Woke up and remembered a dream. It made me cheerful — what a thing to dream. I dreamed I’d flown home on leave, and tomorrow I had to go back.

It’s good at home, Lyusya cooks deliciously — no wonder Vitalik and I nicknamed her “our magic tablecloth.” She does everything quickly, deftly, beautifully, and cheerfully. She just clatters the dishes something fierce. In the evening, we sat around, watched television, I went to bed, and in the morning nearly overslept the first bus. I pull up, and look: to the left, behind a barbed-wire fence, stands a rocket, and by all appearances, it’s about to launch. I jump out of the bus and run for the gatehouse, and there a group of boys, about twelve years old, come up to me: “Mister, are you a cosmonaut?” I shouted to them so as not to be delayed: “No, the cosmonaut is that military man over there, in the bus.” I run through the gatehouse and toward the rocket. I hear a commotion, turn around, and behind me a crowd of these boys is running, led by some little Kazakh kid, and they’re shouting: “Cosmonaut, give us an autograph!”

Suddenly everything thundered with the crack of ripping atmosphere, and the rocket — my rocket — flew away. I stand there bewildered, watching it rise into the sky, and think: “How will Tolya manage up there without me now…” And then I woke up. I looked — Tolya is sleeping above me. Everything’s normal, I’m here.

I nearly forgot — tomorrow is my mother’s birthday. Thank you, dear, for the life you gave me, and for all the wonderful things you do for me and my family. Be well, so that we always feel joy when we see our cheerful, kind mama and grandmother on our doorstep. I wrote this and felt as though I’d congratulated her.

A day of repairs. We were checking the thermal control system circuits with a multimeter and running a melt in the Korund technological furnace. It’s going poorly — the automation keeps glitching. There’s no chance even to look at the Earth.

I just looked around — there’s nothing unusual anymore. I’ve gotten used to the station, there’s no weightlessness, no flight — just this somewhat unusual living environment. Weightlessness is remarkable. I opened a water container, and the water inside is in a transparent bag. I stared at it in the light for a long time. The air bubbles inside it behave as if alive — two spheres can touch without merging, or plastically change shape, compressing, elongating, or breaking into a multitude of airborne jellyfish, or nesting inside each other like matryoshka dolls of air and water bubbles, sparkling in the lamplight.

After unloading, the station is a mess — white bags of equipment hang everywhere, like bundles of laundry in a bathhouse.