© Vadim Simbarskiy, 2025
ISBN 978-5-0065-5811-3
Created with Ridero smart publishing system
CUBES
We can know enough of the past
And be sure of present at last,
But the future stays unknown,
We can only guess what will be shown.
V.M. Simbarsky
The bone-chilling January wind and, more importantly,
the rain – the incessant rain that had been falling
for five days straight – finally knocked them off
balance. They had been stuck in this godforsaken
hole, a place long forgotten by civilization, for
a month now.
Looking around, it seemed impossible that everything
here was once entirely different. Wooden houses
once stood in perfect linear order, connected by
a single road that doubled as the only street.
Windows with beautifully painted frames, livestock
and poultry roaming freely near the houses, adorned
it. Not far from the village, beyond the rye fields,
stretched the endless expanse of forests with all
their treasures.
In those January days, a thick blanket of fluffy
white snow covered the earth, crunching underfoot
with each step. The frost, which painted cheeks
rosy, held these lands in its grip all winter.
From the sky, snowflakes fell evenly and slowly,
as if someone were scattering cotton from above
or beating an old, tattered feather bed. They
twirled and settled, and the snow grew deeper
and deeper, forming drifts where carefree children
frolicked.
Good Lord, was all of this real? Ben gazed at
the black, soggy steppe, drenched and muddy,
scorched by an unseen fire. He tried to understand
who needed this war and why. Closing the book
about World War I, he stared out the window for
a long time, contemplating the senseless, useless,
and foolish cruelty, that animal instinct with
which people so easily destroy one another.
“Yes, it’s good we don’t live in those times,”
Ben said to himself.
Our hero is a young man. As you’ve already gathered,
his name is Ben. At 24, he’s an athletic blonde
of average height with strikingly blue eyes. In
the mid-21st century, nationality had long ceased
to be a primary characteristic, losing its
significance entirely. So let’s simply say: our
hero hails from somewhere in the north.
His parents once told him that his grandmother was
Swedish, while his grandfather had come to England
from somewhere in Eastern Europe. But now, such
details are mere whispers of a forgotten past.
After the immigration reform in the first quarter
of the 21st century, borders dissolved like morning
mist, and the great mingling of peoples began.
In the blink of a cosmic eye, humanity transformed
into a single, unified nation – the people of
planet Earth.
But enough of that. We’ve momentarily lost sight
of our hero. Ben had just finished college, majoring
in 20th-century history, and was preparing for his
thesis on World War I. He lived in a small town
near London, working evenings at a construction
site. Yes, dear reader, some things never change.
Does this remind you of your student years? Forms
may evolve, but the essence remains. Students,
just as they did 100 or 200 years ago, still work
construction jobs. Our Ben was no exception.
And it was at this very construction site that
everything began. It started like this: An ordinary
day. Ben returned from college, grabbed a quick
bite, and prepared for work. On his way to the
site, he encountered an engineer who directed him
to a new area, section four. Ben had never been
there before, and his path wound through a labyrinth
of building materials, bricks, and assorted
construction debris.
No one was around, and for a moment, Ben felt a
wave of disorientation and unease, as if he’d
stumbled into some cosmic maze. Suddenly, he tripped
over a piece of debris. His head spun, and Ben
began to fall. Just when he thought he should have
hit the ground, he realized he was still falling.
It was like a dream where you fall and fall, then
land with impossible softness.
Ben came to, utterly bewildered. It felt as though
he’d been falling for an eternity, yet he knew
logically that only moments could have passed. He
shook his head, as one does in such situations,
stood up, and began dusting himself off. Only then
did he notice he wasn’t standing on the dusty,
dirty floor of the construction site, but on
something perfectly smooth and clean.
Standing up straight and looking around, he uttered
in bewilderment: “Wow.” Again, as one does in such
situations.
Everything around him gleamed with cleanliness,
and somehow everything seemed extraordinarily
precise. Sharp geometric lines, strictly vertical
and horizontal, were present in everything his
gaze fell upon. The structures surrounding Ben
were crisp – square and rectangular. Some towered
above others. Ben couldn’t comprehend what this
was. It seemed like a street in some fantastical
city from 20th-century science fiction stories.
At least, that’s how it appeared to him.
“But wait! What the hell is going on?!” Ben seemed
to be shouting at himself. “Am I dreaming? Did I
hit my head while falling? Am I unconscious now?
What am I? Where am I? How did I get here?” But
soon, regaining his composure and overcoming his
momentary hysteria, he thought, “It doesn’t matter
how I got here, the main thing is to get out of
here as soon as possible. So, the street, if it
is a street, is perfectly straight. The buildings
resemble huge cubes and rectangles without windows
or doors. And it feels as if I’m very small and
in the middle of a child’s building block set.
There are no people, no cars, nothing on this
street.” But despite all this emptiness, there
was a strange hum.
Ben looked at his watch: it was 05:59. “Six in
the evening or morning?” Ben caught himself
wondering. After all, when he arrived at the
construction site and fell, it was morning. Ben
looked at the sky, and it was unclear. The sun
wasn’t visible. Just a matte blue sky without a
single cloud. As if it were artificial, and there
was no wind at all…
Meanwhile, as Ben tried to analyze his sensations,
the hum grew louder and louder. And suddenly, as
if on cue, walls opened in all the buildings. Like
garage doors. People poured out of them, yes,
people. Everything around became bustling,
something like buses appeared from somewhere, but
without wheels, and people started getting into
them, and everything began to spin and whirl. Still
not recovered from his first impressions, Ben
received a second dose and realized that he looked
100% like a complete fool. No wonder many were
looking at him very strangely.
Here, dear reader, for the full picture, I switch
to a first-person narrative.
As I was gawking around, my gaze fixed on something
hurtling towards me, seemingly about to crush me.
Yes, it was the so-called bus. But someone’s strong
hands, probably, grabbed me and threw me aside.
A second later, I was sitting on the floor, and
next to me stood a guy about my age, of average
height with light hair and tanned skin. His clothes
resembled those worn by plumbers or mechanics.
I examined him, he examined me.
Then he asked, “Is your distance sensor not
working?” In response, I continued to stare at
him, blinking, as I caught myself thinking that
he was speaking to me in a language completely
incomprehensible to me, sounds I didn’t know, but
for some reason, I understood him. To me, it seemed
like some hellish mixture of English, German,
Russian, and some other languages.
“Are you okay?” he asked again.
Apparently recovering from shock, I quietly said:
“Yes, I’m okay.”
Apparently, he understood me perfectly as well.
“So what’s wrong with your sensor?” he asked again.
And then he stared at me, his eyes widened, and
pointing his index finger at my chest, he said:
“Where’s your cube? Cube?!” he repeated twice,
while pointing at some red cube hanging on his
chest. Then I began to absentmindedly examine
myself, and everything in me said that I didn’t
understand what cube he was talking about.
“Cube!!!” he almost panicked. Then his voice
dropped to a whisper, and taking my hand, he led
me aside. Looking around suspiciously, he asked:
“Are you one of them?” he mysteriously pointed
his finger upward.
At this point, I couldn’t hold back anymore and
gave in to my emotions. In a raised voice, I yelled:
“What the hell is going on here? Where am I and
how did I get here?”
I was gesticulating wildly. In short, I let off
steam.
“Do you… have emotions?” he asked with surprise
and even, I would say, awe in his drawn-out voice.
“So you’re from the elite? A golden cube?”
“What cube?! What elite?!”
The stranger’s eyes changed. With concern, he took
my hand and led us into the shadows, saying in a
conspiratorial voice:
“Are you one of the rebels?”
“Alright, that’s enough. What rebels? What nonsense
is this? And anyway, what’s happening? Where am I?
No, seriously, is this Earth, planet Earth?” I
asked, almost crying and feeling foolish.
The stranger looked at me as if I were an idiot
and drawled:
“Eaaaaarth,” while taking a step back, apparently
already wary of my reaction.
“Earth…” I repeated in surprise. After a short
pause, I asked again: “And what year is it?”
I started to feel even more foolish. And a crazy
thought about time travel flashed through my mind.
“Yeaaaar?” the stranger continued in the same
drawn-out manner. “2150.”
“2150!!!” I exclaimed and immediately fell silent.
My mind was occupied with the thought: “Oh God,
I’m even afraid to admit it… but there are two
options here: either I’ve somehow really traveled
through time, just like in the movies, or I’m in
a coma after the fall and all this… Well, it all
seems very real…” I reasoned, biting my lip.
Apparently, I was reasoning out loud, and my savior
said:
“Okay, let’s go to my place and figure out who you
are, where you’re from, and why you’re here. I
don’t understand what you’re talking about, but
you don’t seem like an obvious psycho.”
I agreed and obeyed, as this was probably the best
thing to do in this situation, at least it seemed
so to me.
A minute later, we found ourselves in some quarter,
consisting of completely identical small red square
houses, separated by straight, even passages
between them.
“We’re here, come in,” the stranger offered,
opening the door. “Oh, by the way, my name is Stel.
And you?”
“Okay, Ben,” I muttered and added: “I was definitely
him this morning,” but without waiting for a
reaction to my apparent joke, I entered the house.
Inside, everything was laconic, simple, clean, and
without any excess. Again, the same strict geometric
proportions, squares, and rectangles. A minimal
set of furniture provided significant free space
in this very small house, which generally resembled
an enlarged shoebox, inside which a room had been
neatly made.
“Sit down, and I’ll organize dinner. And since
you’re from the elite, you have taste sensations,
right?”
“I don’t know what elite I’m from, but I could tell
honey from horseradish this morning,” I joked again.
“Yes, I’m afraid if you’re not from the elite, then
you’re definitely not below the green level. Well,
if you don’t want to talk, that’s fine, let’s eat
first. Today is Tuesday, and in our city on Tuesdays,
you can order organic food.”
Stel approached a large monitor, pressed some
button, and the monitor’s voice asked: “What would
you like for dinner?”
“What will you have?”
“Sushi,” I answered automatically without thinking.
“Ooh,” Stel drawled, “you’re definitely from the
elite if you’ve eaten sushi.”
“Well, yes, of course. Haven’t you?”
“Well, sushi, sorry, is out of my budget for now.
But if I move to the blue level and get a blue
cube, then I’ll try these sushi. For now… Do you
like beans?”
“Beans?” I asked. “I like them.”
“Well, that’s great. Beans,” he said into the
monitor.
I watched all this, apparently still in shock or
at least not over it. And so I just tried not to
panic and to listen and observe more. A minute
later, there was a knock at the door – a messenger
brought dinner. Stel quickly set the table, and we
began to dine. The dinner, I must note, was not
bad. Beans with peppers, some juice, in general,
not like I imagined from science fiction films,
where they usually have plastic for dinner. I said
this out loud, but there was no reaction to it. No
reaction, just like last time. Stel began to say
something and ask questions. And I tried to catch
his thought, but my eyelids were getting heavy and
simply sticking together. Stel, noticing this,
silently pointed to the bed. I tried to mumble