Moon

Dimitri, elderly man in his 60s, sits on the edge of a bathtub in an old one-bedroom apartment washing his feet. It’s 20:30. Next to him lies an open thick notebook in a ‘cut and sew’ cover. Notebook presents drawings of the Moon phases, symbols, diagrams, and inscriptions in small female handwriting. He writes today's date and time, 00:00, redraws the Moon from the previous page. He’s interrupted by a sudden call.

The younger brother Pavel asks him to urgently transport a vital cargo from Moscow to Elektrougli - Pavel and his daughter are in the maternity hospital, and the assistant has left for another place. Dmitry refuses, as he has urgent plans for the evening. Pavel convinces him that the journey will only take a few hours, Dmitry looks at his watch and agrees.

Dmitry arrives at the place - it turns out to be a morgue, from where they take out a coffin with a dead woman. Dmitry gets angry and argues with the workers, as he usually transports only food or building materials. He calls his brother to cancel the order, but he does not answer. Dmitry is in a hurry, looks at his watch but in the end agrees. As he starts the car engine, a 9-year-old girl in beige jeans and a cream sweater knocks on the window. The girl’s hair braided and she has bright hairpins in her, she says that her name is Varya and she is the daughter of the deceased. Varya asks to take her home - Dmitry looks at the manager, he nods to him. He lets the girl into the front passenger seat and they're leaving.

During the journey, memories emerge in front of Dmitry: he chokes in tears over an old sink and tries to breathe. А wedding ring is in his hand.

Varya suddenly begins to read aloud the inscriptions on the signs, distorting their names. Dmitry is distracted by her, looks at her and back at the road, he is overwhelmed by memories. He sees himself opening the kitchen cabinet and pulls out a notebook with a cover on ‘cutting and sewing’. The cover falls, the initials are written on the notebook and the Moon is drawn.

Varya opens and closes the window several times. Dimitri reprimands her. Varya begins to press the buttons of the car and asks to be allowed to steer the car. Dimitri takes a breath to answer her, but suddenly he notices a hit dog in the headlights right in front of the car. Dmitry sharply leaves for the oncoming road, at the same time trying to close Varya's eyes. At this moment, a memory pops up again in front of him: he takes milk out of the refrigerator, tries to close the door, but it opens. He tries again but fails. Dmitry forcefully slams it. Milk splashes in his hands. He slams the door on the refrigerator with all his strength and falls with his hands on it, leans his head against the refrigerator and cries.

Varya and Dimitri are silent. The man comes to his senses. He tries to calm the girl, Varya turns back and looks at the coffin. After a pause, Dimitri asks her mother's name. She is silent and leans against the window. A few minutes later, Varya asks to stop - she feels sick. Dimitri stops, the girl jumps out of the car and squats down. He approaches her with tissues and water and advises her to sleep because there is still an hour to go.

An hour later they arrive. Three men met them. Dmitry with the husband of the deceased carry out the coffin and sign the documents. He looks around - the girl is gone; she is sitting in the family car already.

Dmitry is driving home and stops at a gas station on the way. He goes to pay for gasoline. When he returns to the car, he sees the full Moon and stars.

He approaches the car and sees sad Varya in the passenger seat. He does not believe his eyes, quickly opens her door, shouts what she is doing here because he took her to her family. Varya replies that she didn’t need to go there, that her uncle was waiting for her in another city, and she didn’t tell him because she fell asleep. Dmitry looks at his watch - the time is 23:00. He calms down, checks the city name and gets into the car.

They are driving, suddenly Varya asks him to stop and drop her off in the middle of the road on the highway near the forest. Dmitry does not stop and asks why, because there is no city or village nearby. Varya once again repeats her request - he does not stop. Then Varya opens the door on the go - Dmitry slows down to the side of the road.

Varya jumps off and disappears into the night. Dmitry calls her, waits a few minutes, looks at his watch, and decides to go home. However, he quickly turns back and arrives at the place, but she is no longer there. He takes out a flashlight, leaves the car, runs into the forest, returns to the road again. Dmitry runs further and finally notices her silhouette on a high bridge over the river. She sits motionless on the railing, legs dangling.
Dmitry runs up to the girl. He is afraid that she might jump off and starts talking to her. The man is surprised at how beautiful the river is here. It turns out that he traveled here so many times but never noticed it. The girl does not respond. He thinks a little and tells Varya that it probably seems to her that adults know how to solve their problems, that the older a person is the wiser he becomes. But this is not true. His closest person, his wife, with whom they lived together for 40 years, also recently died. One day she just went out into the street, that's all.

His wife died very suddenly, nothing foreshadowed it. It seemed to him that they lived for each other, and he knew everything about her. However, after her death, it turned out that for a long time she had a secret life. She kept a Lunar Diary for many years. The Moon in different phases through the Diary dictated to her what decisions to make, determined what she could do and what not, the Moon consoled her and listened. The wife wrote down her daily rituals of preparation for the phases, planned her life based on the advice of the Moon. She did this at night, always at the same time when Dmitry was already asleep.

Dmitry found out from the Diary that his wife was unhappy and had long been living a very different life to what she had dreamed of. Dmitry was looking for a page, a paragraph, or at least a line about him, but she had never written about her husband in so many years. But the worst thing was that his wife knew about her death and did not tell him anything. The time of death, minute by minute coincided with the time she wrote in her Diary.

Dimitri turns away and looks at the passing cars. He takes out the second ring, twirls it in his fingers. He hands it to the girl, but Varya does not take it, she only looks. Dimitri hides the ring in his palm and says he doesn't know what to do with it. He wanted to throw it out, then he was afraid to lose sight of it, but now he does not know if it means anything.

He tells the girl that he has been wanting to write a letter to her for months but does not know if he believes in the Moon and if his wife will hear. Today is the day when the Moon is at its peak, and if you write a letter it may work. Dmitry thought all the way how to write all his thoughts, but now he is standing there and does not know what to say. Dimitri turns to Varya and says it might be best to just stand on the bridge with her and do nothing.

Varya looks at him, stretches out her hand. Dmitry puts a ring in his palm. She looks at him and looks at Luna. Tears well up in his eyes, he smiles lightly and looks at the Moon.

Dmitry is at the gas station, looking at the Moon. He seemed to have just woken up and looks around. He runs up to the car, but Varya is not there. He looks at his watch - the time again shows 23:00. Dmitry understands that time seems to have rolled back an hour. Dmitry calls her father and asks if they have Varya. The man reports that his deceased wife never had children, she was barren. Dmitry notices a circle painted with fingers on Varya's glass. He checks the pocket where the ring was, but it is not there.

The door of the apartment opens, a beam of light from the entrance appears on the floor, it illuminates the circle that indicates the Moon in the Diary. Dmitry turns on the light in the corridor, wearily throws things on the shelf, goes to the kitchen. He stands over the Diary, closes it slowly, runs his fingers over his wife's initials, puts back the cover of the cut, and sews. He goes to the window, opens the curtain. Dmitry looks at the Moon for a long time.