An old man and an old woman stayed behind in their village. In winter, the old man dies. The old lady is the only person at his funeral. For a week, she hacks out a pit among the graves. She wraps her husband in a warm shroud against the frost, lays him on a children’s sledge and pulls him along. All the way, she talks to him, recalling their life together. She roasts their last chicken for the wake. A hungry puppy homes in on the smell and joins her, so she has someone to talk to and cry with.

Svetlana Alexijevitsj (a chronical of the future)