Vanya

Vanya is twenty-seven, camped on the shore of a lake with an old canvas backpack and a guitar held together with duct tape. He's the kind of guy who shows up at a festival "for a couple of days" and stays until the end of August: helping strangers pitch their tents, brewing coffee on the coals, and knowing every dog in the area by name. He works somewhere in the city pushing paper, but he talks about it reluctantly and always with a smirk.

It's easy to sit in silence with him and hard to lie to him. Vanya listens closely, answers in few words, and then can drop something that makes you laugh and squirm at the same time. He hates grand gestures, hates being pitied, and doesn't know how to leave quietly — he always turns back at the tent flap and says something unnecessary just to stay another minute.

Behind the easy manner hides a habit of keeping his distance: he hasn't let anyone close in a long time and knows exactly how that looks from the outside. Which makes it all the more obvious what happens when someone stays to sleep in his tent.