It was over.

Another meaningless day was over. Relieved, I counted my 55 steps of something like joy, still bothered by the fact that there were 17 days left until the end of my internship. I didn’t know what was coming next, and I had no clue how crazy the following weeks were going to be.

I stuffed my heels into my backpack, replacing them with my colourful trainers. A surge of people caught up with me as I leaned against one of the columns in the huge foyer. I hid behind it. I like hiding places. It’s surprising how many dull spaces turn out to be great hiding places. My skin, for example.

He was walking among the crowd, eyes fixed straight ahead, as always. Or, should I say, as he had done the previous five times, I watched him from behind the column. An aura of superiority and a crown of people surrounded him.

I could detect a rhythm.

One of his suited, nervous followers was insistently trying to drag his attention to some documents. He shot a contemptuous glare at the man as if he was looking at a cockroach. I shrilled in annoyance as I recognised the folder I had copied earlier. The mistakes in the financial forecast were irritating, obvious, and there were dozens of them. Glowing. Burning my brain.

How could they abuse numbers like that? Damn it!

His arrogant gaze crossed mine. Or rather, his arrogant gaze sliced into mine. The rhythm of his steps changed. The rhythm of my breath changed as well.

A wave of shivers down my spine made me hide behind the column again.

Another idiot was shoving documents under my nose, struggling for my attention. I didn’t remember his name. It didn’t matter. They were all doing their best to be equally useless; it was difficult for me to tell one from the other.

They merged. They bored me. I despised them.

Their stupid mistakes were driving me crazy. I wondered if they made them on purpose, or whether I was supposed to accept that this was the limit of their pathetic minds.

Three years, five months, and thirteen days! I have another 1259 effing days left in this role I am playing. At least there’s a specified end date…

On my way out, I tried my best not to think about the unbearable mediocrity that surrounded me. My brain cells were screaming, as if they were dying. A rage of intolerance crept up my bones. And then, suddenly, I was startled. My rhythm was interrupted.

A strange pair of eyes was peering at me from a distance. They slid down my bones, scratching and burning. I managed to pull myself together and continued coldly counting the remaining steps, my eyes fixed on the exit.

An incomprehensible vibration. You just know. No logic, no arguments. You are simply aware that something is about to happen. You are on fire.Goosebumps cover your skin. Intuitive sensations within you wave their red flags. Usually, people ignore it. Or maybe it’s just twisted people, like those two, who tend to ignore it.

They didn’t even suspect it was the beginning of a dark story. Madness. As with any other madness in the world, this one had its beginning, contained in that very second.
For no logical reason, the same echoed in their minds:
ONE!

The usual clacking of the train, over and over. Another morning on the metro, which smelled, looked, and sounded exactly like the morning before. The absolute lack of novelty raised questions of whether this day and the last were actually one and the same. I already suspected that this was the main purpose of life: similar days, repeated, so people wouldn’t get too confused. Routine life carries the label of being “grey” for a reason. It is quite logical that it would be assigned a trivial colour with no vividness at all. Unremarkable, even.

I was counting: a knock to the left, two knocks to the right. The familiar rhythm of the wheels. Once again, I searched through the passengers for something new. But again, they merged into a dull, collective image, the same as yesterday, no different from the day before. The faceless view was making me sleepy, and the train showed no intention of surprising me with any unexpected bumps. All it would give me was its usual rhythm. I enjoyed creating a pattern of the sounds. My attention would drift away. The cacophony in my twisted mind would still for a while. The questions, the arguments, the debates—they would all stop. The entities in my head would keep silent. Even loquacious Reason swayed wordlessly to the rhythm.

My eyes squinted as I scanned the general reality around me. It was impossible for me to comprehend many of its details, and I often pondered on them. This morning as well, of course, since it was exactly like yesterday’s morning. I was thinking:

Smooth, monotonous, uniform sounds. Same as people. People manage to be equally mundane, even if they ride on different trains in different directions, well aware of the purpose of routine life: all days must be the same. Maybe that’s what happiness is. People wake up in the morning, start existing, and the most challenging sensation of the day is the flavour of their toothpaste. They probably even frown at it for being provocative. They have resigned themselves to doing exactly the same as yesterday, all the while dreaming of what they will not do tomorrow. This, I guess, is another paradox moulded into an acceptable fact via peoples’ beloved phrase: “It’s normal”. They just love applying this label in the general reality. Or maybe it actually is normal, because such people, like me, have calculated the negligible probability of getting a chance for something more.

Somewhere in my brain, Knowledge coughed in his sophisticated manner. He is my favourite of the entities inhabiting my twisted mind, yet his voice is irritating. It reminds me of a squeaky cartoon character. In fact, they all resemble cartoon characters, but at least the voices of the others are more bearable.

Knowledge’s dry fingers flipped through some pages, then he began to recite even though he didn’t have the slightest idea of the true nature of routine life and normality:

According to the statistics, chances for something more are an exception here. The probability of an uneventful existence is calculated to be very high.

Reason, who is definitely not one of my favourites, broke into the conversation and the entities in my head began an early-morning dialogue:

Existence is a simple sequence. We are at the stage of studying and working, which is followed by family, children, working again, and, finally, a natural ending. But the sequence is not guaranteed. In our case, it is not guaranteed at all.   

Knowledge took over:

I confirm! Exact term for existence here: predetermined. I accept another term as well: doomed.

The rhythm of the train was disturbed. The machine rushed into the part of the route that I despised the most: an old tunnel, a weird buzzing sound. The lamps flashed menacingly for twenty-two seconds. I experienced my every-morning encounter with Fear. Panic crept up my bones, ready to attack. My pulse quickened. Struggling to breathe evenly, I clenched my hands into fists. I began to silently recite numerical sequences. My phobias made everyone in my head hide in their corners. Only skinny Confidence kept whispering from somewhere:

It’s just dark! It’s just dark!

Squeezing my eyelids, I repeated silently after her.

‘NIA! Hello!’ Andre nudged me. ‘You drifted away again! Come on, get back to reality and help me.’

‘She drifts away all the time! Being in our reality is more of an exception to her.’

Maddie radiated sex appeal even this early in the morning. She pulled out her insolent smile, too. Her shiny hair resembled a stream of wet tar, and in the depths of her bright green eyes there was something that made me sick.

I stared at Andre’s hands. My ordinary boyfriend had the habit of exercising his ordinary brain by engaging with the various numerical and logic-based puzzles in the newspaper. His ride was short. He usually got off on the fourth stop. Maddie on the sixth, and I on the ninth, which was downtown. After leaving the metro, each one of us headed towards our respective internship. The last torture before graduation.

‘Fibonacci¹. A sequence. Can’t you see it? It’s even more perfect in squares.’ I said after throwing a glance at his newspaper. The lack of comprehension on his face bored me even more than usual, and the tone of his voice showed me that he had noticed.

‘No, Nia, no! I cannot see it. Not everyone is so…’ He was silent for a moment, trying to pick the right label. ‘…weird! Normal people don’t see patterns, they don’t count their footsteps, and they don’t wrinkle their noses at even numbers.’ 

‘They don’t drift away, they communicate like proper human beings, and they try to act in acceptable ways, or they at least know what the social norms of behaviour are. And they don’t get mental blocks, only you do!’ Maddie made sure to emphasise every word sarcastically. 

‘Listen, sweetheart. You were lucky to get an internship at the president’s office. The guys at the university must have worked hard to find a place for you. You can at least try to be like everyone else. Don’t annoy people, blend in. If you act weird there as well, you’re going to be fired! It doesn’t matter if they want you to carry coffees around, or copy documents, this is a chance for you to have a job.’

Andre was mentoring me, driven by his ambitions of an orderly, meaningless, simple life. I found even the monotonous clatter of the train more fascinating than his voice. At the last moment, I had been refused the state scholarship for education in England, which was promised to me. Because I had missed some important deadlines, I ended up in the ridiculous Political Science programme. A whole portion of my life was thoroughly lost on studying political elites, families, ideas, and systems. The expectation was that all this crap was going to be useful. And now, apparently, I was also expected to express gratitude for the stupid internship. My boyfriend was somewhat right that I should become more socially acceptable, but I wasn’t coping at all. In my mind, I was indignant.

And what exactly am I supposed to learn from this internship? The Art of Normality, Ten Proven Ways to Depersonalise Yourself, How to Effectively Turn Today into Yesterday? Or maybe they offer some other priceless skills?’

I sighed, taking my bored eyes off him.

‘You’d better listen to Andre. The chances for people like us are scarce, but for people like you there are no chances at all, freak! You’d rather carry coffees around at the president’s office than take endless shifts God knows where for a miserable salary, right? That’s how things go in the real world, though I don’t know what they look like in yours.’ Maddie agreed with Andre’s life philosophy as she sipped her coffee.

‘Obviously, our notions of “a chance” are diametrically opposed. Maddie, your conclusion lacks arguments again. You lack arguments all the time. I can confirm that it is statistically possible that you both are right, but it’s only a hypothesis. At this stage, I cannot calculate the exact probability. Plus, I do put effort into my work. I put in a lot of effort into striving for my brain cells not to die.’ I replied, staring at her with my usual even voice, but it often sounded as if I was scolding.

‘I don’t get your bullshit, you know! And I’m telling you for the thousandth time: don’t stare at me like that, you give me the creeps!’ Maddie hissed with her eyes narrowed. I knew perfectly well how much she hated the provocation of my expressionless black eyes, and I enjoyed teasing her.

Maddie and Andre’s talk gave me even more tension than the voices in my head. I was most annoyed whenever she spoke, even though we had been living together for almost a year already. This happened by chance, not by will, after my only girlfriend ran away. Sharing an apartment with Maddie was another one of the absurdities in my life. The only useful thing about her was her good knowledge about the general reality, but she bored me with her prosaic instructions and her relentless quest to fit into people’s most faulty patterns. I didn’t enjoy her insults either, but I had long since stopped taking offence.

Like you don’t drift away to your own make-believe world. I know what the chance you crave for looks like: you put it between your legs, and it will sort out your every problem. You’re even more warped and inane than everyone else! Contempt had woken up. He was secretly evaluating Maddie with his white eyes, and I smirked at his conclusion.

Unlike me, Maddie and Andre were comfortable with reality’s distortions and banality. They never complained about our predetermined future. Andre was actually looking forward to it: he was graduating soon, and after the internship he was to do the same thing for 40 years, earning barely enough money to live. He would be carefully resigned, diligently dreaming of the things he was not to do tomorrow, absolutely precise in complying with the main purpose of a routine life. He was perfectly able to grind the days into a homogeneous mixture of time. Andre had even found a solution to the challenging toothpaste issue: he used a fruit-flavoured one to lessen the sensation. He and Maddie both shared the same enviable obedience to fate, possessing no desire for something more. They would grow old according to the most ordinary pattern, replacing real life with simple existence, and none of that terrified them. Moreover, it did not seem to terrify the people on the metro, in the streets, anywhere I observed. They acted as if they had numerous lives ahead and didn’t care that time in this life was ticking away. Although I was disturbed by this insane fact, I had to admit that it was either normal, or it was some mass method for achieving happiness, or at least an imitation of it. I still had not finished analysing this irrational process.   

Sometimes, Maddie took the wrong path. She didn’t bother to conceal the hope that her beautiful face and flawless body would push her into the right rich arms. There, she expected to find something extraordinary, or rather something more than just an ordinary life. She still lacked arguments, of course, but then again, she was struggling with that in general. Although I was doing my best not to reproach or judge her, our disagreements about her maddening absence of logic were not rare. In our Eastern European country, after the fall of communism and the mafia thundering about for years, the rich-man-who-buys-a-beautiful-woman pattern was a common thing. I didn’t know what the situation was in other countries, but such a disproportionate deal was a desired goal here, an aspiration for many girls. Young Eastern European women found that the chance for something more was limited to one of the following plans: to find a way out on their own, escape and find a rich guy, or escape after finding him.

***

The weather was not good for walking, so I reluctantly took the bus for two stops. It had been raining for weeks. The thick autumn fog reminded me of routine life’s colour. It was meant to extinguish people’s last sparkle of brightness. Once again, the repulsive, dirty, gloomy city tortured my mind. The normality of the world tied my throat into a knot, tighter and tighter, especially when I was alone. In fact, my being alone was relative, because most of the time—among people or not—the entities in my head kept me company. But at the end of it all, I still had no place to hide from the general reality. Its lack of logic was killing me; the irrationality of the masses tortured me. For my hyper-rational mind, people and their behaviour were an incomprehensible mixture of insanity and paradoxes. Without realising it, I was talking to myself again while I was watching traces of mud speeding down the reflection of my face.

What if they are right? Maybe I am not entitled to the chance for something more. Why would I be? A not-all-there girl at the bottom of the social ladder. Opportunities: none. Advantages: smart, but there is a probability that this won’t come in handy in the general reality. Disadvantages: not smart enough to understand how to avoid the predetermined existence. What is my motivation for wanting this? Fear of normality? Definitely, it is on the list. New question: what is “normal”? I can’t even understand how they decide where to put the labels of normality. Damn it! My goal is to escape from something, yet I can’t even figure out exactly what that something is. What the…?!         

Running my fingers over my temples, only the twitching of my lips showed the chaos of my thoughts. Knowledge initiated another one of his speeches. His squeaky voice gave me a start:

Exact term: paradox.

I jumped and looked around.

I drifted away! Again! Damn my twisted mind!

I didn’t know what annoyed me more: missing my stop again, or the fact that it was pouring outside. I never checked the weather forecast because I did not want the expectation it would give me—the expectation of order in my day. I didn’t like the order, not at all. However, my revolt against the umbrella was nothing but a provocation to my luck.

When I entered the president’s office, I was wet, late, and freezing. Right from the start, Thursday promised not to bring me any success. A clap of thunder echoed in my mind:

ONE!

As always, I started walking with my right foot, tapping the fingers of my right hand. As I took my second step—annoying because of its even number—my boss informed me that I was to take up the duties of the chief coffee carrier for as long as necessary. At least she gave me a couple of minutes to squeeze the water out of my hair. Maddie always insisted that mascara was an absolute must for work and that I should wear some, so now dark, irregular-shaped streams were flowing down to the middle of my cheeks, resisting my attempts to erase them. I pulled some black particles off my lashes and I watched in the mirror how moisture gathered in my slanted eyes. Knowledge was quick to provide information:   

Chemical substances are entering the mucous membrane. Saline is being released. Exact term: tears.

I snorted at his new burst of babbling:

Thank you for the useless information. It’s like pouring rain, except there is no umbrella to wield against it!

Over the years, I had gotten used to the entities in my head, to their constant chattering, to communicating with them. I was not sure when or even if I had created them. Maybe they had been living there from the very beginning, or maybe I had forgotten how they had appeared. I liked Knowledge’s chatter best, so my white teeth shone behind a smile.

Despite being a substitute in charge of the coffee and discreetly trembling, I was not spared from the endless copying and carrying of folders up and down the corridors. Already, I was convinced that this was the most sought-after duty of the administrative staff. They quickly learn that the higher the piles of paper you carry around, the less likely it is for someone to bother you with real work. They make sure to maintain a busy and overwhelmed air around them, and at some point, it remains stuck on their faces forever. Curiosity kept wondering how they could put so much effort into merging into one being; he couldn’t figure out how they achieved it. Another thing that provoked his interest was the mass longing for Friday. Employees began dreaming out loud about it from Monday morning, and the whole process resembled some occult ritual. I was tormented by the question of how this behaviour had become normal. I observed with interest the older employees as they pretended to be busy. Now I could tell by their facial expressions that they were anxious. Behind the sticky expression, there was tension and nervousness about all that was new in the general reality. 

I was a child when our country became democratic. Since then, until a few months ago, it was ruled by an undercover communist, who pretended to be a democrat. During the darkest years, he was even a distinguished mafia boss. A nasty man with an evil face. Everyone who had been in their twenties since 1990 had protested in the squares against him at some point. Rumour has it that many were beaten by the police, and they were proud of that. A similar story was happening again now.

I was twenty-three. For a brief moment, I had also experienced the chance to be rebellious. I guess my recent bouts of demonstrating at protests had also helped the coming to power of the new president. Sixteen years older than me, he was probably the youngest president in the world. He was one-third enigmatic and two-thirds peculiar, and he seemed to be determined to stop the decadence of the country. His face never showed any emotions, and yet he gained people’s trust in some inexplicable way. Behind his back, there was an entire business empire, which was built on quite a lot of question marks. Among them, there was his first-class education, for which us mortals can only dream or sacrifice a kidney. His success was complemented by an enormous family heritage, about which almost nothing was known. Most likely, in addition to a business empire and money, his family had also secured him with membership in the club of the world’s elite. It was clear that the newly elected president lived on top of a mountain of extreme privilege, and he did not care to hide it at all.  

He came to the political scene unexpectedly and, to everyone’s surprise, won the election in less than a year. He wiped out the eternal communist president with one wave of his hand, radiating raw composure in every appearance. He seemed to have drawn up his actions in a precise manner, step by step. His plan resembled an engineering project for a sophisticated bridge construction, and he had been following it with maniacal accuracy since day one. That was probably what had attracted the voters of our plundered country, where there were no prospects and no hope. In him, they anticipated someone who could defeat the chaos with sharpness and brutality; someone who could grab the chaos, bend its arms behind its back and extort discipline and prosperity out of it.  

The state, which was already under Victor Kaov’s control, was small, yet rather important. Left bloodless after the communists and the mafia, it was now rising again. As soon as he took office, the new president introduced his reasonable policies and began to sketch a horizon for decades to come. Apparently, the special university for privileged people like him taught its students how to rule the world with ease. Then, it sent them off with a Guide to Greatness under their arm.        

***

In my pointless printing room, I was watching Kaov’s short speech to the ministers on TV. I was arranging an odd number of piles of documents, with paper clips in alternating colours. In my struggle with boredom, I found all sorts of ways to create patterns, even if they were elementary. The president was brief, clear and categorical. I wonder how he managed to be that cool and restrained, showing no facial expressions, as if a statue was speaking in this reality, while the true him was in some other, very distant universe. I assumed that he was just meant to be special. There are beings who are destined to live an extraordinary life since birth. Fate gives them the chance of having something more. Confident, arrogant, and embarrassingly focused, Victor Kaov seemed to embody a triumphal march to the throne of the world. Symmetrical, tall, and sombre, he appeared to carry everything that people dream of, but are afraid to possess. His posture demanded worship, probably rightly so, because one could see his dominance, even on TV, after meeting his measured gaze.

I had peeked from behind the columns in the building several times as he had passed, surrounded by his team. Although he looked like a classic bastard, I noticed something peculiar about him. To me, his steps seemed too rhythmic, as if he was counting, and I never distinguished a single expression on his face. His superiority rose like an impregnable wall that could be sensed from a distance. I found this inappropriate for our century.

I was staring in his flat, blue eyes on the screen when Reason started chiding me:

You see? Now this is what a special person looks like! You’ve got to start from somewhere. How about from the chaos of your crazy mind? Learn how to communicate, how to understand people, the norms… After that, all you will need is a good idea to work on. And with a little luck, you’ll get out of here! Are we supposed to rot in this hellhole? Is this all there is for us, Nia?     

Reason—annoying, tall and square-headed—was waving his finger inside my brain. Immersed in the nonsense of my work, I was again analysing the likelihood of being given the chance for something more. Actually, the question was not if one is entitled to such a chance, but what one should be like in order to receive it. Born in the right country, in the right family, with the right education and environment? For some people these prerogatives are simply a gift from fate. Their destiny is predetermined in a different way: they automatically find themselves in the middle of the ladder, without even having to stick a single toe in the mud. This phenomenon was also labelled “normal”, though I found it ill-grounded. Confidence, skinny and short, was once again trying to convince me that nothing was predetermined but I wasn’t sure if that was practically true.

Although I belonged to the club of the unprivileged and insignificant, I had scrutinised myself with the utmost precision. I was gifted with a remarkable intellect, extraordinary mind, and useful intuition. Alas, this intuition often contradicted my hyper-rational thinking. I ignored it. My aspirations reached a level of being harmful, and my inclination to challenge myself was even dangerous. I was always tempted to prove myself, too, even though I had long known how pointless that was.

My madness was probably my most distinctive feature. I refracted the world through the prism of this madness, and it was why the world kept trying to refract me. I guess the same happened to everyone who wouldn’t conform to the norms of society, who is unworthy of the “normal” label. I was always quick and explicit, noticing the faulty patterns, the distorted people, and the broken tiles in the general reality, and there were several things that caused me the mental blocks: Fear, normality, voluntary depersonalisation, even numbers. Another one of my many defects was the fact that I tended to drift away whenever I couldn’t find any logic in what was going on around me. There was also a gift from birth that separated me from the world—the “barrier”. I considered it valuable. It was my safest hiding place. An invisible, yet strong, barrier, behind which I could hide myself, and even an elephant if I so wished, leaving only my expressionless black eyes on the other side.    

All the endless analyses, arguments, sometimes even clamorous fights between me and the entities in my head seemed to prove that my consciousness stood on the border between healthy and sick. However, I was used to it. I had accepted it all. As I observed normal people, I suspected that there were voices and entities in their heads, too, but I never spoke about this openly. The topic would only bring more critical looks in my direction.

In my reality, I was driven by a desire for a challenging life and a chance for something more. In the general reality though, I found myself with nothing but faint prospects, an annoying boyfriend, hateful accommodation, and constantly being labelled. I forced myself to reduce my desires to specific results, because they are more convenient in the general reality. They call them “goals” there. It is banal to stuff a whole life’s worth of aspiration into a box—because that is what “goals” looked like in my head—but I was doing my best. I fit complete freedom into the image of a giant skyscraper in New York. I wished to escape there, to hide from what was predetermined, from prejudice; to do whatever I wanted, challenge myself and, most of all, to get rid of all the crap that restrained the scale of my mind and myself. I craved the indefinite everything of unlimited possibilities. I assumed that was what happiness looked like, or at least that I would be able to gather data on what happiness really is.                   

The problematic fact was that I wanted this everything at once, and I was endowed with zero patience. I often argued with ordinary beings who could not understand my hyper-rational mind—that was also an issue. Their weak brains strained me even more than their square perceptions and insults.

***

My lack of patience, straightforwardness, and inability to communicate had a bad effect in the general reality. As I left the pointless room at the end of the workday, I hissed at my boss that she was killing my brain cells with stupid tasks. She snapped back:

‘Don’t push your luck, girl, or you’ll be out of here in no time! Do you know how many others like you are waiting out there? Who do you think is going to put up with your impudent mouth?’ She waved a menacing finger under my nose. 

 ‘The answer should be easy even for you. It’s obvious. Someone who will appreciate what comes out of my mouth, or who will at least understand what I say.’ I gave her a crooked smirk.

Mind your tone, Nia! The words are not OK, either!

Reason was angry with me for teasing people again.

‘I’m sick of you! You’re unbelievable! Get out of here and learn how to behave!’ She exploded in a high pitch.

‘Bring coffee and water for everyone, quick!’ The chief advisor’s secretary startled her. ‘Come on, move! The meeting has begun!’

We looked at each other and my boss apparently decided to postpone firing me. She rejoiced serving coffee there, as if the temple of pleasure was hidden behind the boardroom door. With her feminine gait, she moved gracefully. She needed help, however, so she shoved a tray full of cups into my hands.

There was an absolute inverse relation between the dexterity of my body and that of my mind. I could prove this with thousands of examples and numerous scars, like the one on the tip of my eyebrow. Focusing on my breathing and clutching the tray, I followed my boss to the boardroom.

More than twenty advisors, ministers, and other important men were conversing around a giant table. A couple of female secretaries and assistants occupied distant chairs by the wall. My head was thundering:

Faulty pattern! Violation of balance! It should be male, female… male, female… male, female… Balance! The current pattern is wrong, it’s ineffective.

Bright lines rushed through my mind as I evaluated the reality before me. Then, all of a sudden, I found a good alternating pattern of the men in the room: one had a blank gaze, the one next to him seemed distressed, then another blank gaze, and another face in distress next to it. I looked through them mockingly, my brain focusing on the perfect succession. As I handed my boss yet another cup of coffee, I finished tracing the sequence of gazes on the long side of the table. To my annoyance, the rhythm was then interrupted by the unreadable face of a statue. I decided to use it as a dividing line for my counting, but for some reason, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was speaking in a quick, quiet manner. From this close, he was even more symmetrical with his sharp features, bright skin, and dark radiance. His black hair was carefully slicked back, slightly to the side. He clenched his jaw and I could see the clear outline of the muscles under his stubble beard. But still, even up close, I could not find any definite facial expression.

Why are we staring like this?        

Curiosity’s cute voice disturbed the silence in my head. Its crooked eyes were blinking rapidly behind its huge glasses. I shrugged. I did not bother to define the reason, but at least the question helped me to move my interest away.

I handed out the last cup of coffee and was ready to leave, when, all of a sudden, he looked up and pinned me with his sharp eyes. An unfamiliar neurological process dilated my pupils first, then opened my mouth and did not care to close it, so I simply stood there, stupefied and gaping. A stranger, who was shaking all over, burst into my head. Every pair of eyes around the table followed the invisible thread of attention that extended to me, but I still couldn’t move. Only my boss’s persistent pull managed to extract me from the awkward situation. Without permission, she grasped my elbow and let go only after we had walked far enough away from the boardroom.

‘Don’t drag me like that. You have absolutely no right to touch me.’ I resisted her.

‘And you have no right to stare brazenly like that! Don’t you know who he is, you lunatic?’ She put the menacing finger back into use.

‘Certainly, I know. He was the one who was staring brazenly.’ I walked irritated towards the printing room.

‘Yeah, sure! The president would stare at you, of all people!’ Her insults ricocheted off my back; they didn’t penetrate as they meant nothing to me.

The minutes dragged on as my mind was tortured by mental replays of what had happened in the boardroom. The president’s icy gaze was still there, before me. My boss’s rude voice brought me out of my trance. She commanded me to gather the cups and whatever was left in the boardroom.

‘They’re finished? But we just served the coffee.’ I replied dizzily.

‘You want me to explain why they didn’t drink it, or what? Go there right now, and you and I are having a serious talk tomorrow!’ She ordered in her malevolent tone, angry as always at her own existence.

I got to the task reluctantly. At least I could think about the 55 steps of something like joy that were ahead. I was going to leave soon, to read on my way home in order to make it up for the lost brain cells. I couldn’t wait to get stuck into some kind of calculation; numbers were my impregnable fortress, in which I could hide from all this crap and just relax. They were the only thing I got along with easily. They never made me tense.

‘By the time I stop working here, I will probably be left without even one functioning brain cell. They all will be slaughtered! I will get dumb, I will keep dragging folders up and down corridors forever, like all the others, and every Monday I will start my occult rituals for summoning Friday. Damn! I’ve had enough of this wretched reality for today. And tomorrow will be the same, anyway!’

I was complaining aloud amidst the huge boardroom. I wanted to distract myself, so I turned my attention to the rhythm of the clock. I looked at the pile of cups and counted the first second:

‘ONE’

I turned to carry the cups away, and then he made me jump. I somehow managed not to drop the whole tray, but one crystal cup flew to the ground, breaking at my feet.

‘Shit!’ I shrieked.

The president was standing behind my back, silent as a marble statue in his suit. I froze.

If that’s the way I stare at Maddie, now I know why she gets the creeps!

He didn’t even react to the breaking cup. He didn’t blink before he spoke in his even voice:

‘You are too loud.’

I was staring at him from less than half a metre away. Staring at the cold blue of his eyes. His haughty gaze was a perfect match for his grim air, and the black three-piece suit was a good final touch to his image of an ultimate jerk.    

 The stranger in my head was shaking again. He made me stop staring brazenly and say something instead, but it sounded rude, as usual:

‘You scared me. I won’t make any more noise, but you shouldn’t sneak behind people like that.’ I snapped, looking at the broken pieces on the floor. He stepped in front of me, his eyelids narrowed, and I didn’t know where to turn.

‘What is…?’

‘Nia.’

I wondered if I was going to be unemployed tomorrow because of my attitude.

‘Nia?’ He repeated absentmindedly, seemingly looking through me.

‘That’s my name, yes. Isn’t that what you asked?’ Once again, I couldn’t help sounding rude.

He focused on me and I shivered. I stepped back to collect the broken pieces. The president did not budge as he watched my actions from above. As I crouched, putting the pieces back on the tray, a shard of sharp crystal sank into my palm. Another loud curse escaped my throat. As I stood up, the blue irises pierced me reproachfully. The situation was getting even more awkward, but I took a breath, looked down, and then to the side, before heading for the door. He stopped me. Without saying a word, he placed the tray on the table, produced a handkerchief from his pocket, and took a hold of my wrist. I pulled myself away abruptly.  

‘I’d rather you didn’t touch me!’ I muttered, clutching the white cloth. He flinched for a moment, but there was still no expression on his face. I kept walking towards the door, carrying the tray. Before I left, his voice caught up with me:

‘Who is killing your brain cells, Nia?’

‘What do you care?’

I gave him a mean look and he raised his eyebrows in question. After a brief moment of awkward silence, there was reproach in his eyes again.

‘I asked you something!’ His voice was barely audible, and yet I was annoyed by his tone.

‘Reality is killing them. The general reality. Have a nice evening.’

‘Nia is an odd name.’

He meant no offence, but I shivered.

‘Yes, it is quite odd. Suits me well.’

I guess I was misbehaving again because he slammed the door to his office without answering. I frowned both at his rude attitude and at my own inability to communicate properly. 

***

My boss took her revenge by flooding me with other useless tasks, which involved cups, sheets of paper, and folders. She destroyed another hour of my existence before I was free to walk my 55 steps of something like joy. There was no one left in the corridors, so at least on my way out I could count aloud as much as I wished. As I headed for the metro station, I detected within myself a sense of relief. The darkness outside was even nastier than the rain. I put my earphones in, trying to distance myself from the reality around me. I walked, immersed in my thoughts. Whilst I was waiting to cross the wide boulevard, I was startled by three identical cars stopping directly in front of me. Six huge men came out of them. I gaped and froze as they surrounded me. The door of the jeep in front of me opened. Victor Kaov’s icy-cold eyes stared at me and made me take my earphones out. His even, metallic voice slammed into my eardrums:

‘It’s raining.’

‘For nineteen days now. Haven’t you noticed?’ I snorted with my eyebrows raised.

‘You are not carrying an umbrella!’

‘I don’t like umbrellas, nor being startled!’

‘Wear a raincoat then and stop being startled. I’ll drive you home.’ He snapped.  

‘You are being driven yourself, so it’s incorrect to say that you will drive me. I always take the metro and I don’t like raincoats either.’

‘There is a station next to our building. Why didn’t you take it from there, instead of walking in the dark, in the rain?’

‘Because I want to take it for an odd number of stops.’ I was confident in my answer, although he looked at me with suspicion.

‘Get in!’ He hissed through his teeth.

‘No, there is no need.’

‘It was not a question.’

Amazon US Amazon UK