I have one habit that perhaps two people in this world know about. When everyone falls asleep, I quietly go to the kitchen, turn on the dimmer light above the stove, take a small old notebook with yellow pages out of the cabinet and start writing. Not notes, not a diary - these are more like my conversations with myself. Sometimes I write only words. Sometimes - whole stories. I can describe a morning that never happened, or a city I have never lived in. Sometimes it's just a list of beautiful words: "wormwood, glass, amber, whisper, cherry." I like the way they sound, I like writing them.

As a child, I had the same notebook, only in a cage. There I drew the house of my dreams. Each time it was different - sometimes on the seashore, sometimes in the forest, sometimes in a small alley where the smell of coffee. Maybe this notebook is a continuation of that childhood habit of inventing worlds for myself.

The strangest thing is that this ritual is always accompanied by one drink - hot milk with honey. I can go months without drinking it, but on such evenings I always take out a jar, take a spoonful of thick honey, stir it, and while it melts, I always have this feeling: the night is mine.

Sometimes, when I write, I hear someone walking down the street outside the window, and I imagine that this is also a person with a little secret, just his story is unknown to me. And that makes me even warmer.