FASHION STYLE FOOD ALPHABET

I woke up one night to a faint rustling sound. I lay there, listening, and the sound soon stopped on its own. I decided to go to the bathroom and got up. I went out into the hallway (from there, the kitchen table is visible through the mirror). The light in the hallway is always on at night, and through the mirror, I saw people sitting at the table—an old woman, an old man, and a child with them... I froze, and then the old woman started to get up. I ran out onto the landing and started ringing the neighbors' doorbells. When we came back together, there was no one in the mirror or in the kitchen. Only later did they tell me that an elderly couple with their grandson had lived in this apartment before me. When both adults died, the child was taken to an orphanage. What happened to him afterward, no one knows. That's the short story.

When I was 15 and going to the bathroom, my father kept casually hovering near the restroom, asking, "Why are you so quiet? Why can't I hear you?" The first time I didn't answer, he started pounding on the door and yelling, "What's wrong with you? What's wrong?" He started swearing (he never held back) and saying he'd tear the door off its hinges. I was, of course, shocked by such inappropriate behavior. One day, I was sitting on the toilet and heard my father stand up somewhere near the door and go quiet. Suspecting something was wrong, I leaned forward, and there was a very wide gap at the bottom of the door. I looked through the gap, and there was my father, on all fours, peering through the crack. Noticing me looking at him, he started again, "What's wrong? Are you nuts? What's taking you so long?!"  My father, by the way, was always buying some kind of herbs and filled the bathroom with these little packets, creating a dist...

**MONDAY** I had a nightmare. In anticipation of school, I went to bed early, but in the middle of the night, I woke up with a strange sensation. I dreamt that I was underwater and struggling to breathe because something was pressing down on me. Gradually, I realized I was waking up, but the feeling of heaviness didn’t go away. It felt like something was lying on my chest. I suddenly sat up in bed, and only then could I take a full breath. When I lay down again, the heaviness didn’t return. **TUESDAY** In the evening, I stayed home alone and was making entries in my diary, listening to music in my headphones as usual. The volume was high enough to drown out outside noises, but after a couple of minutes, I realized something was distracting me. Footsteps, a light creak of the floorboards. I took out my headphones and listened — a final quiet creak, and then silence. I would have assumed it was coming from the neighboring apartments, but I know the building’s acoustics well — sounds from...

The key slid into the lock. The tumbler clicked shortly. The man pulled out the key and put it in his pants pocket. He gently pushed the door, which, as if reluctantly, opened a small crack. Tilting his head to the side, the man peered inside, trying to see what was behind the door. But he saw nothing but darkness. He grabbed the backpack lying at his feet by the straps and pushed the door, forcing it wide open. “Home sweet home,” a low, sad voice muttered, and the man stepped over the threshold. Ilya stood in the hallway, trying to get used to the surrounding darkness. He had only recently been in the light, and now he was alone among indistinct outlines, blurred edges, black shadows, and strange sounds. He took a deep breath and coughed from the dust. “I need to air this place out,” he decided, tossing down the backpack. Something clinked inside, but he didn’t pay attention. Without taking off his shoes, he walked further into the apartment. He stopped in front of a dark rectangle—th...

I still don’t know why it happened to me. I have no idea when or how I managed to break the unspoken rules of dealing with anything mystical—you know, things like “don’t stare at mirrors for too long,” “always keep your feet under the blanket at night,” and so on. But I really didn’t do anything that could have drawn their attention. I didn’t bring strange objects home, found somewhere or bought on sale, didn’t talk to suspicious strangers, didn’t try divination or dabble in “magical” rituals, not even watch horror movies at night. No one had ever died in my apartment, no one had ever ended their life here… Shall I tell you how it all started?.. About a week ago, the light in my bathroom started acting up. Nothing major—just that it didn’t turn on immediately. There was a two- or three-second delay between flipping the switch and the bulb lighting up. Why it suddenly started happening—I don’t know, I’m no electrician; my knowledge of this stuff barely goes beyond high school physics. H...

1. Я отчетливо помню вечер, когда ты проявила интерес к моему шкафу. Прошла неделя после того, как ты решила, что ночевать у меня, в принципе, удобно. И дня три после того, как на полочке моего умывальника появилась твоя зубная щетка, на вешалке — твое полотенце, а над ванной вдруг выстроились неведомые мне притирания и соли для ванн. Ты решила переселиться ко мне. А я знал, что добром это не кончится. Нет, конечно, какая-то надежда была. Абсолютно неразумная. Как расчеты болельщика сборной России на то, что Канада вдруг пролетит нашим хоккеистам со счетом 0:8. Надежда умерла, когда ты спросила: — А что у тебя в шкафу? Мое небрежное: «Да так, барахло всякое», — тебя, конечно, не удовлетворило. Ответ был столь же бесполезен, как глоток пива-«нулевки» для алкоголика в пикирующей стадии многодневного запоя. Потом ты задала второй ненужный вопрос: — И почему он заперт? У меня была наготове ложь, которая, в теории, была способна остановить твой интерес. — Это хозяйский шкаф. Хозяев квартиры...

**** I’d like to tell a story that nearly drove me insane. It all started a little less than a year ago. At the time, I had just finished school, almost earning a silver medal. I submitted my university applications and passed based on my scores. So I could spend the rest of the summer without worrying about anything. My apartment was on the first floor. It looked roughly like the letter E rotated 90 degrees clockwise. The entrance was on the left. The first “bar” was the kitchen, the second—the living room and my parents’ bedroom, and the third (farthest from the entrance)—my room. My mother left for a business trip to Moscow at the end of May. My father worked from morning until late at night. We had no pets, so I was alone in the apartment most of the day. Naturally, I didn’t sit at home much, since I’m social by nature and preferred to go out with my girlfriend or friends. The apartment was just a pit stop—stop by to eat, sleep, or spend a little time on the computer. One day, in t...