“Nick had a pear tree growing in his yard. That’s what he called it – pear tree. For myself. In fact, the tree looked strange, if it was a tree at all. Nick Chernysh first noticed several gnarled branches splaying out from a puny trunk covered with knots in the height of summer last year. The tree had only leaves from the pear. Over the summer, it grew a dozen timid green plates, which, due to the night frosts of the subsequent winter, first curled into tubes and then flew around under the pressure of the north wind. Nick took pity on the pear and patiently covered it from the frost with a cardboard box...”