He looked at the rotary phone on the floor. It hadn’t rung in three weeks. He didn't expect it to.
He leaned his forehead against the cold glass of the window. Down below, a man in a heavy coat was trying to start an old Lada. The engine coughed, sputtered, and died. The man didn't curse or kick the tire. He just sat there, staring through the windshield at nothing. Egor understood. He looked at the rotary phone on the floor
He reached for a glass of lukewarm tea, but his hand stopped. On the table lay a small, white pill and a copy of a poem by Boris Ryzhy. He knew the lines by heart now. Living is difficult and expensive, but dying is easy and free. The irony was the only thing that made him smile lately, a sharp, jagged twitch of the lips. He leaned his forehead against the cold glass of the window
The music didn't make him feel better, but it made the emptiness feel like a place he could inhabit. It was the sound of the hallways he walked, the stale bread he ate, and the silence of the people he passed in the street. The man didn't curse or kick the tire
He picked up a small cassette player and pressed play. The drum machine kicked in first—stiff, mechanical, relentless. Then came the bass, a deep, driving throb that felt like walking through thick mud. When the vocals drifted in, low and detached, they sounded like a man singing from the bottom of a well.