My childhood, like the childhood of many, was surrounded by mystery. In those early years, the darkness seemed especially dark, and in every corner of the small cozy apartment there was a secret that needed to be solved. For some reason, the most vivid memories from my childhood are closely connected with winter and darkness. I remember how my grandfather took me on a sled through the cold snowdrifts to the hospital, and I peered with sleepy eyes into the warm orange light of the street lamps and it seemed to me that the lamppost was the neck of a huge kind giraffe, which was funny holding a blinding lamp in its teeth. And where the light did not reach, red deer and playful musk deer wandered, tearing up the chubby snow with their hooves and, remaining in the dark, accompanying my sled all the way to the entrance. And all this happened in childhood, where reality and dream closely bordered, where whales swam in the black sky, where the secret was so close.