Lilac was reeking obnoxiously with diesel fuel, and though we tried to ignore the reek, it still was there. Heavy equipment almost crushed the shrub, splashed it with mud and covered it with a good measure of soot. Still, it was a lilac. In the dead, war-mangled landscape, it desperately bloomed, heedless of this horrible spring; the spring which put forth a growth of human hands and unblinking eyes.
Now, chaps moved away from it, reluctantly. Jokes weren't flying. Everybody suddenly got quiet and mounted the APCs and silently smoked there. As Severin was stepping away, he snapped off a twig and clipped it to his gear. Nobody tried to make fun of this. Convoy started off.
In fact, Severin was something of an untouchable. I don't know how, but he never had a moniker. And everybody always called him by the last name. Of medium height, stooping a little, he wasn't set apart by anything. But even recon guys treated him as one of their own. Some people are just like this.
On our brief stop he told me, gazing above my shoulder:
― On my allotment I have a lilac shrub just like this... A high one, three meters or so... You go out of the door at night, and there it is, waving flowers right into your face... And higher up are the stars... Lots of them...
I didn't say anything. We started off again.
Nobody heard the shot. The bullet ricocheted off the armour and mauled Severin's groin. Blood wasn't gushing but streamed strongly and evenly, like a water from a tap.
We rushed on, firing into the forest confusedly. Severin wasn't screaming, but nobody dared to look into his face. After just one minute, he looked much older; his face grew thin ― utterly, unimaginably. And he just stared into the sky, pupils wide, and just kept silent. Terribly silent. He died after ten minutes, never giving a cry. Two days later, I was killed, too.