Elena Gorokhova

Don't let the magic slip away," he says, "or you'll sink into the quicksand of the ordinary.

The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they're lying, they know we know they're lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them.

Along with all those who left their countries for other shores, I belong in neither land. We are unmoored and disconnected, like these poplar seeds blown into the crevices of the buildings, into the corners of the world.