A little boy sat in an old, abandoned school house, staring at the ground and feeling sorry for himself. Many children do his for petty reasons. But this young child, Ivan, had a good reason to.

That old, dreary place that had been deserted by most children and adults, all that remained of them were the sad echoes of the laughter and chatter. Those sounds once echoed through the hallways of the now decaying school.

No children, no teachers, no desks or chairs. Nothing. Except Ivan.

Poor little Ivan, being a new contry and almost immortal, he was still a little boy, with no one to comfort him. In the middle of the snowy mountains where Ivan lived, it was a pitiful situation for such a small child.

The townspeople in the village where Ivan had once lived had complained and grumbled about how hard their lives were, but Ivan had to watch how short their lives really were. All his former friends and family had fallen victim to age and had slowly withered away. As the precious sunflowers that dropped their petals every winter, so were the fragile souls of the townsfolk

Eventually, there were no more people and no more towns. All that was old buildings, graveyards, and snow… So much snow.

So the still-small Ivan began living in his old schoolhouse, tearing his broken heart away from the grief of losing the ones he loved.

Needless to say, Ivan was lonely.

He had no one in this cold, barren wasteland of snow and ice.

However, he did have one comfort: the sunflowers. He could feel his young, fragile heart begin to harden from the isolation, but the sunflowers brought him a tiny bit of joy.

Their long, supple green stems that could grow as tall as a house if they wished, silky golden petals that reached towards the sun and thirstily drank up the golden rays. And the seeds which he would sometimes watch bird peck at and eat. Ivan didn't mind this though; he knew it was just the sunflower's way of giving back. To his forlorn heart, they were absolute perfection.

At the top of this mountain, his prized blossoms could not grow because of the cold. But Ivan knew without them, he would surely go mad; the boy's heartache grew stronger by the day.

He took some buckets of paint he had found in the old, falling apart houses in the village and locked himself in an old classroom with double doors. These were the same doors that led to the Siberian wilderness outside.

Ivan, pouring out every drop of his desolation into the shabby paintbrush he held in his hand; began to paint what he had seen so long ago...

A sunflower field.

He painted and painted. With sky blue,yellow, white; they all meshed together in Ivan's eyes. He painted over the splintering wood of the schoolhouse walls, staining them with bright colors.

Until after weeks, or maybe even months, Ivan looked up and saw his dream: his beautiful sunflowers.

Dropping the well-used paintbrush from his hand, he collapsed backwards onto the floor and sat, staring at his stunning mural of the sunflower field.

Silent tears fell down the young country's cheeks, the memories overwhelming the sad boy. He hugged his knees to his chest as he was brought back to that special day. That wonderful day when he was happily playing with his Mama and Papa in the golden sunflower field.