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Alas, those student years were long gone – along with much of his health, his unfulfilled dreams, his lost place in life, and the unrealized genius of logic and mathematics. A relapse? No! he wanted to shout. The duality – or rather, the multifaceted nature of his personality – had always been there, for as long as he could remember. What the owner now called a relapse was nothing more than another side of his nature taking over, while the logical, rational one had gone on strike and abandoned its post.
– Excessive drinking, indulgence with women, police detentions after several drunken brawls and acts of hooliganism, sleeping on the job – we turned a blind eye to all of it. At least, for a while. Until it started to affect his performance.
“Ah, so that’s where this is going…” he exhaled quietly, already trying to predict whether they were planning to reform him – or just fire him outright. It seemed, for now, they weren’t planning the latter.
– Given this employee’s past achievements, dedication, and potential, -” the owner continued, boring into him with his stare, “I believe we should give our colleague – who has momentarily lost his way – a second chance. I think each of us should find the strength to take part in his fate and help save a valuable specialist and a good man.”
He was clearly overdoing it now. The people around the table barely managed to conceal their expressions of surprise and disgust. But since all eyes were fixed on Him, only He could see their twisted faces – their silent, involuntary rejection of the owner’s lofty appeal remained a revelation known only to Him.
– In Soviet times, in such cases, an employee would be placed under someone’s personal supervision,” the owner said with a faint smirk. – I’d like something similar to be introduced here as well. What do you think? – he turned to HR.
She immediately jumped up, adjusting her oversized glasses with a thin, nervous hand, and launched into a nauseatingly sweet speech filled with corporate clichés: teamwork, team spirit, the shoulder of a comrade, professional growth, mutual assistance, and striving for collective success. Even the owner wrinkled his nose at the syrupy tone, but still managed to praise her before continuing:
– Excellent! – he said cheerfully. – I’m glad my proposal has found support among the team. Therefore, I propose that the mentors – let’s call them that – be chosen from among his closest colleagues and, I’m sure, friends of our misguided soul.”
His gaze swept over the room. Half the people immediately shrank into their seats, as if trying to disappear.
– I believe the best candidates for this role will be Igor and Karina.
It was not just a thunderclap – it was a sentence! He nearly jumped to his feet, ready to deliver a counter-speech – to expose, to remind, to throw back everything that had built up over the years. To recall the endless business trips that had ruined his marriage… But then – he couldn’t. He found no strength left in him, not even enough to stand up, let alone make some dramatic statement.
Igor and Karina, for their part, looked equally unenthusiastic about taking responsibility for him. But they kept silent, biting their lips.
– Splendid, then, – the owner said. – To conclude our meeting, I’d like to hear from the man himself – what does he think about all this?
– He thinks… – the words slipped out before He could stop them. Then, catching himself, He added vaguely, “He thinks everything will be fine.”
– Excellent! – the owner exclaimed, rising to his feet and signaling the end of what could hardly even be called a meeting. – You may all return to your work.
6
He had spent the night wonderfully. At least, he hadn’t felt such a sense of relief and joy in the morning for a long time.
Sleep had consumed him entirely as soon as he reached his home. The second half of the day had passed under the sidelong glances of coworkers, which he paid little attention to, amid the periodic, feigned-motherly, and therefore ironic – even mockingly caring – attentions of Karina. She appeared at his workspace with enviable regularity, placed her hands on his shoulders, delivered moralizing speeches, chuckled as she did so, promised to “make a man” out of him, and always deftly avoided any attempts at physical contact. For her, it was a game – amusing for the moment, the rules of which she had not yet fully grasped.
– Karina, darling,” he pleaded, rubbing his eyes, – let’s talk tomorrow. I’m… right now…
– But how can it be tomorrow, my dear! – she exclaimed, raising her arms until she seemed as tall as the Eiffel Tower (or at least that’s how she looked at the moment), sighing, and continuing. – Promises to start a new life tomorrow – that’s your favorite phrase! – she reminded him. – You even promised to marry me once. Starting Monday, of course, but for now…
He didn’t recall that, but he wouldn’t have ruled it out – one says many things when inebriated, especially when trying to coax certain concessions from a lady.
– All right, then, let’s start now! But leave me alone. I’m sobering up and trying to put my life back on track… – he waved her off.
But alas, Karina reveled in the situation. She was inspired by the opportunity to respond to her offender – secretly entrusted to her for re-education – who she now considered dependent on her.
– Darling, – she whispered breathlessly into his ear, – if you want everything to go well between us, and for our owner to stop worrying about you, you need to keep me informed of your movements…
– I’d better just move in with you and live by the fridge! – he retorted, rubbing his head.
– Absolutely!’ she moaned into his ear, feigning intimacy and adding a touch of sarcasm. ‘I’ll put you right by it. A little rug!
– That would be perfect! – he nodded, seeing her reflection in the monitor. – Exactly the life I dreamed of. Carefree, warm, with access to food and… company.
– But here, darling, you’ll have to earn it! – she whispered, stroking his head. – That comes first.
– I’ll serve! – he declared. – Like a guard dog! Just feed me, water me, don’t take the rug, and arrange the spring… um, sessions.
– You’re such a boor! – she playfully slapped his cheek. – Honestly, what was I expecting?!
– I can’t help myself in the presence of someone so charming, and sometimes available, – he grimaced, but restrained himself from raising a hand to his face.
Getting rid of Karina proved nearly impossible, and only the men’s restroom – a faithful friend, with a toilet and tiled wall – allowed him to spend the remainder of the workday in relative peace. In fact, he had already started sleeping there, and would continue at home.
He was awakened by the slamming of doors. The workday was ending, and employees were preparing to leave.
In the corridor, just outside the doors, Aly waited. She simply stood against the wall, not moving. It seemed no one noticed her, and she made an effort to remain inconspicuous.
– Hi! – she smiled as soon as he appeared in the doorway.
***
They slept together. But separately. He, without even undressing, collapsed onto the bed and instantly fell asleep. She, sighing at the day’s burdens, went to the shower.
The night was arduous. Unlike the previous one. Even slightly inebriated, he had slept much better before.
All night he dreamed vivid, intense dreams full of anxiety and hidden danger. At times he would fall to the bottom of a deep ravine, landing in the grass that clutched at him and refused to let go. Breaking free from its grasp, he would awaken briefly, sensing something pulling away from him. He would see Aly, close his eyes again. The ravine never disappeared, and its sheer walls prevented further movement. Yet somehow he knew he had to go upward – not sideways, not downward, but straight up, toward the stars and moonlight spreading across the endless steppe above. He climbed, strained with all his body, fell, struggled, and kept pressing upward, tossing aside obstacles and continuing the ascent.
The climb seemed endless and unbearably difficult. Going up was far more challenging than the free fall into the abyss, where a crushing blow awaited him at the bottom. But he rallied, survival instincts urging him to leave the bottom of the ravine, or else… or else he could not even imagine. Beneath him, where he had just lain, a mudslide roared past, sweeping away everything in its path – the road downward was gone. Had he stayed there, listening to the coaxing of his darker self, he would now be buried under mud, sand, and stones.
Yet he pressed on, every second of delay costing him precious strength he barely had. Weakness, fatigue, and dizziness washed over him. Each upward movement became more difficult. Every blade of grass, every stone, every crack became a lifeline to carry him farther from the ravine.
Sweat stung his eyes; his shirt clung as a single wet lump. The wind tried to peel him off the vertical wall, sand and stones rained from above, mixing with his sweat into an abrasive paste against his back.
But he moved, exerting more effort than he thought he had ever used in his life. Each centimeter, each ledge, every detail was imprinted in his consciousness. He had long since lost the boundary between dream and reality. Everything was real – so real he marveled at the richness of the colors, their saturation, the meticulous detail. He felt it must be a dream but refused to believe it; to believe would make all his struggle futile.
The wall gradually yielded, letting him upward, where more streams had yet to fall, transforming the once-pleasant grass into an inhospitable environment. The upper edge was uneven, littered with loose fragments, fragile roots of distant grass he could barely reach. And then he realized the climb itself was not the hardest part. A more difficult and exhausting task awaited – to transition from the sheer vertical wall to the horizontal, grass-covered plateau.
He stretched with all his might, his wet shirt sliding along the surface, slipping repeatedly, never fully securing himself. Above, the moon shone, stars glittered, night insects buzzed, and in his hands once again, a tuft of grass torn during a previous attempt.
Dream and reality blended, and he felt warmth spreading across his back, someone’s hands, hot breath on his neck. Reality receded, returning him to dream.
He did not remember how he reached the top. He simply lay on his back, breathing heavily, while the same stars and the Milky Way – here called the Chumak Way – beckoned him onward. Exhaustion left him unable to rise; his last strength had gone into climbing and struggling against the ravine’s edge. But he was at the top! Below, the ravine murmured once more, and he was glad not to be there. Everything was fine. He rolled onto his side. His hands ached, torn nails bled, his scratched back itched from sand, but he was saved – and he saw the goal he had climbed for.
In the middle of the boundless steppe, bathed in moonlight, stood a house. The house of his dreams! Two stories of wood and glass, a sloped roof with elegant ridges, full-glass doors revealing comfort and peace inside. The house stood alone, with no fences, garden, or single tree to spoil the view. There was no road leading to it.
He rose, full of joy, realizing that the house was as far away as the climb had been. And he was ready to make this journey too. But… the alarm clock pierced the dream. Its shrill, mechanical ticking from some cheap Chinese device could torment anyone, and instantly the vision blurred. The idyllic scene collapsed – the field turned into a scarred, pest-ridden wasteland, and the house became a pile of ruins, moss-covered and inhabited by far more sinister creatures.
Waking was unpleasant. He felt as if struck by a massive hammer. Indeed, the shirt he had not removed yesterday clung in a soaked lump to his body. Sweat had left stains on the sheets. He struggled to stand, shaking, almost falling. From the far corner of the bed – apparently, in a panic – Aly watched him with her girl’s eyes.
He felt ashamed and got to his feet, staggering. Exhausted from last night, from sleep, he wanted only one thing: to get rid of her, take a shower, and collapse into bed – preferably with a plump neighbor who cooked excellent borscht, demanded no elaborate courtesies, and was ideal for such moments.
But ahead lay a difficult day. Difficult, if only because… he could not find the words.
***
If we speak of the states by which He characterized each morning, filtered through the lens of His current mood and perception of reality, then the morning was uncertain. Sunlight barely broke through the heavy clouds that densely covered the sky, and rare gusts of wind stirred not just the leaves, threatening to take down branches as well. Pedestrians, wrapped in coats and jackets inappropriate for the season, hurried along their way, eager to escape the inhospitable street and get home as quickly as possible.
The weather had gone out of season. He looked out the window, though without any interest, and took a sip of coffee. The coffee burned His throat and fell in a lump down His esophagus. But even that did not trouble Him. Sleep had left an indelible impression on Him and, surprisingly, had not dissipated with the arrival of the morning.
Not being by nature a believer in prophetic beginnings, He nonetheless did not deny the brain’s ability to work at night, to some extent even autonomously, analyzing certain input data that had been fed into it earlier. “Perhaps this means something!” – one of the few formed thoughts of the morning burst through, and He was surprised that it, like the dream, had appeared on its own, independently of Him.
The truth was, He liked the way He lived. Not that everything was perfect, but it wasn’t all bad. Alcohol dulled the sense of social dissatisfaction, drug intoxication loosened His hands, releasing His nature outward, and circumstances did the rest for Him. He drank, indulged, enjoyed female company, wandered through shady places, occasionally got into trouble and somehow got out of it – but to radically change His life? That was not even a thought.
“The laws of human coexistence, the ethical and legal aspects – all of this restricts human freedom for one thing only: the survival of society!” – spun through His mind. Indeed, the norms of behavior, invented or given, as church adepts believed, were intended to restrain the masses within certain boundaries, controlling them on a micro level, at the level of the individual. Once consciously devised, over millennia these norms were so deeply installed in the consciousness of each individual that they must have been transmitted on a genetic level. These long-established restrictions served the common good, saving the majority from unbalanced individuals.
Ethical norms regulated upbringing and behavior, while legal norms protected society from the abuse of those who disregarded ethics…
Surely, everyone had moments of “enlightenment” in life, when blood boiled with surprise and rage, because the one who acted wrongly, breaking established rules, violating the law or ethical norms, came out ahead. Those who strictly followed the rules always lost in such situations. The point, however, was that all these norms, created for the survival of society as a whole, significantly restricted each individual. And anyone who, for one reason or another, broke free from these, so to speak, shackles, was immediately perceived as a disturber of peace and a danger to society. Such people were fought against – by all permissible means, including radical ones.
But what about those who, in their very essence, feel the artificiality of the system, for whom the hypocrisy of others is worse than losing their own face, who hate falseness and the norms that force them into mundane mediocrity? What should such people do?! What are they to do in a society that fundamentally does not accept outcasts, individualists, people unlike themselves? A society that hates the success of others, masking it with hypocritical admiration, behind which lies a distorted face of bitter hatred, malice, and envy?! What should rebels do in a society where rebels and extraordinary individuals have been exterminated for centuries? The answer is one – drink oneself into oblivion…
Drink oneself into oblivion. Escape this way from a reality that does not allow any other form of protest, any other way to express oneself, to become something far more valuable than a mere “cog in the machine”!! !
He had not always been like this. For much of His life, He remembered being a diligent boy, unquestioningly following the instructions of His elders. The elders spoke, guided, and shaped His consciousness, and He trusted them, believing that they would not deceive Him. And now, reaching the age of those to whom He had once submitted, He bitterly realized that He had been manipulated, forced to do what was advantageous to the adults, who had no concern for His growth, development, or ability to handle problems.
Thoughts rushed through His mind like a murky river, reality passed Him by, cold wind stung and made Him shiver, His body lived its own life, struggling for survival, while His mind carried Him into the past, to the first time He felt disappointment, because a girl – still a schoolgirl – had acted differently than He had expected.
Naive and trusting – He wondered how He had survived like this until the ninth grade – He entered puberty, when underlying thoughts and hormonal changes demanded something that adults had never discussed with Him, friends only laughed, sharing naïve tales, while the girls matured and filled out, provoking, for some reason, feelings He was taught to be ashamed of in advance.
The descent into the metro didn’t take long. Alya obediently trailed behind, even fearing to come close to Him. In this state, He appeared to her for the first time – gloomy, sharp, immersed in Himself, a complete contrast to the eternally ironic, hangover-suffering character who had caught her attention almost from day one. She followed Him closely, and inexplicable sensations filled her, fire spreading through her body…
He felt roughly the same emotions and fire when, one day – either after the autumn ball or some other school event – He found himself alone with… He remembered her in detail. He remembered that provocatively lifted skirt trimmed with blue lace at the hem, the gray blouse that clung to her partially formed feminine figure, the smell of alcohol she had consumed, and the enormous gray eyes burning with fire. He remembered everything – except her name…
She kissed Him first. Simply took His head in her hands and pressed her lips to His. He was stunned, confused, unsure what to do next. Disobedient hands reached somewhere, tugged at something, stroked… He lost his head, and when He regained it, He stood in the same dark alley, catching the lingering scent of alcohol she had drunk. But He stood alone. She had disappeared, leaving Him there by Himself. Then He spent the entire evening searching for her. It seemed to Him that any moment now, just around the corner, He would catch up with her cheerful laughter. But when He arrived, there was only emptiness, and only that faint, elusive laugh guided the path of pursuit. He felt she was teasing Him, perhaps even mocking Him, constantly slipping away, forcing Him to chase and catch up. But alas, she didn’t care about Him. Toward the very end of the evening, He finally caught up with the same laughter, and was struck to the ground by the sight when one of His friends… No, for Him, it was a harsh sight and a shattering of all hopes. For the past year or so, He had lived for her, caught her gaze, gathered information, and dreamed… He felt that if she did not know of His infatuation, she must have suspected it, which made the final moment in the dark corner of the evening school, for which He, incidentally, was unprepared, even more painful.
For a while longer, He lived for her, bitterness, hatred, jealousy, and self-contempt overwhelming Him, especially when she, mocking Him, kissed one boy, then another, right in class… It hurt… It hurt to see her and to hear from friends the retellings of their fleeting encounters, in many cases true, but not without embellishments.
Not that He became a laughingstock. No. He was teased, as, in fact, all adolescents reaching puberty try to express themselves, sometimes at the expense of humiliating others. But the realization that He was unprepared for this turn of events, and the fact that rule-breakers always won – was a revelation for Him, significantly reshaping His world.
Something arose within Him that wanted to protest, but had no right to protest. The fracturing of a unified personality happened instantly and unnoticed by others. Inner demons took over in the “otherworldly” life, reaching an agreement to divide existence into two separate camps.
In the metro, Alya sat down, wanting to lean against Him, but the expression on His face – detached, gloomy, aggressively distant – stopped her impulse. She stood beside Him, maintaining a polite distance.
The strength of His upbringing was such that even the realization of the world’s complexity and the inadequacy of many of the postulates implanted in His mind could not break through the granite of social responsibility and cultural behavior. And under this slab, pressing down with its full weight, developed that which contradicted the norms of society and the moral-ethical principles instilled in Him.
Sooner or later, the second self had to make itself known. And with the onset of his university years, having largely freed himself from parental oversight, the second self surged to the surface, leaving the slab of decency untouched. Emerging mostly at night, his second self demanded unchecked indulgence: alcohol, female company, brawls, and other improprieties. At night, he could drag a prostitute by the hair, one who had tried to snatch his last ten-dollar bill, thinking him asleep, only to find out the next morning that the woman he had taken somewhere near the Gosprom was actually a classmate from his course, now looking at him with fear and hatred, hungover. During the day, he would sincerely apologize, saying he didn’t even understand how it had happened, offering her coffee and cookies, spending even more than that ten-dollar bill – warm feelings already beginning to swell within him, regardless of who she was or what she did, only to, that same evening, with indescribable fury, torment her body again – though this time without physical abuse or hair-pulling.
In fact, she became his first steady girlfriend – the very one to whom he was polite and attentive during the day, while his second self demanded something entirely different at night. It suited him, and it suited her… Neither of them minded that he had other partners, who even claimed more than casual relationships, just as she had clients who kept her for extended periods…
He recalled that period many times and considered it perhaps the happiest time of his life. His second self allowed him to be what he could not be in society. The amorality of the situation, the disregard for norms and rules, the ability to express protest in this way – while maintaining overall decency and even compassion toward others in a society that revered accepted codes of conduct – allowed him to live a life of complete satisfaction.
He understood perfectly well those who, after a day of labor, having accumulated disgust and negativity, sought to balance it with nightlife, gambling, debauchery with prostitutes, or shooting in the Forest Park. But for them, it was only an outlet, a temporary release; for him, it was a lifestyle, a way of life.
By day, he was an ideal, or close to one; by night, slipping away from yet another lover unwilling to accept him as he was, he retreated into a world where entirely different people and sensations awaited him.
Everything collapsed when she was gone! What happened remained a mystery to him even now, but she was found somewhere near the Sumskyi Market. A car had run over her – first in one direction, then back. What was it? An intentional hit? An accident? Punishment for disobedience or revenge from a jealous person?! It all remained a secret. And for him, everything ended right there.
The golden age didn’t even vanish – it simply ceased, like a movie abruptly cutting off in a theater when the electricity goes out. One moment, everything is there, the audience fully immersed in what is happening, and the next – darkness. Darkness, confusion, bewilderment, first replaced by fear, then by hatred.