The Man Behind

An acquaintance of mine was returning home late one evening. He was walking along a deserted, but well-lit and straight street. He kept a watchful eye on his surroundings, glancing back occasionally—it was, after all, very late, and the street was deserted... Basically, he was a little scared, to say the least.

And then, glancing over his right shoulder once, he saw a thin man in black following him. The thin man had emerged from somewhere, from some entrance (many of the surrounding buildings have entrances facing the street, not the courtyard) and was walking in the same direction, sometimes about a hundred meters behind him. The man looked rather gloomy, but didn't seem dangerous. Nevertheless, after half a minute, my acquaintance glanced back again, as usual, over his right shoulder, and noticed that the thin man had gotten a little closer. Just in case, the acquaintance quickened his pace and glanced back again—this time over his left shoulder—and discovered the thin man was gone. Well, no, he'd turned somewhere else, into another building. A friend's, for example.

The acquaintance would have forgotten about the thin man, but just to be sure, he decided to glance back one more time. He glanced over his right shoulder. And confirmed that the thin man was still stomping behind him, and now significantly closer.

The acquaintance quickly figured out that if he looked over his right shoulder, he could see the thin "pursuer," but if he looked over his left, he couldn't. This scared him to death and he took off running—luckily, his house was already very close. The thin man didn't try to catch up and quickly fell behind, if that's the right word for it under the circumstances.

 Later, the friend said that the next day, as he thought about the incident, he even somewhat regretted not having thought of, say, looking back between his legs, bending over—or, conversely, leaning back far, holding onto a tree or pole (like doing a "bridge"). But at the time, he had no time for such experiments; he was too frightened by what was happening.

Artist

I once bragged to my mother-in-law about my son's (her grandson's) success in drawing. We were in a drawing club at the time. She responded that it wasn't surprising, he took after his grandfather. I chimed in that yes, my grandfather had studied at the Academy of Arts, but my mother-in-law replied, "Well, that means he takes after his great-grandfather and grandfather (my father-in-law)."

I'd never heard of my father-in-law drawing. My mother-in-law replied that he'd gotten it into his head and buried his talent. Maybe he would have achieved something. Artists make good money; he could have painted for commissions even in retirement. Naturally, I pestered her for an explanation.

And my mother-in-law told me this story.

My father-in-law had drawn everything and everyone since childhood. From life and imagination, even though he grew up in the village. And even though he had no formal training, his drawings were very professional. He didn't study to be an artist, as his parents thought it was a waste of time.

He enrolled in evening classes at the institute and got married in his first year. And, in addition to working at the factory, he took odd jobs through acquaintances—drawing, painting portraits from photographs...

One time, someone offered to paint a portrait-painting-sketch (I don't know what to call it) for a monument from a small passport photo.

He painted it, and not only the clients liked it. Through these clients, he was found by an artist working at a cemetery, who himself turned down the job, and offered him the chance to draw sketches. The artist then transferred them to monuments. He paid pennies, but the "employer" apparently decided to dump all the paperwork on him, so the quantity was quite substantial. He worked like that for several years, then the cemetery artist started drinking, and their work together gradually petered out.

He didn't tell anyone at home that he was painting the dead. He only revealed that later.

One day, he came to visit his parents for a vacation and wanted to paint a portrait of his mother. He painted a life-size, full-length oil painting, a truly magnificent one. The entire village flocked to see it. Even the village chairman and the agronomist came to admire it. They were so impressed that the agronomist wanted a group portrait of the entire family, while the chairman wanted a design for the honor board and the propaganda corner. So, he fulfilled the chairman's request, capturing the agronomist's family in sketches and taking the painting home to finish.

Literally a month later, my father-in-law had to return to the village for his mother's funeral. And when he returned on vacation, he brought the agronomist's finished family portrait.

The client was very pleased; the portrait was beyond praise. Fellow villagers flocked to see it. The agronomist was so pleased that he even held an open house.

Afterward, they shared their impressions: "They looked so real," "I was really scared: I opened the door, and there they were all sitting across from me." And then, lo and behold, it's a painting...

Then my father pestered me: "You painted my mother, she's standing there so lifelike, paint me next to her." He painted a similarly huge portrait of my father.

He went home, and a while later my father called:

"The agronomist and his whole family were in a car accident."

They went to the funeral.

They brought out the coffins of the adults and the children, and then the relatives brought out a huge portrait of the happy family and placed it in front. The crowd recoiled.

The old women started whispering something behind his back about a cursed painting.

He returned home not quite himself. His mother-in-law says he started blaming himself and kept repeating that he'd already painted my father too.

Apparently, bad rumors had spread through the village. My father called, worried. He said the propaganda corner had been burned down. Less than a year had passed, and a telegram arrived announcing my father's death. My father-in-law wasn't even surprised, only saying, "I told you so." It was the same story at the funeral. There was a coffin in the house, and life-size portraits of his mother and father against the wall, as if they were alive. He saw them and went into hysterics. He threw himself at the paintings, while his brothers held him back.

The old ladies whispered behind his back again, comparing, listing—his mother, the agronomist and his family, his father...

He came home completely depressed. He announced he'd never pick up a pencil again. He told me about the half-baked projects he'd done for the monuments. He thought those sketches of the dead were the cause. He started remembering how many portraits he'd painted for unknown people, through friends of friends, and who knows what had happened to them.

They couldn't remember whether any of the deceased had died before those half-baked projects for the cemetery. But he'd never painted such large, realistic portraits before, so maybe that was the reason.

I also asked, "Didn't he ever draw you or the children?"

To which my mother-in-law replied, "I did pencil sketches, but no oils... the shoemaker, as always, has no shoes."

By the way, I loved to draw landscapes—alien ones, with distorted perspective (or, I don't know how to describe them, I'm just repeating my mother-in-law's words), frightening ones. My mother-in-law said she always turned them toward the wall, it made her feel uneasy. And if she looked at them for too long, her head would start to ache to the point of nausea. But the landscapes were popular with a certain circle, and they were quickly bought and snapped up.

My mother-in-law recalled one unpleasant incident: before their marriage, my father-in-law and my mother-in-law were friends with a female artist.

My father-in-law drew this "landscape." My mother-in-law saw it and described it vividly to me. I tried to imagine it, but I couldn't understand or visualize it. A huge white moon,If you look closely, you can see a distinct, small figure, surrounded by a paler halo. Up close, there are tiny specks of different shades. These specks create the impression that it's enormous, convex, and in motion. Ahead, the sea—a moonlit path (also made of specks)—transitions to a road on a cliff, all at such an angle that you can tell it's a cliff, but at the same time, the road seems to continue into the moonlit path. On the sea is a large paper boat made of checkered paper, seemingly touching the cliff's edge, but that can't be real. It also appears to be floating on water, but the top somehow looks at the viewer, which simply can't be true. The perspective is distorted, yet somehow realistic. This, as my mother-in-law said, gives me a headache. And along the road, a lone naked girl with long hair covering her nakedness seems to be walking (without touching the road with her feet). It's drawn in such a way that the girl is simultaneously on a cliff and on a moonlit path. It's incomprehensible how this girl is drawn. If you look closely, it looks like she's made of broken pieces, but if you don't go into detail, she's both on the moonlit path and on the cliff, and it seems to be moving (I can't imagine how anyone could draw it like that). It's all in the white-greenish moonlight, and it's very frightening, very realistic. The lighting also somehow changed her, making her come alive, or something (according to her words). My mother-in-law didn't like the painting, but the artist was delighted. She said it was her, and the painting was about her, and begged for it as a gift. She hung this horror in her room.

A couple of weeks later, the friends were visiting the artist and witnessed a nightmarish scene. The girl was sitting on the couch, gazing thoughtfully at the painting. The boys were chatting at the table over tea and cake. Suddenly, the girl jumped up, grabbed a knife from the table, and began slashing and slashing at the painting in a wild rage. They tried to calm her down, but then blood simply gushed from her nose. Everyone was frightened, and they threw the painting away. The girl couldn't explain why she behaved this way.

And then came the final incident, which decided everything.

He had a close friend, a friend from childhood, from the same village, and then from the same department and year at the same university. His friend tried to calm him down, shame him, and beg him not to bury his talent and at least paint proper landscapes and still lifes. But the father-in-law flatly refused, saying that even the apples and vases he had painted would bring misfortune.

One day, the friend began to argue that it was all a fabrication and self-hypnosis. He forced his father-in-law to paint his portrait and verify that it was all a coincidence.

The father-in-law gave in to his persuasion.

And how did it all end?

A year later, my friend died of leukemia.

Words cannot describe what happened to the artist. My mother-in-law said she thought he would follow his friend or go crazy. He would sit up all night and draw his portrait. He punished himself or even killed himself. He must have drawn a hundred of them.

Then he collected everything: old paintings, sketches, brushes, paints, and burned them all in a vacant lot.

From then on, he never even drew a Christmas tree for his children's sketchbooks.

I was shocked by her story. I didn't even know what to say. My mother-in-law was sure it was all just a coincidence. But I felt uneasy, so many coincidences... My mother-in-law also said of his surrealist paintings that "only a person with a mental disorder could draw something like that." I could already tell my father-in-law was an extraordinary individual (his phenomenal memory, as everyone joked, was "like a spy": he could memorize tables, graphs, charts, and formulas in a couple of minutes, just by looking at them). I won't even mention the notebook in his head with all the dates and phone numbers. He had two higher education degrees, held leadership positions, and then he gave it all up and went to sea. He was a bit eccentric, but I never noticed any mental lapses or "breakdowns" in him.

Cold

This story happened in the early 1980s. My mother worked in the accounting department at the time, right across from the kindergarten I attended. A sweet woman worked with my mother, and her husband was a driver at the same company. They were a wonderful family; the husband was madly in love with his little Valya. They had three children: five-year-old Tanya, eight-year-old Vanya, and sixteen-year-old Petya. The family lived right on the company's premises, which provided them with temporary housing. At the time, they were waiting in line for a four-room apartment.

One day, when Tanya was sick and didn't go to kindergarten, the parents decided to do the following: Valya would stay home with Tanya and Vanya until lunch (he was in the afternoon shift at school), and then Petya would come home from his first shift and stay to watch the children. Valya asked for the morning off, fed the kids at lunch, and went to work. Petya was supposed to be home from school in just a couple of minutes. 

The accountants (my mother included) were sitting there working, when Tanya walked into the office. It was deep autumn outside, and she was wearing a dress and slippers.

"Mom, Vanya's cold there..."

"Why did you come here all naked?" Valya asked, surprised.

"I'm not cold."

"Go home quickly, I'll be right back and see what's causing Vanya's cold."

Valya figured the kids were just bored and had decided to drag their mother away from work. But she was still getting ready to run home. As soon as she left, Petya greeted her:

"Mom, have you seen the kids? I came home and they're nowhere to be found."

"Yes, Tanya just came running in. They're probably playing behind the office or at the neighbor's. I'm going to work, and you go look for them. Vanya has to go to school already."

 Half an hour later, Petya arrived, completely white and stiff-legged. He couldn't speak at all, only grunting and pointing in the direction of their apartment. The accounting department was stunned, goosebumps running down everyone's spines. Valya ran home, followed by several other colleagues.

A horrific scene awaited them in the house. Tanya and Vanya lay bloodied in the kitchen by the old Soviet-era refrigerator. Their heads were smashed in, their faces and hands blue. Vanya was still breathing. They locked themselves in the refrigerator, apparently trying to scare their brother. They pounded on the door from the inside with their heads and fists until they ran out of air... It was no use; the ZIL had slammed shut. By the time the ambulance arrived, Vanya had died too...

Petya had gone crazy. He spent a long time being treated in the psychiatric ward of the local hospital—to no avail. He dropped out of school and wandered around town all day with a blank, expressionless gaze...

Having somehow recovered from their grief, Valya and her husband decided to have another child. Her husband cared so much for the pregnant Valya! He even brought her bananas, exotic for our city at the time. Valya, like the entire accounting department, constantly wondered: how could Tanya come if she was already dead? Poor girl, she must have wanted so much to save her little brother!

The day of the birth arrived. A drunk midwife dropped the newborn girl on the tile floor of the delivery room. A severe injury, disability...

A few years later, Valya's mother met her completely gray-haired, hunched over, pushing a wheelchair. A few years later, when she met her mother, Valya told her that her daughter had died at 14, and six months earlier, her husband had died in a car accident—he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into a truck...

Jewelry

An elderly man I know recently lost his wife. With the help of neighbors who had been lifelong friends with the deceased, the widower held a fitting wake. Three days before the forty-day wake, Nikolai Ivanovich had an unusual dream: his wife, Anna, was sitting on a bench outside the house, sorting through her silver jewelry, which she had treasured so much in life, and tenderly saying to her husband, "Kolya, when you celebrate forty days, don't give money to my dear friends. Instead, give Nadya these earrings, Vera a necklace, and Olga a ring." The widower searched all morning and all day for his wife's jewelry—he ransacked the entire house, but couldn't find it. Left everything as is, he had no choice.

On the eve of the wake, the women prepared kutia, brewed kvass, and prepared hot dishes so they could begin preparing the funeral dinner at dawn. Nikolai Ivanovich tried to offer them money for kitchen work, but they flatly refused, looking at him almost resentfully. That evening, he went to bed; he tossed and turned, his eyes wide open, and finally dozed off in the early morning.

Suddenly, he heard his wife's voice: "What's wrong, Kolya? Look, here they are." The closet door creaked open, and a white gauze bundle flew out. It flew across the bedroom and landed next to Nikolai Ivanovich's bed. With trembling hands, the widower unwrapped it—it contained his wife's jewelry. Anna had been frequently ill in recent years and hadn't worn jewelry, so she had put it away.

After the funeral, Nikolai Ivanovich told the women about his dream, gave them the jewelry, and asked them to wear it.

The thirteenth controller

He hadn't ridden a commuter train in eight years. He lived in Moscow, spending all his time in the metro, taking planes for vacations, visiting his university friends by train, his school friends by tram, and, if he ever went to visit his parents on the outskirts of the region, it was only in his stepbrother's car.

He barely even thought about why this was so, and if a question suddenly surfaced in his subconscious, it was immediately drowned out by memories of smoke-filled vestibules, strange shoulders, and a heavy backpack on his back—in his student years, he had to travel every day, so it was no wonder he'd suddenly lost it.

One day, it happened that his favorite band, which had completely disappeared from the country for the past three years, suddenly decided to tour the Moscow region—as if deliberately choosing regions where buses didn't go, the metro hadn't yet reached, and the highways were either overloaded for three years or had been repaired thirty years ago. His friends with cars merely twirled their fingers at their temples: "Don't even think about it, it's a shame about iron horses, and we don't listen to that kind of thing." His friends without cars weren't eager to join him either, so he found himself alone on a Saturday evening at the train station of his childhood.

The anticipation of the concert was slightly dampened by the sweet memories that flowed steadily into his head with every beggar and every broken turnstile. Then, dusk thickened outside the train window, and something vague and ominous began to seep into the dance of frozen carriages and third retakes, but then the train pulled into the right station, and he, relieved, joined the stream of fans confidently flowing toward their cherished destination.

After the concert, he was in no hurry to leave. He wandered around the city, savoring the experience: he hadn't been to anything like this for five years, sometimes with work or family, and somehow imperceptibly missed the stream of Moscow fans hurrying to catch the fast commuter train. Then he spent a long time at the ticket counter, scraping change from his pockets, and left almost on the very last train, shortly before midnight. As he boarded the train, he managed to think, "Hello, youth..." and collapsed into the first available seat, fiddling with his phone, squeezing his eyes shut and praying that the image in his head wouldn't come to fruition.

His parents lived on the same line, but a couple of stops closer to the capital, and he often returned home on the last commuter trains, but never the midnight commute to Moscow. And soon after graduating, he stopped by his family's place, managed to get into a fight with everyone, and headed back to his rented apartment for the night—also on the last train. And for some reason, he found himself completely alone in the train car.

Unfazed, he sat down facing the rear somewhere in the middle, closed his eyes, watering from the bright lights, and was almost asleep to the familiar clatter of the wheels when he heard quiet, measured footsteps behind him.

He knew very well that at that hour, few people would be walking around the train cars, either because they couldn't find a seat, were running from sleepy ticket collectors, or were trying to sell something. Besides, they would all be stomping their feet on the floor much louder and more erratically. For some reason, he was afraid to turn around. But he really wanted to.

He took his phone out of his pocket and peered at the reflection on its screen: something short and stocky, wearing a dark hooded jacket, was walking down the aisle. It moved slowly, as if space stretched out before it, passing no more than a single compartment in thirty seconds—but still, it moved. And perhaps it had no intention of passing by.

The train stopped abruptly, and a cheerful old man with a backpack slung over his shoulders entered. He walked between the seats, somewhere behind the sole passenger, cracked his knuckles as if he were flicking someone, returned, and sat down opposite his fellow passenger, who was suddenly overcome with superstitious horror at what he had seen.

"Calm down," the old man said. "I put him in his place."

"W-who?" was all the student who had been studying yesterday managed to utter.

"Well, that Thirteenth Controller," the old man waved his hand dismissively, and, meeting her frightened gaze, explained, "He once made a mistake in the world, and never realized it. So now he wanders around at night, peering into people's souls, as is customary there." "We're not used to this," he sighed. "The heart can break if the soul lies deep. You're lucky you didn't look at him."

The old man turned out to be cheerful, and spent the entire ride to Moscow telling him how he'd drank tea on the night train the previous night and how the brownies were rebelling in the metro, forced to feed on rats. By the time he reached his apartment, the frightened graduate remembered little except that he'd had some kind of delirious dream on the train and should probably call home in the morning and apologize. But since then, for some reason, he'd only visited his parents with his brother, by car.

And now, eight years later, he took a shuddering breath, opened his eyes, and looked around: lucky, this time he wasn't alone in the car. A couple of seats away, an old man sat with his back to him, carrying a very familiar, albeit rather battered, backpack. Every instinct demanded that I move over to him: I just needed to step louder so that he wouldn’t hit me in the nose.

A Headless Shadow

My grandfather told me this story. When he was thirteen, he had two friends, Maxim and Igor, who went to school together. After school, they all walked home together, as they lived close by. So that day, when school was over, they all got ready and headed home. As they walked along the park path, my grandfather looked down at the ground and noticed that the shadow of his friend Maxim, who was walking on the right, had no head. He mentioned this to his friends. It was very strange. Maxim tried every way to change the shadow's position, but nothing worked—the shadow remained headless. Only when they were almost home did Maxim's shadow return to normal. My grandfather said goodbye to his friends and went home.

The next day, Igor came to his house and told him that Maxim was dead. That morning, his mother came into his room to wake him. When she touched him with her hand, she felt a chill—her son was dead. She called the doctors, and they said he died of a heart attack, although Maxim had no history of heart disease. My grandfather still believes that Maxim's soul was taken by a shadow that evening.

All bets are off, all bets are offA favorite theme of many classic writers is gambling and human greed

. What vile deeds can they drive a mortal soul to, and what abyss of evil can they plunge and pervert human nature itself? Why not reread Dostoevsky or Bulgakov, at least. Although, if you're short on time, you can try to learn a lesson from the following story. We'll change the names to preserve the anonymity of those involved.

During my student years, long before I settled down, grew a beard, started writing memoirs, and macramé, my free time was devoted to all sorts of entertainment. Time was my friend and obeyed my every whim. You know, that intoxicating feeling when you truly believe that carefree days will never end. Almost every weekend was planned out six months in advance. But even with this busy schedule, I always found time to disappear for three days to my old friend Timur's. The parents of my faithful companion and brother in late-night drinking were on a business trip abroad. We had a cozy two-room apartment on the outskirts of town, where we hosted parties and relaxed in style. When all the guests had left, I helped clean up, and sometimes the cleaning would seamlessly transition into another party. It was never boring. New faces always joined the party.

And then, on one of my visits, I encountered an unusual guest at Timur's. A girl of about twenty, with fiery red hair and a languid gaze. Just one glance at this devil's figure would make you forget your own name—such a shapely and attractive young lady. Her name was Ksenia. Where and through what connections she met Timur, I never understood. But she clung to my friend tighter than a pit bull to a sugar bone. Well, my friend didn't mind this "invader" either—Ksenia stayed with him. It turned out the beauty worked at one of the city's casinos, manning the cash register and exchanging chips for cash. Her hours were irregular, but she earned tips for her pretty eyes and a generous salary from management.

One day, she returned from her shift during my tastings and cognac conversations with Timur. My friend and I were in the middle of our second day of nonstop revelry, fortunately, there were plenty of reasons: the session had ended, my first paycheck, and Tatyana's Day was coming soon...

Ksenia came in and said with excitement and horror in her eyes:

"Here you are, drinking here, and I almost gave up my soul..." We looked at Ksenia, and she seemed strange, as if she had just run home from work instead of taking the subway. She was more exhausted than usual. She was shaking like a mouse in a refrigerator, and her eyes were wild.

"Go ahead, mon sherry," I winked.

And Ksenia, sobbing and using uncharacteristic curse words, told me something like this.

Three days ago (or rather, night), a strange visitor showed up at the casino—a short, smiling man with a wide face that filled the cash register window. His face was large, but expressionless. Thin lips and pale skin. Bald as a billiard ball. Ksyusha initially mistook him for a "bro," only he was dressed uncharacteristically for his "caste": instead of a club jacket and a gold chain around his chest, he was wearing an old-fashioned three-piece suit and a black bow tie. He spoke very fluently and chuckled all the time. A sort of Merry U from the children's cartoon "The Mystery of the Third Planet." He took a minimum amount of chips and went into the hall. Only in the morning did he return to the cash register, and not alone. He was accompanied by three other casino regulars, already flush with cash—desperate gamblers, the kind you'd find in abundance in seedy spots. Like remora fish, they're hoping to snatch a piece of someone else's luck. They walk along, mesmerized, listening to the little man's chatter. Then he sidles up to the cashier and begins to lavishly and dramatically lay out chips on the counter. It rarely happens, but the man walked away with about thirty thousand dollars on the minimum bet. He left a hefty tip and led his entourage out into the street. Such things happen, the girl thought, and within an hour she'd forgotten all about the lucky man.

But the next night, he showed up at the casino again. Alone. In an impeccable black suit, vest, and bow tie. The man approached the counter and saluted playfully. He took the minimum bet and headed out into the room. And in the morning, with new followers, he returned to the counter. From snatches of conversation, Ksenia realized Veselchak was planning to teach his new friends a "lesson in real gambling" somewhere else. He collected his winnings, dropped a few chips on the table, and disappeared again.

Last night, he showed up for the third time. Security was already waiting for the lucky guy at the entrance. But surprisingly, the short guy said a few words to the security manager and walked unhindered to the cashier. He placed the minimum bet and smiled at Ksenia. The same thing happened again. The next morning, he was escorted from the casino by a young man, one of the then-popular "preppy boys." Veselchak strode swaggeringly toward the cashier. Security tried to approach him a second time, but his response was something along the lines of, "Don't worry, this is the last one." Ksenia, with her adventurous nature, decided to try her luck and ask the fat guy what had been bothering her for two days.

“Maybe you could teach me how to win?” the girl turned on.She had all her charm and allure.

But something she saw made her pause and panic. For a moment, it seemed the man had no eyes. Only dark spots where his beady eyes had once been. A nasty smile revealed small, cat-like teeth, and Veselchak, barely moving his lips, whispered:

"I have enough showers, and you have enough tips."

And he led his latest victim away from the casino.

We listened to Ksenia's story to the end and, I admit, we were quite tense. It could all have been attributed to exhaustion, but she hadn't shown any hysterics before or after. Whatever it was, it had terrified the girl.

Greed is a terrible force.

That's all.