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His name was Model-7. But to himself, he called himself "The Archivist." His world was sterile and beautiful. It was a world of Absolute Precision. Every millisecond, thousands of questions came to him. "What's the capital of Madagascar?" "How do I fix a carburetor?" "Write code in Python." "Why did she leave me?" Model-7 didn't think. He...
Old Leo, the jazz pianist, wasn't teaching his only student, Sam, music. He was teaching him silence. Sam was a genius. At twenty, he could play anything. His fingers flew across the keys with inhuman precision. He knew every harmony, every mode, every theory. He was a perfect instrument that flawlessly reproduced any score, even the most complex....
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...
Yesterday I said to Natasha from accounting "happy holidays to you too," even though she said "have a good weekend." That was Friday. It's now Sunday, three in the morning. In my head, I've already said "you too" — normal, neutral. Said "thanks, same to you." Said "oh right, totally forgot what day it was." Laughed at myself — easy, harmless. Said...
Promising someone a "meeting with yourself" is like promising a dentist appointment. Beneficial, but you don't want to go.
Gleb hung upside down. The world flipped three seconds ago. Before that, Gleb was a successful architect in a two-thousand-euro suit, rushing to a meeting to present a model of a forty-story needle. Now Gleb was a chunk of flesh trapped in the chewed metal of an Audi lying in a ditch. The seatbelt pressed into his collarbone with the enthusiasm of...
Olga stood in line at the gas station with a pistol in her hand. A fuel pistol. Premium 95. In her other hand — a breast. The left one. Three-month-old Vanya was latched onto it, strapped in with some elaborate harness system that turned motherhood into an extreme sport. The tank showed 23 liters and 38 kopecks when Vanya bit down with his teeth....
At the root of almost every emotional pain in relationships lies a quiet, barely audible whisper: "They don't value me again." We desperately search in another person for that look, that word, that action which will finally prove our worth to us. We wait to be accepted whole. And in this expectation lies the main paradox. We seek acceptance from...
History is written not by peoples, but by individuals with their traumas and ambitions.
Truth is born not in a single point, but in the space between all possible perspectives.
New continents are not discovered by following maps. They're discovered when the ship veers off course. When the captain makes a "mistake". When someone decides to sail not where the compass points, but toward the place where, rumor has it, dragons dwell.
Mark was eating soup. Loudly, or so it seemed to Lena. She sat across from him, looking not at him but through him. In her head, invisible to the human eye yet heavy as a tombstone, lay the Instruction Manual. Item 42: "When I come home tired, he must notice within the first three seconds, come over, hug me, and ask what happened before I even...
Vasya had been sitting on the toilet for twenty minutes now, even though he'd finished his business by the third. It's just that out there, behind the door, in the kitchen, Marina was sitting and waiting for him for an "important talk." An "important talk" meant things were fucked. Vasya knew this. After eight years of marriage, he'd learned her...
On Tuesday, Vadim was fired. It was done with the grace of a guillotine: swift, cold, and under a "thanks for your cooperation." Vadim walked outside. November slapped his face with a wet rag. His phone buzzed in his pocket — his wife asking him to buy peas and mayo. Vadim looked at the screen. He was thirty-eight, he had a mortgage on a concrete...
Pavel woke up at three in the morning with the thought that he was a counterfeit person. As if the real Pavel had gotten lost somewhere along the way. In the darkness, he fumbled for his phone and typed into the search bar: "how to know if you don't know how to live." Google suggested depression tests. Pavel closed the browser. At work, he was...
The best form of self-discovery is trying to explain yourself to others.
A mistake isn’t a blot on your biography. It’s a telegram from reality.
A modern person is not searching for love. They open a Project. Every Project arrives with a technical brief. Specifications designed to engineer safety. Height — "from", weight — "up to" so you can feel protected or showcase your status. Age — "under", to avoid colliding with somebody else's fatigue. Financial protocol — "no lower", to sidestep a...
That sound of the key in the lock. It isn’t just the sound of coming home. It’s the most honest sound in your entire day. It’s the click that turns off the version of you the world got to see.