze unfocuses. For a moment she appears somewhat cross-eyed. She looks not at Ivan, but through him, seeing the little hands in his mind that put everything to work. Instead of saying anything more she steps forward into the room, shutting the door behind her. Carefully she inserts herself between the joint of the walls and Ivan himself, snuggling in close.

"Then why are you so unhappy? Do you not love sister anymore; do you not love me?" She sounds heartbroken as she fiddles with the ends of Ivan's scarf. "I'm so sorry big brother, this is my fault, so sorry, sorry!" Her voice cracks, and she looks even more the fragile small girl than she already does. "Perhaps. . .perhaps if we become one brother will be happy, and then we can spend forever together and-"

And you will keep your Union. Mishenka is looking straight at his forehead.

Ivan places his hand over her mouth. Natasha is so desperate. It breaks his heart looking down at the blue and silver lump that sits next to him. "Little Natasha, you are still a child, no matter how much you wish it different," he says, voice quiet and even.

Natasha sputters, "No, no big brother, I am a grown woman! And we can be together, and we can take care of big sister and I'll love you and you'll love me and Katyusha will love both of us once again, and then we will be happy." Her disillusionment is colouring her voice. "All we need to do is become one! Right, brother?"

Ivan only busies himself with Mishenka once more, turning away from his glass sister.

"Because that is what you always say, and you are always right, big brother, always knows what's best for sister and I, and we follow you because we love you, and everything is wonderful!" Regardless she frantically continues on. Ivan can hear the ticking once more, it's tempo erratic and violent.

"I will follow you until you become one with me big brother. I love you so much, please!" She is becoming her older sister, only more concentrated. She contains her volume, sliding her voice out like poisonous gas. Her devotion coats Ivan like an unwanted film.

"Do not say such things, Natasha," he chastises. "Do not ever say such things. Learn to control yourself." Before this Ivan never realized how much he truly despised his little sister. She is so much more attached to their family, to the idea of being together for ever. It makes Ivan's fingers curl up in jealousy.

"Why do you hurt me, big brother?" She receives no reply, not even a glimmer of acknowledgement. "Say something!" she snaps. Natasha begins to pull at her hair, mussing the delicate ribbon that sits atop her head like a thin crown of sugar. "Brother!" Her ribbon falls to the ground and her sweet façade falls with it.

Ivan refuses to speak, turned taciturn from the morning's display. The only things crawling up his throat are nausea and the infernal ticktickticking that has steeped into his bones like harsh imported tea. He can't manage a single word between all of this distress.

"Why? Do you not love me? What have I done?" she asks. She turns towards him, grasping onto his clothes with the hands of a needy child. "Do not stop loving me," she begs, "never stop loving me!"

Moscow, Russia - January 1992

Three months later his sisters are officially gone. Ivan knew it was coming, but still the idea of them not coming back stings just a little. The ticking subsides every once and a while.

He no longer sees Katyusha and Natasha as his sisters, his precious family that he protects and cares for. He sees them as other nations, just more faces in the crowd. He tries to feel guilty about them leaving but he can't seem to muster the strength. Even during his bouts with America he had more emotional prowess. Now there is no one left for Ivan to feel for.

On the twenty-eighth of December Ivan throws away his antique and dying leather couch, to the protest of Mishenka; he buys new china, burns his bedsheets-oh how they still smelled like his sisters and the times they put carrots in his bed as jokes-and changes the locks on his doors. He attempts to go through the things they left at his house more than once, but each time he freezes and his hearing goes out and he must sit alone for an hour or two. Eventually he locks the door to the guest bedroom and disposes of the key.

He keeps the scarf, but only to hide his scars.

Three days later he swears to hate his sisters and becomes very good at it. Katyusha, no, Ukraine does not talk to him nor ask for aid, even though her economy is failing. Belarus steels herself as she had when fighting against the Third Reich. Ivan makes the transition with ease, effectively killing off is compassion and empathy. Now it is just Ivan, all day and every day. Ivan and his little apartment. Ivan and Little Misha.

He is now the Russian Federation. He hates himself, he hates the world, he hates Mishenka sometimes. He is a capitalist and a democracy, but he has never felt so isolated. Seas of people but not a single face. He is not used to this kind of loneliness.

There are days when Mishenka stays outside for all hours, and Ivan thinks he has been abandoned. He feels his dreams slip out from between his finger tips and into the ocean of the real world. He is paranoid, neurotic. He whispers to himself at night, has more conversations with his cat. He does not open up the spare bedrooms, even when the voices at night seem to be coming from there. He sees things in the windows and he hears old songs in the night.

Every night he loses sleep. He turns about, over and over in his bed, restless and scared. His heart always pounds and his neck always burns. There is a deep itch within his spine and ribs that he cannot seem to reach.

Ivan does not look into mirrors anymore because he despises what he sees. That face, those eyes, the blood in his cheeks. He looks everything and nothing like her. That single face in the mirror takes on one hundred different angles and it hurts him to look at them all. His own body has betrayed him, and it makes him want to die.

He knows that Ukraine is out there somewhere, waiting to come and take what his hers. Although, perhaps she will take what is Ivan's as well. Nothing has stopped her from doing so in the past, even when she was still beautiful and angelic Katyusha. There are mountains and snow and guns and men in between the two of them, but still it does not seem enough. She could come for him at any moment. Russia is suddenly too small for Ivan, and he feels trapped in his house. But there is no where else he can hide, for his reflection is stuck to his person like the slinking shadow of a cat hunting mice in the dark nights of October.