Protagonists of Alexievich’s tales are lost in time. Cracked and inaccurately assembled, they constantly compare themselves-now and themselves-in-the-past, yet they are able to see the things around them penetratingly. The problem is that their view is Orpheus-like: he looked back, whereas they look into their own skulls, into themselves. Their eyes meet the ruthless gaze of Medusa – the lost time which threatens to return. They fear that the past has gone and it is already beyond recovery. Their bodies cooled a long time ago, their heads are still drying after the dance of the last day of the summer – in the world before the explosion.

Once a head used to sweat out, nowadays it sweats in. Moreover, there is a fear that the past may once again become the future. These people have become carriers of trauma, sensitive to any impending catastrophe. They are prophets of new threats.