All that was left of the dream was the sweet sensation of forbidden pleasure. Memories came in fragments. Here were the lab employees in white coats flitting behind armored glass, like a stirred-up anthill. And here was a huge control panel, colorful buttons flickering like a Christmas tree. Actually, father had never taken Grisha to the lab. It was embarrassing to show such a huge loser of a son to his colleagues. Good for nothing, a wuss just like his mother. Not like Istotsky Sr., may he rot in hell. But Grisha had a good imagination, the dream lab was accurate. Supposedly.

In the dream, he was grown up and independent. Such a huge feeling, after waking it no longer fitted inside his body. On his own, no lectures or rules. A person, not a minor appendage of his parents. The dream might have been blurry, but one detail Grisha remembered clearly — how happy he was to tell his old man and his ***** of a research to go **** themselves. Just hit the button and BOOM! The explosion swelled up without any sound. After it, the sight of the ashes brought an impermissible evil joy. You burned down, *****, and I will rise from your ashes. You’ll be my fertilizer!

After that, to wake up in this reality was merciless at the very least.

The seat belt lock smashed cruelly into his lower back. The muscles had become numb, so why were not the sensations in them gone? On the contrary, each bump on the lousy "Yekaterinburg-Almaty" highway echoed in his back and somewhere deep inside the skull. Right between the eyes. Or were they going to Mongolia? Grisha didn’t remember, he wasn’t really listening. It was his new tactic in communicating with parents — selective hearing. At least no one in his head could stop him from ignoring them. They could go **** themselves.

His left elbow was pressed in deep between the seats. And his right one slipped down for a thousandth time and hit something stiff in endless bags and suitcases. Maybe a thermos? The mouth had gone dry a long time ago, but the rustle of the bag could attract father’s attention. He could drink at the gas station, and if he was lucky the rusty water from the local pipelines would kill him. Did they even have pipelines here at all? Or did the barbarian technology stick at the level of collecting the rainwater? Did it ever rain here?

Stiff legs were propped up by endless sacks, it was impossible to stretch them out properly for the last six hours. How come they had so much stuff? Grisha remembered the rack from the fairy tales for some reason. Or was it some kind of bed? Procrastinating or something like that? Well, he knew for sure who was procrastinating — people who built this shit road.

Nasty sweat ran down his neck and Grisha tried to scratch himself as silently as possible. The size of their old car in which he was trapped with his parents and all their stuff did not allow him to keep a comfortable distance from his relatives. Usually he preferred to leave at least one closed door and at least 30ft between them. It worked out more or less in the grandpop’s apartment, but they didn’t live there anymore.

Grisha flared his nostrils and blinked rapidly. He felt dry spit bitter on his tongue. Then he ran his finger over a burr on the door panel. It was sharp. Grandpop’s apartment was sold suspiciously fast after his death. As if the old man had already been waiting in the wings. Even the flowers in a crooked bouquet, which Grisha left on a temporary iron tombstone without a photo, did not have time to fade. Now that they’d gone to the middle of nowhere, no one was going to put up a decent headstone. Only this temporary iron piece of shit would remain. And in a couple of years, it would lean over. It would rust and then the earth would swallow it. No one would ever know that there lay Nikolai Bryukhonenko, the kindest grandfather in the whole universe.

Grisha pressed down the plastic burr aggressively. Hell no! If mother wouldn't do it, he would come back and do it himself. And do it right. So that grandpop wouldn’t get embarrassed. Was she alright there? Her father died and she didn’t give a hoot. Everything was hotsy-totsy. This shit was fucked up.

Looking at it this way, the last month was full of crap, really. Grandpop’s neighbor aunty Rina had said something like that. About some eclipse entrance or whatever. For instance, the old man’s Unlucky Incident with a Laboratory Assistant. The guy didn’t die but turned into a vegetable in a coma. Or more like into jelly. Grisha didn’t know what was worse. It was definitely worse for this guy’s family because there was always this annoying useless hope. It was like to keep disturbing a wound, not letting it heal. Did this lab dude even have a family? Or was he like the dearest father, just making sure that for others his life was hunky dory — a wife and a teenage son? But if you looked closer it was just one lying festering abscess. Though this fella had an accident while on duty. Were his relatives eligible for some kind of pension for distress in the name of scientific success? Or was it just for military men?

Actually, the old man’s impeccability after the accident began to fall down for sure. They didn’t exactly fire him; he was the chief of the research center after all. Boss, pitch and toss. But it ended up even worse, they hit his overgrown ego. His most vulnerable part, really, his Achilles’ foot. Before a scandal broke out, daddy was transferred into some wretched branch of the institute. Fuckingrad-89 or something, Grisha wasn’t listening. He only remembered something about the cozy little town and great climate. Yeah, right.

Another sweat drop ticked down between the shoulder blades. Sand crunched on the teeth. It was banging furiously against this junk of a car and finally found cracks to get in. To put it bluntly, it was not so hard to do. It’s surprising how it still went. Real desert miracles – there was a book with this name too. Once they watched an episode of In the World of Animals about the dune habitants with grandpop. Grisha closed his eyes and imagined the car in the center of a rattlesnake knot. Even that company was better than being inside now.

The brakes cracked and Grisha nearly rolled down to the bags. It seemed that the sun decided to burn their retinae so that the foreign agents wouldn’t find the way to the closed military town. And who would even look for it. In the middle of nowhere, and they had to use these shit roads. No self-respecting spy would go here. They wouldn’t want to scoop out the spine turned into powder out of the underwear. And here is the last gas station in the world, the map didn’t load further. There was no more internet.

Some unkempt piece of cardboard with scrawly letters saying: ‘The last gas station for further 5600km’ floated into the view. Grisha snorted quietly. Is that a glitch in the Matrix? Okay, okay.

The sand crackled under the wheels and the car stopped. The ancient gas pump’s display materialized behind the window. Grisha remembered the mechanical scales from the market where he would often go with grandpop, who would always smile and give clumsy compliments to red-cheeked saleswomen with yellow curls under blue caps. They would laugh in response, their golden teeth twinkling. And then they would always give Grisha a treat. ‘I hope you’ll be a gentleman just like your granddad when you grow up, boy.’ Now he wasn’t sure who to look up to. His parents would more likely get the Failure of the Millennium award.

Grisha waited for his father to leave the car. There was a metallic rattle, then a dull sound of the cap unscrewing, then the steps getting away. In the rear mirror, he noticed his mom breathing air into her lungs. Lecture time. No, no, no.

“I’ll go take a piss,” he muttered through clenched teeth and sprang out of the car nearly twisting his sleeping ankle.

“Grisha, sweetheart, watch the language…” he heard closing the door.

Having gotten outside he went behind the gas station building. Its original color was unrecognizable under the red rust stains. Not a straight line in it. How did it even stand and who ever bought anything here? Another desert miracle. There was only crumbling concrete and the smell of heated iron and asphalt. Grisha licked his chapped lips with a rough tongue. In the road cracks dry tufts of some unlucky grass which had the misfortune of growing here were showing. Grisha decided that its life was probably short and full of misery. Although some stems were his waist high. After all, no one really used that road and grass grew right in the middle of it. Who would have thought, huh.

Something was rasping right next to him. Grisha squinted his eyes and fixed his gaze on a bolt on a chain. The structure was as rusty as everything around. The piece of iron was swinging from side to side in the blistering wind. Covering his eyes with a sweaty hand, Grisha managed to read the almost faded sign: WEATHER BOLT.

“Huh?”

Further, there was an instruction. ‘If the bolt is wet, it is raining. If the bolt is dry, there is no rain. If the bolt casts a shadow, the weather is fair. If you cannot see the bolt, it is foggy.’ Grisha blinked again and shook his head; his hair tumbled down to his shoulders. The midday sun was burning the top of his head. The bolt was casting the tiniest shadow which was crouching cowardly in the scorching heat.

The gas station territory was surrounded by a low fence, crooked like a scoliotic back. The fence reached Grisha’s knee. Beyond it was the desert. In this sun-bleached background, there was only one dark spot — a public toilet, hole-above-abyss-style, about 60 feet away. Even at this distance, Grisha could feel the revolting stench of the toilet which the heat only made stronger. Grisha flinched in disgust, pushed his hands into his jeans’ pockets, and walked in the opposite direction. Trash scrunched under his feet —- the sure proof that life still remained here. Even if he was busting he would prefer peeing between barchans giving the show for lizards. Or whoever lived here. They definitely watched the episode about deserts. Shit, it all slipped his memory. This way grandpop’s face… He felt his fists clenching.

Grisha gave the fence a skeptical look and sat at the spot that was the least likely to pierce his *** with a steel bar, turning his back to the gas station and the car. This way he could pretend that they didn’t exist in his life. That he was here by his own choice. That he followed his nose and stopped at a roadside café. To get a brain-freezing soda. And now he would stand up, brush himself down and keep going, free as the wind.

He tried hard to remember but couldn’t see grandpop’s appearance clearly. The image came and went, slipping through his fingers. Grisha shuffled his sneaker in frustration, a little cloud of dust whirled away to the side. What the ****, it’s only been two weeks! He couldn’t already forget…

There were voices in the back, but he ignored them. For some reason, the hospital corridor where he heard the news about the death appeared in his memory painfully vividly. He remembered the strong smell of the aseptic ICU air. The endless dissonant beeping and rustling of devices. The wrinkled uniform of the doctor who was speaking with mother. The blue circles under the red eyes, flattened cap. Some hell of a shift you had, dude.

“My condolences… Admitted with suspected acute pulmonary embolism, which probably was the reason of death… We’ll be able to confirm that after the autopsy.”

But there was no autopsy. Buried him in no time and let’s go! Father insisted, said, they needed to leave immediately. Mother even filled in a form to wrap it up as quickly as possible. They wrapped up everything, sweeping it under the rug. Poof, and there was no family any longer, as if they had never lived there. On one hand, Grisha hated the old man for that. On the other… the second the words “grandpop” and “autopsy” appeared in one sentence, his throat tightened. He wished the sand under him was quick and swallowed him. He didn’t ask to deal with all of this.

The voices got louder, the wind finally brought fragments of sentences.

“Get in the car, now!”

“Grisha, sweetheart, please, listen to your father!”

The fingers clenched the warm metal bar, flakes of the paint peeling off dug into his hand. And it was so nice sitting here. Well, he could never sit nicely for long. Karma didn’t let him. He wondered what he had done in the past life to end up here. Beat the shit out of a couple of baby pandas?

A shadow crawled over Grisha suddenly. The guts jumped up like on a roller coaster. The hairs on the nape and arms rose. The ears were burning.

“I told you… Are you deaf?! Get in the car, now!”

Grisha had no time to answer. Steel fingers dug into the shoulder and pulled up, turning him around. Angry tears filled his eyes embarrassingly but Grisha had promised himself not to show weakness in front of his father.

“Get off me! I’d better kick the bucket like grandpop! Or fall into a coma like your useless lab guy! This way I wouldn’t have to check now if we already hit rock ******* bottom or are we gonna hear a knock from down—”

All of a sudden the head bounced off to the right, he saw stars and an explosion swelled up on his cheek. Grisha stared at the sand unbelievingly, pressing the hand to his face. Father punched him. Wha—

“Lower your hysterics’ degree and get in the car, quick. Don’t make me say it again.”

Only one thought was beating in his head, in time with the cheek pulsating.

“Hate. You. Hate. You. Hate. You.”

* * *

Notes:

In the World of Animals is a Soviet and Russian television program dedicated to zoology and wildlife research, especially the habits and habitat of animals. It began airing in 1968 and is still running. It is famous for its opening and charismatic host, Nikolay Drozdov.

* * *

Today we would like to remind you that your wishes have already been fulfilled. You’re one small step away from them. Close your eyes and see. What does your Soul* ask of you? Feel it. Then take this tiny step. The next one will lie ahead of it. And then the next one. And the next one.

Time will pass, and you'll look back and will see it. The grand path that made perfect sense from the very beginning, every tiny bit of it. But when you are focused on your next small step, you can't yet see the full picture. Doesn't mean it's not already there. Just relying on your Soul and feelings is actually enough guidance.

This message was brought to you by Atomgrad-29 Guild of Realtors. The hunt gets started!

* Only apply this message to you if you have one. Otherwise please contact your local authority for a soul and/or body allocation.

*A wind was blowing from the sea, from the sea…**

They set off again, and it was even worse. The smell of freshly released smoke added to the stench saturating the upholstery. Grisha felt sick. His clothes would stink. Cool. After the adrenaline rush passed, all energy left his body, turning his muscles into jelly. He crawled into the back corner of a passenger seat and stared at the rose encased in plastic on the gear knob. Prisoners made them, didn't they? It sucked, just like everything of father's taste. The music was no better.

It was heaping up trouble, heaping up trouble…

But thanks to the radio, he didn't hear clearly how Mom sighed. She stayed silent, held back! Is that her new tactic—do not intervene and not even breathe? And eventually, the problem would solve itself? Grisha scratched his itchy cheek, and it hurt again. There was going to be a bruise, just in time for the first day of school tomorrow. So that everyone would understand everything right away. Amazing start. He could say he fought some gang and beat the crap out of them. And he would beat the crap out of anyone who touched him. And who cares if he was 5'4? Or somewhere around that, he didn't know for sure now. Grandpa would measure his height and mark it on the kitchen door frame. Now there were new residents. They probably painted over the scribbles on the wood so it wouldn't spoil the interior. Two coats, covering it all as if it was never there.

I see, it wasn’t meant to be, wasn’t meant to be…

Grisha pressed his forehead to the window and slid down. There would be a greasy stain, but he didn't give a damn. Father was crazy about keeping the car clean. When he realizes that he was riding around with a smeared window, he would freak out for sure. Maybe even get a mini heart attack if Grisha is lucky. Though it's unlikely... When everyone was getting lucky, Grisha apparently was in line for a lifetime supply of clusterfucks. And oh boy, did he get it! Maybe at least a blood vessel would break in the old man's eye. That would be nice.

He saw a thin, rusty-to-the-core monument sign. It looked like it was trying to pierce the sky's belly. Grisha managed to read: Atomgrad-29. Town That Does Not Exist. There was a restless mischief of magpies flying around the arrowy point and hunchbacked letters. Against the shabby desert backdrop, they seemed too clear, as if they had just been dusted. Grisha slid even lower, pressed the nose too. From the outside, he probably looked like an idiot. He only had to puff up his cheeks for the full effect. At that moment, a flock of birds scattered, and a human figure appeared. Grisha didn't see much. A striped wife-beater, black and white like the magpies. Some ridiculous sweatpants. And a shaved head?

I will come no more, I will come no more…

Grisha turned around so fast that he felt a pain in his neck. What kind of idiot would climb a scorching hot monument in this heat? But when he glanced out the back window for a closer look, no one was there. Even the birds had vanished. He could only see the battered words: Atomgrad-29. Town Without a Frown.

What the ****...? He no longer felt tired. He attempted to catch a glimpse of something else outside but with limited success. Though the monotonous desert landscape was interrupted by occasional checkpoints. A metallic mesh fence seemed to have materialized out of thin air, now unwaveringly winding alongside the road.

***

31-08-99

17:13:31

ARC  1

Cycle number: 2106

I(B1): 0.0000000000001e+13

Beam intensity: see Plot 2

Luminosity of collisions in four detectors: see Plot 3

Beam 1: OFF

Residual radiation level:** APPROXIMATELY NORMAL

Low spikes in the plots are observed. Probable reason: leakage of residual radiation due to low-quality cladding. Further research is required.

***

In a couple of minutes, the car was stopped by a crooked, rotten-teeth-like gate of a larger checkpoint. It seemed that the security budget hadn't been entirely stolen. They didn’t get greedy putting barbed wire on top of the gates. Grisha imagined himself passing through, leaving shreds of skin on the thorns. He gulped down a sickening lump in his throat. To distract himself, he looked out of the window to examine the new, omnipresent signs. Apparently, they didn't skimp on them either. Well, that depended on how you looked at it. The letters were stenciled but somewhat imprecise. Some shyly clung to one another, while others shamefully kept their distance.

PROHIBITED AREA

Stop! The shot is deadly!

Below it there was another sign — they probably had run out of space on the first one: Trespassers will be eaten. Grisha even rubbed his eyes, not sure if his mind was playing tricks. His brain had already started making theories but he didn’t have time to let his imagination gather speed. From the gnashing with ancient cameras and crumpled loud-speakers booth, a soldier appeared with a rifle atilt. His dusty, weather-beaten army boots were crunching on the sand. His huge ears were sticking out from under the cap, his shaved head making them look sharper. Grisha raised his shoulders and hid behind the curtain of his hair. What ******* radars, Jesus.

The lad’s bushy eyebrows met on his nose bridge grimly. He saluted overenthusiastically.

Who are you showing off for? Grisha thought. No one can see you except vipers and us. And I’m not sure who gives less fucks about your military etiquette.

“Stay where you are! I’m junior sergeant Baryshnikov. May I see your documents?”

What rank is junior sergeant? The next after ‘the most worthless rubbish’ but before ‘senior scumbag’? Stay here then and let your brains melt in this concrete box. If army people even have any. They are probably a huge inconvenience anyway.

Parents showed their papers to sarge Baryshnikov simultaneously who stared at them very hard. Then he lifted the documents a bit higher and squinted comparing photos with reality. Was he scanning the skull shapes or what?

“I see, Sergey Istotsky. Have come to conduct scientific research in the MISFIT… Accompanied by the spouse and a minor dependent?

Sarge leaned back a little and eyed Grisha intensely. I’m 16, you moron! Grisha’s hands instantly got wet and his face hot. What a jerk. How old was the sarge himself? Why do people turn into such assholes the second they get an ounce of power? Grisha dragged himself from the window further into the seat, a bag pressed into his shoulder blade. The hell was he gonna make sarge’s job easier.

At this moment the sergeant returned the documents and asked with the same strict tone staring straight at father:

“What is your zodiac sign?”

Grisha could only gape and tilt his head to one side. What? However old man answered without hesitation as if they were talking about football or the weather:

“According to the new NASA and Roscosmos horoscope, now I’m a Libra.”

“From now on you are welcome in Atomgrad-29. Come in.”

Chains clanked and the crooked stop sign slowly lifted up like the sun at dawn. The car went under the bent boom gate gaining speed once again. Through the open window, Grisha heard electricity humming in the wires winded on the barriers. They passed another sign with a creature sitting on top. Was it a squirrel? Grisha’s brain was busy analyzing different information, there was no capacity left for identifying small rodents.

What horoscope? What Roscosmos? Everyone went completely bananas because they watched too much conspiracy theories on cable? Hello????

Grisha leaned a bit forward behind Mom’s seat and looked cautiously out of the cracked windscreen. Out of the heat haze, the trembling shape of the town was crawling towards them.

***

31-08-99

18:23

Camera2_enter_east

Object spotted and identified: small.

Identification: cyclops squirrel.

Danger degree: low?

Conclusion: continue observation.

Objects spotted and identified: medium.

Identification: humanoid, 3 pcs, kinship is likely (76%). Further analysis of skull shape and retina scan is required.

Danger degree: pending.

Conclusion: continue observation.

NOTES:

* Get ready to blast a timeless Russian bop straight from the '90s! This song is the perfect soundtrack to embrace your existential dread while shaking your booty to a delightfully giddy beat. So grab your dancing shoes and get ready to groove with a hint of existential crisis!

** ARC — Atomgrad-29 Reaction Collider

MORE NOTES:

Are you ashamed to share your creativity online? Are fear of failure and procrastination holding you back? Are you trying to figure out how to overcome shyness linked with self-expression? Don't fight it! Simply allow your art, your unique message, to transcend this obstacle. Let what you bring forth be greater than this self-restraint, for you (and for the world, as an extension of you). Let it be more important and significant than any fears. Remember, you are unique, and no one else can do what you want to do in the same way. There is no one else like you.*

* If you happen to see your exact copy\, please press the panic button and immediately hide under the table. Or the bed? Yes\, better under the bed\, quickly! Stay away from windows. Avoid using the elevator. Barricade the doors with debris from other furniture. Don't go near electrical outlets. Pray.

** No one will come to your aid. But it's just fun to press this button\, right? It makes this cool sound... Click-clack\, click-clack!

Today's message is sponsored by "Farewell, Youth," the largest geopolitical zoo in the world located in Atomgrad-29. While youth may pass, your inner animal nature endures.

Grisha didn’t notice how the town grew big outside the windows. At one moment there was only a monotonous desert but after the checkpoint, the rare scrubs of abandoned shacks started to force through the sand. Then these huts shot up, clothed into concrete armor, crowded together to confront the oppressive surroundings. And now the car was riding through the labyrinths of bedroom districts.

Faceless residential clones — there are millions of these slums in every post-soviet country. Grisha’s brain convulsively tried to put together the odd pieces into childhood sights. Gray panel houses, a twenty-four-hour kiosk, a drunkard sitting on a porch with a bundle and his head hung down. A sparse rowan tree, old women on a rickety bench next to a house entrance, a lonely kvass barrel surely with grubs at the bottom, it was common knowledge… All separate pieces were very much familiar but didn’t add up to the whole picture. Grisha felt a headache from such tension. There were too many dead empty windows in Atomgrad houses. And the old women’s eyes seemed to glow in the dark like their cats’. The shit you see when you’re tired! Grisha spat over his left shoulder and shuddered.

While they were driving through the town, it got dark. That was too fast, probably because of the local fucked up atmosphere. Or was there an ozone hole above them? Well, a shithole it was certainly. Quite a rare one. Everything around them drowned in blue shadows. Grisha rolled down the window and for the first time in that day felt something vaguely resembling a fresh breeze. It smelled like the end of summer: cooling pavement, nightly chillness, and a distant fire. At dacha, they would always light the Last Fire with Granpops before returning to the city, to school. They would gather the trash from the whole garden along with dry twigs and leaves. The fire was pioneer-like*, as Granpop called it, up to the very sky. Then they would bake new potatoes in coals with salt and butter from the neighbor who kept livestock. Food for the gods. After they would pick a bunch of flowers for school from Grandpop’s flower bed: dahlias puffy like lions, or pointed sword lilies. Their buds reminded Grisha of spearheads from the movies about Middle Ages. He started blinking very fast again. Wiped his face with his hand. Freaking wind blew some danged rubbish into his eyes.

Some windows filled up with misleadingly cozy orange light after all. Apparently, not all of them were abandoned. In the fairytale swamps, there are also a lot of inviting flickering but if you follow that glow, you’re fucked. The bog will slurp up above your stupid head and that’s it. Your bones will rot and turn into peat. Is that what happened to dinosaurs? Or only dumbasses who fall into swamps ended up like this?

Father turned off into the front yard. The car jumped on the rut and Grisha knocked his forehead against the door. For fuck’s sake! He hissed rubbing the hit spot and looked out of the window grimly. It seemed even the roads here were against people. Small potholes gathered together into a massive megapit which could easily swallow the whole car. But before it happened the car stopped. A huge nine-floor apartment building stretched to both sides before them. In the headlamp light a peeling sign Entrance to Inner Battle Front is on the other side was seen. Father killed the engine and the car submerged into darkness. Only the entrance bulb was convulsing and some apartment windows were glowing with greenish-blue light. Like phosphorescent toys which you charge from a lamp and then look at while they slowly die out in the pod of your hands.

The radio shut up and heavy silence hung in the air.

“Here we are. It hasn’t been half a year,” Mom’s tone was falsely cheerful. Grisha cringed at her pathetic efforts to smooth the general mood.

“Second floor, apartment 18. The key is under the rug. Make haste and start unloading the bags,” father’s voice ran over the ears like sanding paper.

Grisha was just waiting for this. The old man didn’t even finish talking when he grabbed his backpack and jumped out of the car. Anywhere but this damned tin can. He couldn’t breathe there any longer.

“Where are you going? Aren’t you going to help?” the words hit him like a brick.

“Sergey, let him go… He will only look around and come back down.”

“And you’re always defending him! You’ll grow a pathetic sissy out of him…

Grisha didn’t listen to the rest. He grabbed the door handle like a safety ring. The door squeaked and isolated him from his parents leaving him in complete darkness where he couldn’t see a thing. He breathed in the wet cold miasma of the entrance hall. It was the realm of cat smell with fine notes of old cigarette stubs. Grisha put his hands out and started groping. Why do lamps never work in panel houses? It must be that local spirits don’t like light.

Something squelched revoltingly under his feet. Sneakers bumped into the stairs and Grisha almost fell face down but at the last second, he managed to clutch the railing. He walked one flight up. There the anxious twinkle of a dying street light reached the window. Grisha saw the doors on the first floor lined with fabrikoid and rails. One of them was hastily boarded up with a cross of planks. Home, sweet home. There were charred twisted match corpses on the ceiling. Who stuck them there and — what is most important — why? Between the floors, he found an everlasting Nescafe can stacked with stubs. Its sharp crooked edges were blinking angrily in the nervous light. No, thank you, he was not going to touch that. He was good without lockjaw. Though he wondered if a person could die from lockjaw these days.

Grisha walked up to the second floor and looked around. From one door he heard the dull humming of a TV. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine he was still in Yekaterinburg. In a moment aunty Rina would come out the door in front of him with a tray full of freshly baked oatmeal cookies. She would drop in for a game of durak or bingo. They would drink tea under the lilac lamp shade in the kitchen and then he would fall asleep soothed by the ticking of Grandpop’s clock with pinecone weights…

He bit the point of his tongue. Opened his eyes. Another mediocre door with iron numbers 1 and 8 carelessly nailed to it. Here he was. Grisha picked the door rug up with his foot, something chinked under it. Reluctantly he sat down and with a grimace of aversion grabbed a set of three keys. It was as clear as the day that lockjaw was the least dangerous out of everything that was smeared over the floor here.

Grisha sighed and put one of the keys into the lock on the off-chance. Unwillingly it turned. It was obvious that nobody had been there for a long time. In the hallway, he was met by the musty smell of dust. The air seemed to stay inside the apartment not daring to cross the threshold. Apparently, nobody had breathed it for so long that it forgot what diffusion was. Grisha clicked on the light switch and came in not taking shoes off. Nobody mopped the floors before their arrival, so it was okay.

The apartment turned out to be somewhat tiny. He seemed to brush against the walls with his backpack. But to his surprise, it wasn’t empty at all. There was a three-mirrored vanity in the hallway with the leaves opened a bit. Grisha came up and looked into it. There he saw his own scared eye locked in the mirror labyrinth and sprang back. He went further into the apartment turning all the lights on. It was time to banish the shadows out of the corners!

In all rooms, he found basic furniture: a beaten table with stools and chairs in the kitchen, soviet cabinets with squeaking doors not shutting properly. A monstrous gas stove reminding of a crematorium. It was hard to understand who lived here before them: with equal success, it could have been a harmless old lady and a large Tatar family. The panel house magic brought everyone to a common denominator. Grisha looked out of the curtain-less kitchen window and jumped back like from a fire. Right under the windows stood their car shielded by a bushy tree. The last thing he needed was to get caught by his parents.

He poked his nose in the bathroom and saw a small window up under the ceiling leading to the kitchen. The same opening he found on the opposite wall. That one apparently led to the toilet room. Truly, the engineering genius knew no bounds. Why were they here, to help the family members with bonding? While one was taking a shit, another in the shower showed the first one the middle finger through the window?

Further down the corridor, there was a small narrow room. A single bed with a stripped mattress on a shabby rug, a bookcase and a chipboard desk along the wall, a scratched wooden chair. Grisha glanced at the shelves. Empty except for a thick layer of dust. Only at the very bottom, there was a run-down round-bellied TV. The cord with the plug hung down miserably. They left a TV, fancy, what else to say. Though who needed that ancient crap? It probably was radioactive. Grisha looked up. There were a couple of holes in the wall and the wallpaper beneath them was a bit lighter. Something had hanged here but he couldn’t figure out what. The window at the far end of the room looked over some roof covered with cigarette stubs. Beyond it, far in the darkness glowed the windows of the surrounding buildings. From here the yard with the car wasn’t seen, the room overlooked the other side.

The next room turned out to be the large one, apparently, it was the living room. Along the whole biggest wall stretched a Soviet buffet with glass shelves — to put the crystalware on display for everyone to envy. An immortal monster. Only with no crystalware now. But there was another prehistoric TV. Grisha wondered how quickly its tube would burn a cornea. The opposite wall was supported by a sagging couch covered with an ugly rug. Its brother was crucified on the wall, the third sprawled on the floor. Hell, yeah! More rugs to the rug god! Grisha and his parents wouldn’t be cold in winter plus they could roll the neighbors’ bodies in the rugs if they killed them by accident. Or if the neighbors killed them.

Behind the big, again curtain-less windows there was a balcony. Grisha shuddered — with the lights on he felt like he was on a stage. And he didn’t order phobias on a plate, thank you very much. There were enough exciting experiences for the day. He quickly glanced into the last door which led from the living room to a bedroom. There were two single beds clinging to the opposite walls. And a nightstand between them to make sure that the people were not sleeping together. A true ode to family happiness. Disgusted he closed the door and went back to the corridor.

Grusha returned to the smallest room which he saw first and dumped the backpack on the floor. The roof behind the window could come in handy. He sat on the bed and put his face in his hands. For the first time in the day — a minute of silence. But he didn’t get the chance to sit around for long. He heard footsteps on the stairs and then the angry bleating of his father.

“Where the hell have you gone?!”

He jumped up and ran to the toilet. Shut the door and pulled the flush string. The ancient Soviet tank produced a demonic gurgling and released dark reddish slush. However, in a couple of seconds, ordinary water replaced it. Grisha shook his head, clenched his fists, and walked out to his father.

“Yeah, take your time! We’ve loads of stuff and it’s almost curfew. Go help your mother, quick!”

“Can’t I take a piss? I’m going,” said Grisha through his teeth and squeezed sideways past father back to the stairs. He wasn’t going to stay with him in the apartment alone.

Irritation boiling inside Grisha was so intense that it seemed to light up the dark staircase. The way back to the car was no longer frightening, the fear burned in the flame.

Mom was standing beside the open trunk holding several bundles in each hand. Seeing her white knuckles, he felt a pang of shame. He tried to snatch the heavy bags.

“I’ll take that, Mom.”

“It’s okay, Grisha…”

“Give me that!” he jerked the bags from her hands stubbornly.

“Thank you, honey,” she smiled tenderly, just like she used to when… Grisha swallowed the scratchy lump in his throat and ran off to the stuffy arms of the entrance hall.

─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

NOTES:

* A typical Soviet pioneer would rock the red tie and spread revolutionary vibes like a scout on steroids. Though you won't find them these days\, they left a legacy as fierce as a bear and as colorful as their iconic vermillion scarves. A pioneer fire was an iconic event\, usually made at the end of the pioneer camp shift. Legend has it they would make a bonfire so huge you could burn unnecessary memories and witnesses in it.