Chapter 5
“Late! We came too late”!
In a moment of despair, the Heavens broke into the earthly language. They probably wanted me to understand that I was helpless. It had been the third year since the making of human hands had swept its creators away from Pripyat. A sarcophagus, which resembled a futuristic grave, was pulled over a destroyed reactor, the usual humming fuss of the town had stopped long ago, and I only occasionally heard a roar of a heavy car or a buzz of a light aircraft. The Heavens went to the reactor every day; when they returned, their grey skin had acquired a green phosphorescent tint, and their usually narrow eyes could hardly see the world at all. It took them an hour before they could get up from the armchairs and open their eyes, and their skin became again smoot
