A child sat on his sibling's bed as said sibling did school. Anatoly was seated by Vladimir's head, small hands kneading blond hair. "Fuzzy," he drew out In his young voice.
Vladimir was focused solely on his work. He didn't want to be like their father. The man worked at a lumber yard. Yes, that was a perfectly good job, and someone had to do it... but Vladimir wanted more from life. His eyes scanned over his book. Homework was all he had to...
"Anatoly?" Vladimir looked up. "What are you doing?"
Anatoly giggled and rocked back, blinking owlishly and grinning. "Fuzzy," he repeated, still gripping his older brother's hair. The two-year-old laughed again.
Vlad huffed quietly, the warm air blowing Anatoly's hair back a bit. "You're fuzzy." He ran a hand over his little brother's head.
The child laughed and leaned into the hand - he'd seen the neighbors cat doing it. Why did animals act the way they did, he wondered, eyes sparkling as he repeated the purring sound.
Now that Anatoly was distracted with his left hand, he set the right one to work on homework. "Where is the..." he red the rest silently, then announced the answer to the air, "Moscow."
Anatoly deposited himself on top of the book, hands reaching for Vladimir's hair again. He laughed obnoxiously, "Fuzzy, Vlad'ir!"
"Keep it up and Fuzzy is gonna put you back in prison." Vladimir pointed across the room toward the large walled-in crib that was the two-year-old's bed.
In response, Anatoly screeched and flung himself off of the papers, madly rushing to the opposite side of the bed. He grabbed the pillow and hugged it, staring wide-eyed at Vladimir. "Sorry," he whispered.
"I know you are, little brother. I'm not mad at you," Vlad stated, looking up from his homework again, just to reassure Anatoly.
"Okay." Anatoly watched Vlad. "Books?" he asked, eyes briefly shifting to his homework.
"Books... knowledge is power." Vlad paused. He'd heard people say that... and he was only just repeating it. As an eleven-year-old, Vladimir had never completely understood that... but he was beginning to.
"Why?" Anatoly queried cautiously.
"I guess..." Vlad sighed. "I guess the more you know, the better your life is?" He didn't truly know yet.
Anatoly nodded. He moved across the bed, still cautious, and nestled into a place at his brother's side, staring at the pages.
Vladimir pointed at one of the pictures... a geography image. "That... that's America. Some day, we're going to go there." He'd heard things... bad things, mostly. But what he'd realized was that, America... for all it's bad, was a very good place to live. It's people were free to speak and do as they pleased-within reason. That-freedom-was something Vlad wanted... even as a child.