Every three days Vanera would come over from wherever she went with her unit and would spend the day with me in my outpost. And as time progressed, she began to learn what knocking meant and stopped with the entire staring down at me while I slept thing. Which was a very good milestone in her English learning experience. We also had a very long discussion about surprises along the way. Whenever Vanera came over we’d talk, share poems, and then for at least an hour or two I would help her improve her English skills. It was tough work, but she has been steadily improving over these last few weeks. She was picking up the English language very fast. “Alrighty, now that we are done with English, what do you want to talk about?” I asked Vanera as I sat atop my desk. Vanera dropped the grammar book and jokingly kicked it while cursing in her native language. She really hated it. The entire English language in general really: she thought it was needlessly complicated and some of it just didn’t make sense. Especially word pronunciation, she didn’t understand how such similar words could mean two different things, like hair and hare. “Vanera, what do you want to do now?” I repeated. Vanera rubbed her masked chin with one of her arms and thought about the question. “I… do not know.” she said. I scoffed. “Really? You don’t know?” I asked. “This entire time you’ve been complaining about English and now that you’re done you don’t even know what ya wanna do? Come on Vanera, there’s gotta be something.” “Hmm…” Vanera hummed as she rested her head in the palm of her hands. “I still do not know.” I let out a soft groan and rubbed my forehead with the palms of both my hands. “I wish we had some movies…” I grumbled. “I miss movies.” “Move… ies?” Vanera tried to echo. “What is a… movie…?” I leaned slightly forward with both of my elbows resting on my thighs, my hands dangled between my legs as I tried to think of the best way to describe the word in question. “Umm… do you understand what a video is? Like a recording?” Vanera nodded. “Moving pictures. Video. Yes?” “Yes. Well uh, a movie is like a long video. A long video that is used for entertainment.” “Entertainment?” Vanera slightly tilted her head, not understanding how the usage of videos could be used for anything else than for military communication purposes. “Yeah, entertainment. For fun. They hire actors, creat stages and sets, and a bunch of cool stuff and create a long video used to entertain us. Called movies.” “What are these… movies… about?” Vanera asked, now deeply intrigued by these “long videos”. “Well I mean there are so many. Some are comedies, meaning they are made to make you laugh and be happy. Some are dramatic, made to intrigue your interest. And some are, uh,” I choked up on my words for some reason and I could feel his face turning slightly pink. “S-some are about, uh, well… love.” “Love?” “Y-yeah, like romance. There’s even uh,” I chuckled nervously. “R-romantic comedies. Which are uh, made to be funny and about love.” “Interesting,” Vanera said. “And how does one… acquire these movies?” I scoffed, happily feeling the red leave my face. “It’d be a miracle to find any honestly. In order to watch a movie you’d need a TV, power, a bunch of technical stuff I don’t understand, and an actual CD or tape. And I doubt you’ll just find any of those lying around.” “Tell me, what do these… ‘CDs’ and ‘tapes’ look like?” “CDs are round little shiny discs with a hole in the middle and tapes -- VHS tapes -- are like little black rectangular boxes.” I said, a bit curious of why she wanted this useless information. “Why?” I asked, hoping to get an answer to my previous thought. Vanera opened up her journal and her charcoal pencil and began to either write or draw something down -- I couldn’t tell -- and shrugged, “For notes.” she responded without looking up from her book. When she finished, she gave a satisfied nod to the pages, closed the book, and stood up. “I now know what it is I want to do.” she said before walking over to the door. “We will meet again in three days, yes?” She didn’t wait for a response, she just opened the door of the outpost and scurried out, almost slamming the door behind her. All I could do was stare blankly at the door, unsure of what I might have just inspired.