Andrey loved this moment more than sex.

Even more than the first sip of cold beer on a Friday.

It was that second when the flight attendant, with the smile of a professional hitman, announced: “Please switch your electronic devices to airplane mode.”

Andrey pulled out his phone. His thumb hovered over the little airplane icon.

This was the trigger.

Click.

Connection severed.

In that moment, everyone died: his boss with Sunday morning edits, his mom asking “have you eaten?”, his ex-wife reminding him about alimony, the tax office, the residents’ chat discussing a new parking barrier, and that guy from the bank trying to push a credit card.

They all vanished.

Andrey was alone in an aluminum tube at ten thousand meters.

This was the only legal place on the planet where he had the right to be unreachable. Where “I’m offline” didn’t sound like “I’m ignoring you” but like “I’m following safety regulations.”

A girl sat next to him. She had a MacBook, an iPad, and the face of someone planning to be a millionaire by thirty. She typed furiously.

Andrey glanced at her screen. A presentation. “Personal Growth Strategy: Q3 2024.”

Poor thing. She still believed that if you run faster on the wheel, you can catch up to the hamster in front.

Andrey reclined his seat. Someone behind clicked their tongue and jammed their knees into his kidneys.

Whatever. Conscience doesn’t exist in flight mode.

A cart floated down the aisle. The smell of reheated chicken and cheap coffee.

- Tomato juice, please, - said Andrey.

He never drank tomato juice on the ground. No one drinks tomato juice on the ground unless it’s a Bloody Mary. But up here, in the sky, it was a ritual. We drink the blood of tomatoes to appease the gods of aerodynamics.

He took a sip. Salty, thick sludge. Disgusting. Delightful.

He looked out the window. Nothing. White cotton.

On his phone, in the gallery, Andrey had three thousand photos. Gym check-ins (sucking in his gut), food shots (that went cold while he found the angle), selfies with friends (he hadn’t seen in ages because everyone’s too busy).

A digital monument to how happy and successful he wanted to appear.

But now, without internet, this phone had become just a black mirror.

Andrey saw his reflection in it.

Bags under his eyes. Stubble that was no longer “rugged three-day” but “I’m tired and can’t be bothered to shave.”

The gaze of a man who’s been waiting five years for Real Life to begin while living in a draft.

“What if we crash?” he thought lazily.

There was no fear. Just a strange, shameful relief.

If we crash, no need to finish that report by Wednesday. No need to decide about switching to winter tires. No need to apologize to whoever he forgot to call back.

Death is just eternal airplane mode. Maximum “Do Not Disturb.”

The girl next to him snapped her laptop shut. She rubbed her temples wearily. The mask of “successful success” slipped. Now she looked like a girl who wanted hot cocoa and a hug, not a quarterly report.

She pulled a paperback from her bag. Dostoevsky. “The Idiot.”

Andrey smirked. The irony was too thick.

He closed his eyes.

Inside his head, it was quiet.

Usually a choir screamed there: “You have to!”, “You’re falling behind!”, “Look how others live!”, “Why are you such a lazy piece of shit?”

But now the choir shut up. No signal. The choir couldn’t catch the network.

Andrey hung in the void between Point A (where he’d annoyed everyone) and Point B (where nobody needed him).

He was no one. He was a body in seat 14C. Weight: 84 kg. Temperature: 36.6. Status: offline.

And he was happy.

It was happiness not because something good had happened. But because nothing was happening.

Happiness isn’t when you have everything. Happiness is when you’ve stopped hounding yourself.

- Ladies and gentlemen, we are beginning our descent, - croaked the captain. His voice was tired, like God’s after getting fed up watching this circus.

The plane shuddered. The wheels hit concrete. People applauded.

Why do they clap? For what? That physics worked as expected? Or that they’d been returned to the prison of gravity and obligations?

The girl next to him, with a sprinter’s readiness, placed her finger on the phone button.

Andrey sighed.

He placed his finger too.

- You may now turn off airplane mode, - said the flight attendant.

Andrey pressed.

A second of silence.

And then it began.

Ding! Ding-ding! Bzzzz!

The phone vibrated like it was having a seizure.

Messages, notifications, news, likes, spam, demands, questions.

Reality burst through the airlock, blowing the seal.

“Urgent!”, “Where are you?”, “50% off!”, “Your verification code…”, “Another catastrophe has occurred…”

Andrey stared at the screen. The numbers in red circles grew.

He was being plugged back into the matrix. He was being rented out again.

He looked at the girl. She was already texting someone on WhatsApp, frowning. Dostoevsky lay forgotten in the seat pocket, next to the barf bag. Very appropriate company.

Andrey shoved the phone in his pocket. It vibrated against his thigh like phantom pain.

He stood up. The aisle was already crowded with people ready to trample each other to get out five minutes earlier and sit in traffic leaving the airport.

Andrey stood and waited.

He had nowhere to rush.

He stepped off the plane, inhaled the smell of jet fuel and autumn.

He pulled out his phone. Looked at the list of twenty unread messages.

And thought that the most honest time in his life was those three hours when he didn’t exist.

- Need taxi? - asked a guy at the exit.

- Need, - said Andrey. - Somewhere with no signal.

The guy laughed.

- That’s only the cemetery, brother.

Andrey smiled. He wasn’t offended.

He unlocked the screen and typed: “Landed. All good.”

And lied.

All was not good.

But he was online. He was back in the game.

Battery: 100%.

Soul: 3%.

Let’s go.