Chapter 1: The Fugitive

As soon as dawn broke through the blinds, a headache mercilessly rushed into Yulia and began to drill into her brain with a sharp awl, picking out the remnants of a nightmare.

Light gray plastic would look much more appropriate in some nondescript office than in a three-room apartment, but the woman did not have to choose now.

Her neck twitched involuntarily in an attempt to escape from the persecution of her traitorous ex-husband. Every night, long thin fingers with broken rods did not give up trying to get through dreams, so Mark’s ex-husband clung to the fugitive.

Julia, caught up in a whirlwind, soared skyward, the rod-twigs were broken and carried away by a hurricane, the nightmare was repeated for the second week, the strips of morning through the blinds divided day and night into fragments just as life divided into “before” and “after” on the insidious plans of a maniac.

The river of life splashed in puddles like mirror fragments, and will never return to its former course, its shores bristled with inaccessible rocks, futile attempts to hold on, hide behind a dam of hope, carried away by a typhoon of hatred and despair, a woman will have to learn to build new cordons.

A harsh world with cruel lessons, merciless and compassionate at the same time, gave a kick and gently picked up in flight.

Julia was lying in a lonely bed, trying to gather her spirit and assemble her body.

A rented apartment, - someone else’s bedroom, - a rumpled bed, - a pillow wet with tears, - a faded prickly plaid, and a sheet hanging on the floor with a torn fringe, - it was in this order that the gaze glided through life and the brain arranged words, - a concrete floor, an echo of unfinished repairs with a faded stone riveted the eye.

A gray morning, a gray bed and gray days of loneliness and fear.

The twilight of the night is pointed at me

With a thousand binoculars on the axis.

If possible, Abba Father,

Take this cup past.

I love your stubborn plan

And I agree to play this role.

But now there is another drama going on,

And this time, fire me., -Dr. Zhivago is stubbornly broadcasting in my head.

Alas, this cup did not pass by ... you will have to drink eagerly, every last drop...

The woman is now an open wound, the bleeding pain subsides only in the midst of the daily bustle, at night unbearable panic attacks suffocate without a rope.

The owner’s abandoned bathtub is greeted by a pair of dilapidated basins filled with unnecessary junk, old plastic toys mixed with bottles of dried shampoos are piled on the floor in complete disarray.

“It’s not your own, you can’t make it out,” Julia thought aloud.

The body washed, combed its hair, and went out into the kitchen. I didn’t smoke. No, her body doesn’t smoke, her body has “allegria” for tobacco, as claimed by her teenage grandniece.

Outside the windows, autumn foliage was circling in the bars, the raging bonfire of night winds was replaced by dawn, and flocks of pigeons overhead proclaimed a new day. Yulia wanted to drink coffee.

A dead end is a great excuse to break down walls. Living is good. Even when you get hit. Just to be able to hit back. Real life is a way of existence that allows you to strike back - the eternal classics of the Strugatsky brothers are built in Julia’s head.

Strong coffee with salted tangerine. An unusual combination of flavors appeared out of nowhere, blocking the oxygen for the night alien from the nightmare. Julia has been used to the idea since childhood that when it’s scary, you need to break the chain of habits, do something non-standard, which is completely unusual, do it the way it was sung in a once popular song.

The woman sang a well–known tune,

“I’ll spread the clouds with my hands, and close the door to the past.

“She stopped herself, “oh, if it were so easy to perform as it is sung, “but there’s nothing to do, we’ll have to start somewhere, fortunately there was a clay turk and fire at hand.

Julia tore open a pack of sulfur boxes with pleasure, without taking her fascinated gaze from the flame, struck matches many times in a row until the fire completely absorbed the night horror, and the sticky web of fear, burning, disappeared, as in a scary fairy tale.

– Yes, burn it with a blue flame...

And cover your sadness with a red banner...” she recited aloud a verse that came from nowhere, two passages of the past era lined up in her head – Sovietization and gasification – a long-term habit of irony saved a woman in any situation.

Gas stoves have not been installed in urban new buildings for a long time, in this Julia was lucky, the apartment of friends was on the outskirts, more recently the guys moved to a country house and the apartment was empty, as if waiting for a woman.

Each dwelling has its own history, the three-piece is no exception, for the whole autumn the woman will become a part of this apartment.