The stable and the little horse

Iona drives back to the stables early. He has not even earned enough to buy oats for his horse.

In the stable, a young cabdriver gets up to drink some water. Iona offers it to him and starts to talk about his son. But the young man is so tired that he falls asleep again.

Iona longs to tell everything, slowly and carefully: how his son fell ill, how he suffered, what he said before he died, the funeral, going to the hospital to collect his clothes. And he would like to talk about his daughter Anissia, who is in the village.

Thinking about his son alone is too painful for him; he needs to speak about it to someone.

So he goes out to his horse. As it munches its hay, he asks it to imagine losing its own foal. And then he tells the horse the whole story.

In the end, the only listener Iona can find is his horse.