First part

Life in the City

I

On a cold, urban winter morning, the thirty-five-year-old Eugene Hodnin had decided to stay at home, in bed, eyes transfixed upon some point on the ceiling.

Vague wishes tumbled through the mind of the slightly short, meek looking man. Hodnin's small frame was complemented by his almost pug-like face, which he usually wore with such indifference that it always looked a bit ridiculous against his moderately slender figure. So too was it complemented by his room — more akin to a prison's smallest chamber, or a large cabinet, than to a serious attempt at architecting a livable domicile. His off-yellowed skin, stubbled jaw, and abundance of unkempt body hair over every part of him contributed to his signature disheveled look. A look that a friend would instantly recognize him by in a crowd — that is, if he had one. And on lazy mornings such as these, he had a habit of rambling aimlessly about himself with his scraggly voice that feigned a level of conviction; today was no different.

— And I really do wish I could get around to poetry, or songs... I just have no time to myself, nowhere to practice that, it's because of my job, — he paused for a moment as his mind stopped on the utter absurdity of the words flying out of his mouth. — No, no... I have plenty of time, who am I kidding? I don't even have a job, — again, he stopped to consider, — but, then, why don't I get to any of the things I have planned? Maybe I just don't really like them...

In general, Hodnin tended to process his thoughts like this. It was certainly a bad habit, he'd been caught throwing verbal spew in public not once. Every time, the passersby — who went unnoticed until it was too late — turned, and looked at him funny. But he'd been doing this for so long that he almost couldn't stop — it had become part of him. Though whether this really helped him or just intrigued those around him had become fuzzy and uncertain over time. He sat silent for a few seconds.

As if on cue, the darkness of a room with shut blinds and curtains was interrupted by a nauseating ding, followed by a growing illumination from beside him. Hodnin turned on his left side and grasped his cellphone with inability to wait. Nothing urgent, it seemed that an account he was following had posted another admittedly impressive piano-playing video, to which he responded with a kind of senseless, fizzling internal animosity. A second later, he forgot what he was even deliberating on, and started to scroll through this side of social media.

Every other video he saw lashed him with an enviable display of skill, emblematic of the years or decades spent perfecting a craft. Twenty minutes passed, but Hodnin kept finding his mind returning to that piano player — and what a truly beautiful performance that was to him. He went back through his history.

— Hm, La Campanella... Liszt... Of course, one of the most famous composers of the... Romantic period.

As usual, his taste for ego inflation railroaded him right back to talking about a subject he knew nothing about as if he were a bona fide expert, with all the stuttery jank that usually seeped from his vocal apparatus when he did. He watched the video again.

— I mean, really, why not? I could probably do that, of course I wouldn't be as good as him, but it's mostly about fun, so that doesn't matter.

He spoke these nice-sounding quasiaffirmations to himself, but the brain can't delude itself when nothing's on the line, he knew what he wanted. Hodnin, despite his egocentric personality, was not a stupid man. He knew he was lying to himself, but he told those lies anyway — so that maybe, one day, their status would improve to truth.

With a click, his phone went dark and fell to his left side once again. He remembered the location of the music store from a previous burst of energy he'd had for music. As if pulled by his soul, he had, back then, become infatuated for a few short days with being a musician — and everything in his heart trembled in awe before the prospect of becoming great at his craft. But as soon as he had reached that music store, the one he spent three hours doing comparative research on, a sudden wave of apathy rolled over. Hodnin had then experienced the contradictory feeling of suddenly losing interest in something he'd spent the last hour obsessing over. Rather, it wasn't that he lost interest, but that the weight of picking up a new activity suddenly dawned on him, in all its collosus. He felt as if he had tripped backwards at the step right before the entryway. Hurt and anxious, Hodnin turned round and drove home, with nothing to show for it but an hour of his life having been clipped off the end. The exhausting contradiction anything but subsided when he turned into his block and could no longer ignore the gnawing urge to go back. But, at this point, it was too late. He gave up before even starting, scared off by the very thing he wanted to chase.

— Hm, hm... It'll be different this time, I'm sure, — his heart rate picked up for a second and a troubled half-yell escaped his mouth. — I can't stand this humming anymore, this forsaken boiler, I need to get out of here...

With unexpected speed for such a blisteringly sedentary person, he jolted from his bed and walked the few steps it took to reach his coat hanger; a half-tattered modern overcoat flew from the top handle, right to his back. Anything to escape the long-broken boiler that, thanks to its shoddy construction, clanged and racketed and hummed day and night. His days-unchanged trousers and socks gave him no pause, as if they were the most normal thing. As Hodnin pushed his hand in the direction of the door to his building's main corridor, he remembered his earlier thoughts. Prior to leaving, he dug through the labyrinthian structure that had formed on his desk after months of accumulation.

— One, two, that's three... — he held the notes up to his face, as if to testify to their reality, — three hundred, that should be enough, three hundred.

Now that his pockets were newly moneyed, he left for real. Closed the door behind him, and as soon as he stepped outside, he felt his eyes burn and the fuzzy feeling on his unbrushed teeth immediately became noticeable. The wintered roads and streets looked and smelled filthy, the familiar environment of an apartment complex's backside dumping ground — yet stretched to fill an entire line of three-and-four-story protrusions from the ground that couldn't quite, in good faith, be called genuine buildings. Despite the general atmosphere of decay, Hodnin paid this no mind, for his goal was only about thirty minutes away. After putting the key in his car's ancient ignition system, twisting, and waiting a few seconds more than necessary, he drove out of his building's alloted parking and jaggedly exited his block for the music store; directions clearer in his mind than they ever had been.

With the target evident, the half-hour drive never felt shorter.

When Hodnin pulled into the square with the music store, his heart rate accelerated; this time when he stepped out, the feeling of an insurmountable obstacle didn't overtake his being as it had previously. This time, he made the first step — his foot crossing the boundary between outside on the square and inside the store. From his research a few months ago, the wooden floors and shelves, the painted walls didn't surprise him, and the only changes he noticed consisted of superficial shifting of the store's sections. What surprised him was the smell, a pleasant, almost forest-esque sensation of clear air wafted to him; that pleasant sensation soured as he thought he noticed some glances his way. He muttered to himself.

— What are you looking at? You people disgust me, you judge somebody you've never even talked to, never even approached. Hateful, hateful, disgusting people... — and he did mutter, as he privately hoped that nobody would actually hear his words, much less confront him about them.

— Would you happen to need assistance? — A well-meaning employee snuck up on Hodnin while he was dissolved in his own thoughts. The employee wore a red shirt, stamped with the company logo and a nametag. His face appeared kind, if a little disinterested, in stark contrast to Hodnin's embarrassed half-gasp.

— Where... The pianos, where are they?

— Right this way, sir, — the employee spoke, leading his client no more than ten meters to the right. Hodnin contrived a narrative that this service worker had some internal conception that he was stupid, that he couldn't even walk ten meters to the section laden with ceaseless rows of pianos and keyboards.

— I, thanks, thanks for your help, I can handle myself now.

The employee walked away contentedly as Hodnin cautiously eyed the man. As soon as he left eyeshot, Hodnin took to roaming through the apparent aisles of instruments more expensive than the dearestmost house he could possibly imagine affording. Eventually, he fumbled to the piano keyboards — the cheapest was $100. Its keys were plastic, low-quality, they felt springy and fake. It was uncomfortably light, and uncomfortably expensive for the standards to which it was manufactured. Yet, the next cheapest one, an admittedly much better instrument, priced itself at a steep $350. For a brief moment, Hodnin considered leaving and making a round trip home then back, to see if he could get the funds; just $50 more. But every second that passed with this thought, the more apparent it became that such a "round trip" would end in the same fate as his earlier attempt to cultivate this interest.

With a part-doubtful attitude, he picked up the instrument, and walked to the checkout. An uncomfortable few moments later, Hodnin was the proud owner of a piano keyboard — he set it down gently in the passenger's seat and drove home to test it out. The quarter of his bimonthly savings sat, silently meeting the gaze of its new owner. Every bump in the road was a cause for concern, the keyboard intermittently taking minor leaps as the wheels of the car interacted with the archaic roads. The block was visible, and Hodnin felt something new and uncommon for him, he felt true, euphoric excitement. Every passing second without his fingers on the keys of his instrument built anticipation.

— Now, now things are turning around. I'll be the best, the best... — again, he froze in thought, — I can't be thinking like that. I don't want that, I just want to take my mind off this wretched existence... Yes, that's all I want, it is.

His meandering mental stream set him on autopilot, and before he had the ability to process what had happened, or what he was even thinking, Hodnin was back in his cabinet of a room. The familiar, weightful walls that usually pushed against his soul, now felt liberating as the unpackaged keyboard laid face-up on the floor. Without even taking off his tatters, rushing to plug in the dodgy power cord to the room's only free socket, he reached for the rubbery button with "ON / OFF" printed on it. The cheap display lit up after a few seconds of start-up time. When Hodnin laid his finger upon middle-C, it didn't matter that the key felt plasticky and its debounce had no weight — because it actually made a noise, he was ready to begin. Sensing the fun he was about to have, he built out the environment more to his comfort; standing the keyboard on its legs, and bringing to its side the only chair he owned, over which usually presided his dirty clothes and random nick-nacks he had no other, more fitting, space for.

— Wo-ow.

His hand dashed to pull out his phone from his overcoat pocket, but there was nothing to be found within. After a brief second of panic, he remembered that, in his determined state, he hadn't even taken it with him to the store. He glanced back to his bedside, the sum repository of all modern human knowledge laid inches away from the pillow where he spent his nights — and often days. Hodnin stretched to reach it, and pulled it closer, positioning this device on the top part of the piano keyboard, typically designated for holding printed sheet music.

— La... — he spoke his search query as he entered it in his phone's default browser, — Campanella... Liszt, — after waiting for a few seconds, he finished it off, — how to play... piano.

A video showed up, made by the same piano player he'd been notified about earlier — it turns out that he'd been recording and explaining songs for a very long time, the text under the video read "10 years ago". Hodnin's memory awoke and something flashed within him, but he was so disoriented from his general pace and way of life that nothing surfaced.

— Ten years ago. What happened ten years ago? — His brow furrowed as he pondered this dilemma, though the question was almost rhetorical. Seemingly, he didn't actually want an answer, — nevermind, let's just get this started, — and his greasy fingers bumped the phone until sufficient contact was made to initiate playback.

The video was fifteen minutes long, and discussed only the first part of the piece, in brief detail. For two and a half hours, Hodnin rewound through the first five minutes with confusion — his playing a poor, almost laughable mimicry of the effortless talent the piano player showed.

— How is he doing that? Human hands don't do that, that's just messed up, I didn't realize he was a genetic anomaly, heh-heh, — he spoke with a half-joking, half-verge-of-tears tone. The cosmic disappointment he felt at being unable to immediately reach the same status was incomprehensible, — o-ow!

His hands were starting to give in due to the pain of continuously jerking them across the keyboard. Subconsciously he'd been keeping track of his failed attempts to play the piece, and when the imaginary ticker finally rolled around to triple digits, something clicked within him. He didn't realize what this feeling was at first, but it was all too familiar, he thought back; a few months back — it was that same feeling again. Hodnin paused the video, turned off his phone, threw it on his desk, and stood up. The sheer disillusionment felt like it would be enough to rend his skin from the muscle. The fact that he knew — in defiance of himself — that this was the most obvious, likely outcome to begin with, exacerbated the boiling sensation. He had failed again, and it was, once again, before he even really started. If the first time he had tripped before stepping into the doorway — then this time his knees had buckled the moment he tried to enter. The piano keyboard went back into the box, sentenced to die before it had spread its wings, or, truly, even been born.

The world seemed to blink; when its eyelids opened, Hodnin was stood in front of the music store once again, keyboard in hand. As usual whenever he made large purchases, he still hadn't thrown out the receipt, he could get the money back. He watched the sliding doors repeatedly open and shut as the store's sparse clientele passed through.

— $100... How could I spend $100 on this decrepit racketmaker? I need to give it back, I need to... and I was thinking to give up entire days of eating for a stupid little musical... Little... musical... — His faculties failed him, no suitable word came to mind, — forget it.

The approximately apathetic feeling still drowned him, but his body, almost against his own will, refused to step forward.

— You know what? — Prolonged speechlessness followed a sharp exhale, — maybe, not today, — his conscious and subconscious tangled confusedly, but he kept refusing to step forward, — it's getting late anyway. Or, maybe... maybe, they don't even deal refunds.

The day was still overcastly bright — it was, at most, the early afternoon; despite this, he insisted on how "late" it was, as his conscious brain mined the surroundings for any excuse to go home before giving up in such an embarrassingly final way. Hodnin carelessly chucked the box in the trunk of the car, slammed it shut, and went back, unable to commit even to noncommitment. The sparkling frostfall whizzed past, eventually replaced by the familiar concrete-and-brick boxes on his street. He got out of his car and headed to his little cell, apartment No. 37, without even taking the keyboard out the trunk.

Finally freed of his sordid overcoat, Hodnin tiredly navigated two steps and collapsed upon his solid mattress. Like this, he laid awake for three hours.

II

Time passed, barely, and when it did, it was with excruciating lentitude. The first hour, Hodnin kept thinking about the piano player's hands dancing across his tool's keys. No matter the personal disappointment, the burning sensation that overtook his body at the moment, he couldn't deny how beautiful that performance was. Deep in thought about something, he mumbled to himself, quieter than normal, as if suddenly weary somebody would hear his embarrassing verbal meander; time now passed faster. The second hour, he thought about what brought him here — what he needed to do, how he would sustain himself, having not returned his piano keyboard. He imagined his mother, sitting behind the same desk he remembered from childhood, writing him a letter, enveloping in it as many hundreds as she could permit herself. He felt queasy at this prospect, he already took advantage of those around him, and probably knew it on an internal level, but whenever he thought of his mother in the same way, it was different. The third hour — nothing. His head was empty; he would have laid like that longer, but a slender ray of sunlight crept through an opening in his blinds as the sun set, landing right in his eyes. He jolted, as if waking from a nightmare.

As his emotions settled and his heart calmed, he found himself the same as he was when the day had barely started; in bed, still, eyes transfixed upon the ceiling. In fact, he was even looking at the same point as before. Instinctually, he rolled left and his arm extended forward — but nothing was there. At this point, he recalled how he had left his phone on the desk during his earlier moments. He had since calmed down, but the bodily exhaustion from a day's worth of driving, trying and failing creatively, and confusion resisted his meager attempts to rise from the bed. Twenty minutes passed; Hodnin was getting truly restless, the boiler was still battering against some hidden metal part behind the wall. Although it was fairly quiet, the noise made him light headed; it always stressed him out when it started going. And, as before, he could no longer take it — nothing short of primal survival instincts kicked in, he lunged from his bed, and sprinted outside — not even wearing his coat.

— I need to relax, — he said, shivering, as he reached into his right trousers-pocket; a split second of panic when he felt nothing in it, — again... I forgot it again...

For a few minutes, he stood and took in the scenery of his building's gray paint peeling off the wall he stood by. Somehow, this made the building look even more depressing than it already did. Then, he thought back to his piano keyboard.

— I could... No, no, that's silly... — For a minute he said nothing, and just basked in the urban glory of the cigarette butts that peppered the floor; then, he sighed, — e-eh, I may as well.

Hodnin turned the corner and walked behind the complex, where the parking was located. He looked at his car standing on its circular legs, the car looking back at him. He got behind it and pushed the trunk open. Even though he hadn't taken his car key with him, the rickety old construction of his vehicle meant that basically all the latches were, at best, impermanent. Mostly, Hodnin relied on the premise that no self-respecting thief would want to steal a car that looked like his. And just then, he started debating that idea.

— What if they knew what I had in here? They wouldn't even need to drive the car away for the jackpot, it was... it was right here... — He looked down on himself scoldingly, — I could have lost it right then and there, $100...

His hands then moved for the box; he pulled it out and closed the trunk, and started marching self-defiantly back to the front of the complex. He couldn't believe he was going to try again after the first time, but his body moved automatically. He opened the door to the complex and walked through the dimly illuminated, narrow corridor. The very walls and ceiling, although made of concrete, felt like they were rotting; mold lined the floor and the entire building's olfactory profile had an overtone of petrol. Hodnin was noticing these things as he walked to the stairwell, as if for the first time. He ascended, and right before him emerged his door — "37" carved in decaying wood that screamed in agony every time it was opened or closed. Even the boiler's clamor had calmed down by now, reduced to a gentle electrical simmer. Before he knew it, Hodnin was sat in the same chair he had cleared almost six hours prior. The piano keyboard — left unshackled of its packaging and born again — stood in front, on its crutches, confrontingly.

— Long time no see, — he spoke sarcastically at the instrument.

He looked at the desk, his phone laying upon it. He considered grabbing it and leaning it back against the top rail of the keyboard, as before, but he knew nothing good would come of trying to play the same thing — and was no longer in a position where he could avoid admitting that fact to himself. His head turned back to the keyboard, brain awash with focus, rare for his confused self.

— Let's try... hm, how about... hm, baby steps, let's try Mary had a little lamb or something.

His slightly grubby, awkward digits fumbled about as he tried to readjust his posture. He got to work, slowly committing each note to memory, learning the fingerings. Though Hodnin was not particularly musically gifted, ten minutes of trial and error got him the simplest possible Mary had a little lamb. He then played the piece, and it felt great, albeit somewhat primitive. He played again, and again. He got up from his seat, his playing technique was awful and his rhythm was far from professional, but he nonetheless felt proud to have accomplished at least something creative. The ramblings flared up once again.

— See, the reason I love music is because you get to be fully creative, — he imagined a crowd and an interviewer listening carefully to every word, — you know, it wasn't easy to get to where I am; but I firmly believe anybody in the world can do it.

After his pacing and mental self-aggrandizement subsided, he stood still for a half-minute. His eyes locked onto the piano keyboard, and he sat back in the seat. He locked his hands together, cracked them with unexpected grace, and went in to play the children's song once again. His fingers inelegantly hopped from one key to another; Hodnin was trying to play in the same, emotional way that all famous piano performers appeared to. His back bent slightly, arms swaying with undue brilliance. Once his lengthened version of Mary had a little lamb (which he extended merely by taking longer to play each note) had finished, he straightened and felt numbly indifferent. He played the song again, this time with a more normal tempo. The realization of his utter foolishness felt like a battering ram to the stomach — he was getting all worked up over playing a fifteen (in his earlier version, twenty-five) second nursery rhyme; nay, only the melody thereof, and not even particularly well.

— I'm such a fool, — he placed his elbows harshly on the keyboard, and his head in his hands; the keyboard rang out, — just like always.

Without the lens of fresh accomplishment, he consciously understood how profoundly unimpressive his playing was. He pondered on how he had walked around just a minute earlier, driveling as if he were a world-renowned musician performing his signature piece. He had imagined the applause, the respect, everything. And then, he his eyes had been forced open — seen reality, where he was a nobody and he knew deep down that that would never change. In the following moments, the boiler's racket seemed to get louder and louder.

When Hodnin came back into his conscious self, he found himself walking through the streets, clad in overcoat and hat. It was a drab hat with a round rim; whenever he wore it too seriously, he exuded cartoonish gentlemanliness.

— Where am I going?

He kept taking measured, yet uncertain, steps forward.

— Was it the store? — he interrogated his memories, — no, it can't have been... the square?

But, before he could continue considering the matter, his eyes drifted upwards from the regular discreet floor-way gaze. A person was walking towards him on the same sidewalk, a rather menacing one too. The figure was cloaked in a similar overcoat as Hodnin's own, though considerably less dirtied from years of wear and tear. Even though Hodnin kept visuals on the man from the corner of his eye, he couldn't tell whether the man was doing the same to him. The distance was closing, their impending contact would come in no more than twenty seconds. The sidewalk was narrow enough that two people walking side-by-side would be a real squeeze — confrontation was unavoidable. With each passing step, Hodnin felt progressively closer to certain death.

— What does he want? Why's he walking to me like that? — He spoke softly and quietly, evidently not wanting his internal council to be announced openly, — nobody's around... It would be the perfect time for someone to do that to me... No, I won't let it happen... I won't...

For a dozen more steps, Hodnin walked forward. Then, he crossed the road, and the stranger walked past without so much as batting an eye. The stranger's face appeared sunken with age — an old man incapable of harming him to begin with. Hodnin cursed his paranoia, waved his hand dismissively to the side, and kept walking, unsure whereto.

— The bar? — He ceased movement abruptly to deliberate on this, — hm-m, it must have been the bar.

He continued walking, and the world came back into focus. Without even realizing, Hodnin had already arrived; he stood in front of the bar. From the outside, the building was nothing special. The same signs of age were evident on its exterior as on every other building in this part of town. A few of the letters on the neon sign that hung on the door were busted, and prostitutes' business cards seemingly made up more of the ground's surface area than actual trottoir. Small hordes of heaving alcoholics vomitting their guts out in the alleyway completed the bar's typical landscape. Hodnin shivered, then pushed on the door — and headed in.

Surveying his surroundings, the scene told the obvious reality that the inside of the bar was no better than on the streets. There were a dozen tables, and on each table except for one, groups of friends, colleagues, and family sat. The demeanors of these visitors ranged from calm and collected to furiously affected; the latter shouted and barked as they ordered enough ethanol to kill a legion of alcoholic guinea pigs. While it wasn't so obvious from outside, the bar had a signature rancid odor — entering the building was a sensory barrage.

Having taken the few moments needed to adjust to the environment, Hodnin fixed his perspective on the empty table in the corner; he went and sat, though not before ordering a full bottle of vodka for himself. He always wondered why this specific bar thought it was appropriate to serve such pristinely untouched bottles of highly alcoholic drink in their entirety — but that question never stopped him from buying them. As his weight distribution shifted to the back of his chair, he took off his hat, placing it on the table, beside himself. He waited for the bottle to come — knowing the "preparation" wouldn't take long.

About a minute later, the barman brought it over. Placing it down on the table Hodnin sat at, the barman turned around and began to walk away. Hodnin raised himself up slightly, crouching over the seat but not making contact, and called out.

— Excuse me, a glass... please.

— Of course, — and the barman walked back to the counter.

A short wait later, a glass stood beside the bottle. Hodnin opened it, poured himself a drink, and felt the back of his throat heat up as it made its way down. He waited a bit, breathed out slowly, and poured another glass. It was a regular drinking glass, too, rather than a shot glass. He poured until it was about halfway full; down the hatch it went. He kept repetitiously executing this procedure, almost machinistically. Pour, drink, breathe, wait. He didn't particularly like alcohol, nor did he drink it that often; his alcohol tolerance was quite low, too — but he always came to this bar whenever he needed to forget. Today was one of those times. When the bottle was about a third finished, Hodnin was already severely affected. But he kept going, as he always did on such days. He slammed his elbow against the back of his seat and howled quietly in pain, foaming at the mouth. By this point, the burn of the vodka didn't even feel pleasant anymore; the beverage had acquired a rubbery aftertaste as time and drunkenness perverted his senses. Yet he kept going. When the bottle's volume was reduced to a fifth of what it started as, he was no longer able to continue. He stood up clumsily, barely managing to stay on his feet, placed his hat on his head so loosely that it looked as if it would fall off any second. After failing to put his hand in his pocket multiple times, it slid in, and grasped at a handful of air — he had no money, he must have left it at home after getting back from his escapades at the music store.

— Hu-uh? Ho-ow am I gun-na... — his slurred speech and lengthened vowels were interrupted by a voilent hiccup, — pa-ay?

He looked around the room as best as he could considering his barely functional visual pathways. Some time had passed, and most of the visitors were different from those who had already been there when Hodnin arrived — he saw a young man, probably considerably younger than himself, sitting alone in the opposite corner of the bar. Gracelessly, he stumbled over to his fellow citizen. Hodnin opened his mouth; every few words, he made a motion — he leaned down, as if about to fall asleep, then jerked back up and straightened his back.

— Yo-oung man, would you ha-appen-n to have a s-s... sp-p... pa-are bit of change?

— No, I've only my card on me, — the man said, patting down his pockets.

— Ca-an you pay... pay fo-or me?

— Sorry, man, I don't have that much money.

— Ju-ust for a ba-awttle. Just... ju-uh...

— Sorry, man.

— Do-o you even know who-o I am? — Hodnin's voice raised, both in volume and pitch; heads turned in his direction.

— I can't say I do, — the man held his hands slightly in front of himself, almost gesturing to calm down the raging toerag.

— I... — Hodnin straightened up and held his hand by his chest, reminiscent of some 18th century aristocrat, — I am Eugene, Euge-ene Hodnin! The Magna-a... the Ma-a... Magnanimous! Do you know wha-at I even do, fellow ge-entleman? My friend?

— No.

— You be gl-lad for my existence! I protect people, I s-save the-em! Once, I saved a w-wom-man from a housefire! — Catastrophic amounts of nonsense flowed tsunamically from his mouth.

— Look, man, I can't pay, I can't, please... please, leave, — the young man trembled slightly as he spoke.

— Fi-ine!

Hodnin backed off, but not before almost tripping over his own legs. He walked to the main counter where the barman stood. He traced his left hand over his forehead to wipe off some sweat, then his right, to straighten his hair. The barman faced him curiously the whole time.

— He-ey barman.

— No money? — It would have been hard for the barman not to hear the conversation between Hodnin and the man.

— Ye-e-eah... look... I'll come back... an ho-our, I'll come back and... — Hodnin hiccuped again, — pay.

— Yeah. Just come back later. You're free to leave.

— Thanks, ma-an. I promise, ma-a-an.

The barman made this calculation, knowing that keeping such an unpleasant individual in the building meant nothing positive for business. Truthfully, he didn't even expect that this obnoxious drunk would come back — but the negative impact he made upon the bar's already vicious atmosphere was enough to send him off. Hodnin awkwardly tipped his hat, mumbled something indecipherable, and left the bar. Once outside, the winter evening's gentle wind flogged his reddened face. Slowly and unevenly, he turned left and started walking — until he subconsciously realized his apartment block was in the other direction, at which point he turned round on the spot and blundered home.

Walking through the building's entryway corridor again, the smells came to the forefront; the petrol, paint, mold, and general putrescence of the entire block were inescapable with his heightened senses. Standing in front of the door labeled "37", the key shook carelessly in his hands before the keyhole — until a streak of luck nudged it in. Hodnin twisted, pushed, and removed the key. He shedded his coat and collapsed in bed. This time, he fell asleep almost immediately. He slept so soundly, an onlooker might have worried that he would never wake up again.

However, when morning reared its ugly head, Hodnin was unceremoniously pulled from his slumber. He tried to remember what had happened the night before, but felt the inexorable urge to throw up. He got up and walked towards the square window of his cubicle. He pressed on the rusted bar that kept it shut, leaned out, and voided the contents of his stomach upon the street below. He kept going between his bed and the window, set between exhaustion and stomach-ripping tension. Two hours passed as Hodnin intermittently sipped on the water that came from under the room's tap — staving away the dehydration.

Once he was clear enough to think, he remembered back to yesterday's night. He remembered the young man whose space he invaded, the barman's distrustful gaze, and his flouted promise.

— I'm such a fool.

He was especially hurt about the promise — he always considered himself a man of his word; the display that this was not the case pierced his heart. But below the surface, he would be lying if he said he wasn't a little bit glad about not having to pay for the drink. In fact, his very despair started to feel like repentance, and suddenly — the flimsy upset began to act as justification for his failure to honor his word. Hodnin looked out the window, rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, and lied back down in bed. Face-up, hands pressed against his crown.

— Such a fool.

III

Once again, Hodnin laid in bed for some time, turning from side to side on occasion. Half an hour passed and his head still felt heavy and uneven — the way it does after the worst of a hangover has sailed past — but he could control himself. The relative silence of the room, augmented by the freezing wind that found its way indoors through the window left ajar, formed an introspective environment. And, in this environment, Hodnin's stream of consciousness embarked on yet another voyage.

— What have I done? The past year, or... hm, no, the past two years, or maybe even longer... What have I really done? I've tried and failed too many times to count, but at what? Music, poetry, researching physics...

He wanted to say more, but had to limit himself in order to not start feeling ill. He breathed in through his mouth, and tried to take the deepest breath he could, but it felt like his lungs filled up only half way. He breathed out sharply.

— What about poetry? What would the Greats have said about poetry? What made William Shakespeare great? What made Maya Angelou great? What made E. E. Cummings great? — He namedropped these poets as if he had read anything approximating a significant fraction of their catalogues, then paused, — hm, they all left a legacy. They were all remembered after they died.

A short while longer, Hodnin tossed and turned.

— What will I be remembered for?

Silence penetrated the room.

— I wrote those poems, a few weeks ago; I played piano; I've tried drawing. It all sucked... Can it really be that I don't have anything to leave behind? That's absurd, I have too many ideas to let that... — He stopped again for a second, as to not feel sick, — too many ideas to let that happen. Great ideas.

The smell of his room, of his bed, started to foul. Hodnin tolerated this for some time, but the stench of body odor and alcohol were no longer acceptable to his nose. He pressed his hands against the bed below him and pushed, engaging his burning abdomen. Over the next few seconds, he rose to a sitting position — he turned slowly and his legs now hung off the bed, planted on the floor. Slowly and laboriously, he finally got back on his feet. Hodnin walked cautiously over to the window and gazed out.

Down below, he saw the dark, evaporated stain left by his innards. What few pedestrians passed through the area knowingly steered by the patch, not at all a rare occurrence in this community, if it could be called that. Hodnin's head floated upwards, the quietly howling winter breeze baptizing his face. He closed his eyes; this was part of his routine after nights that his liver would never forget, nor forgive. He stood like this for minutes; a tear would periodically travel from the corner of his eye and coast down his puffy face. It would fall and the rogue sub-droplets would freeze before hitting the floor — the little crystalline representations of beauty made manifest would shatter against the hard, sunken wooden floorboards. In exactly these moments, he found the scraps of a reason to keep existing, and felt genuine, unadulterated love for the world beyond his four walls. When Hodnin had no more tears to give, he opened his eyes, drew the window shut, pulled the rusted bar back up. A fresh introspection found host within him; he wanted to consider, to be creative. But first, he had to deal with the ravenous hunger that had crept up on him.

Hodnin turned on his heels and walked to the apartment's fridge. He pulled out an old, half-eaten piece of sausage, a slice of bread, and poured tap water into the oxidizing iron kettle. He pressed the button on the kettle, pulled a knife from the sink, and went to his desk to assemble a few sandwiches. Every utility that a modern person expects of a house (with the notable exception of a bathroom, which was shared by everyone on a floor) was stuffed into this single room, so Hodnin only took five or six steps throughout this entire process. He sat at the desk — lacking a proper countertop — and cut the bread slice into four pieces crosswise, fitted each one with a thin cut of sausage, and waited for the kettle to ring out with its distinctive ding.

He sat, and waited.

And waited, and slowly, his brain was returning to the topic of what he'd be remembered for. He was thinking about something, when...

Ding!

He got back out of the seat parked in front of his desk. He pulled a short, ceramic mug from the sink, and filled it up halfway with boiling water — finishing it off with one of the last remaining tea bags he had; some kind of nondescript black tea he'd gotten at a discount. The tea brewed, and Hodnin moved the tea bag from the mug to the plastic bag he used in place of a bin. After diluting the tea with some tap water to cool it down, he sat back down behind the desk — ready to dine like a monarch.

He put the first of the four sandwiches in his mouth and chewed. Then the second, then the third, finally the fourth. His teeth mashed the bread and sausage, then mashed their chewed-up amalgam. Hodnin swallowed after each sandwich was reduced to its constituent molecules — the whole time, he thought about this. The details made the whole process disgusting; more accurately, not disgusting, but vapid — devoid of pleasure. Whenever he sipped the mixture down with tea, relief coated his mouth.

— Is this how I'm forever doomed to live? A spectator to my own existence, a fool who forages through the scraps left by my own life to find meaning? I can't even appreciate the details of anything anymore, I need to... I need to appreciate the details, but I can't. Why? Why?

He gulped the rest of the tea down hastily, remaining at his seat once the cup was fully drained of its contents. He sat silent, then raised his voice again.

— Maybe, hm, maybe, this is why we remember the Greats, — Hodnin's eyes hopped impatiently around the room, he held his folded hand to his chin, leaned into it, — we remember them, rather, we remember their legacies, because they took reality into their own hands... They refused to be spectators in their own lives. Hm, yes, that's probably it, isn't it? They refused to be fleas.

A vicious determination sculpted Hodnin's face into a look of clarity. He saw the piano keyboard standing behind him; it had not been standing disused long enough to accumulate dust, but its plastic keys and shoddy hull were already screaming, afraid of being abandoned. The legs of the instrument may have buckled if the body were told in no uncertain terms that it would never see use ever again. Hodnin looked back and saw this — he uttered softly, both for his own sake and for the instrument's.

— I think I'll try again soon. Soon, — he then picked himself up from the chair to which his backside had grown during the last fifteen minutes, and groaned, — I need to brush my teeth. How long has it even been since I've done that? No matter, I'll do it now.

Stood at the sink, shared both for washing himself and for his dishes, Hodnin unsheathed a cheap toothbrush from an equally cheap container. It was red, and the bristles were pushed in to stump-like arches — though not from excessive tooth-brushing. He sometimes used this toothbrush to scrub off any particularly chemical-resistant stains during the occasional pan-washing. Although he owned several conventional sponges, his clumsy hands struggled to press into them with enough leverage to force the annoying patches off. Whenever this happened — he would groan, wrench the toothbrush from its case, and use the added torque of the handle to exorcise them. Naturally, then, the prospect of using this same brush on the inside of his mouth was far from appealing. Alas, visiting the store, he always forgot to buy a new one — eventually, he gave up on the idea, and decided to just make do with what he had. Hodnin rinsed the bristles and lower handle of the toothbrush, then rinsed again. At some point, it was clean enough to use (by his standards). He squeezed a miserly pea of toothpaste upon it, and brushed his teeth with about as much satisfaction as would be expected in such a situation. He finished, rinsed his mouth, and left the sink, trying to remember what he had been thinking about previously.

— Hm, — he stood, head turned slightly downwards, — oh, oh right, legacy. The Greats all left behind a legacy, that's why we remember them. I can't leave this planet without leaving a legacy... I'm not a flea. Thirty-five and I already don't have long left, I'll be damned if I can live another decade with this rotting body, with this rotting city around it, — a thoughtful pause interceded the halves of his monologue, — but a decade's enough time, isn't it? To leave something behind. Pushkin died when he was... he was... he died when he was fourty-six, a mere year more than I'll have, and yet what a world of art he left in his wake! — (of course, Pushkin actually died at age thirty-seven, and far from naturally).

Hodnin looked back at the piano, wordlessly calling him.

— You know what? I'll play you. I'll play you, just give me some time. Let me relax for a few minutes. Let me lie down.

Just like that, he pulled back the dirtied blanket on his bed, laid down, and covered himself in its warmth. His muscles felt the release that always arrives when one lies down. Like this, he laid for a few minutes, but he felt an intangible itch throughout, as if something was incomplete. Suddenly, he heard a noise.

Ding!

— Huh? Have I left the kettle on? — He turned on his side, — oh.

He picked up his phone again, having rung out with another notification. Hodnin tapped it — another post by yesterday's piano player flew onto his screen, but he quickly swiped off, not wanting a reminder about the towering heights he would never reach. The next video came on, he chuckled at it. He kept going, and soon, an hour passed. He could not even remember why he started, and his mind started racing, ruminating on all the time he wasted, all the little, finite moments he had spent on a collective payout of less than nothing. He thought about how much he always wanted to do something meaningful, real with his single existence — and how much he didn't act on that desire. He thought about his motivation, and eventually, he started thinking about the herds of sheep that vaulted over him as he drifted off.

Time passed, and Hodnin finally opened his weary eyes, shedding from them an unfulfilling rest. It had most certainly not been a mere few minutes; the evening shine of the sun's last remaining strength illuminated the quarters, as his half of the world sunk deeper into nightly oblivion. The overwhelming sensation of a wasted day enveloped every fiber of Hodnin's being, just as necrosis wraps and wastes the skin to which it binds, which it infests. He ripped himself from bed so rapidly that his head spun from the whiplash; for a few seconds, he saw pale spots running through his vision, then they dissipated and he adjusted to his new orientation.

— Eu-ugh, — he groaned, — so much time, so much desire to keep going, and all lost at the hands of my own pitiful lack of dedication! What now? What now? Can I just start now? It's too late to be playing anything... and, truth be told, I don't want to... That's no problem, I'll figure out something else to do, but what?

Hodnin naturally began pacing — his train of thought stuck in a cycle of cognitive dissonance. He wanted to play piano, yet he didn't want to. He wanted to draw, yet he didn't want to. He wanted to write — and his brain, with some effort, settled.

— Poetry... I'll try poetry again; it's no use to play piano or draw, I can't do those for anything, — he positioned himself in front of his desk drawer, forcing it open and rummaging around in it with his clumsy fingers, — so let's try this instead, — he extracted a pen and a notepad.

As Hodnin opened the notepad to its first page, paper that hadn't basked in the light of day — or any light at all — in over a month, he was greeted by his old compositions; rather, attempts at compositions.

He read The Beauty of Love.

How does it feel to be touched by love itself?
What is the meaning thereof?
I'm sure I would feel,
And I wouldn't scoff,
The feeling of love, and love itself.

Merely seeing those words on the lined notepad paper made Hodnin's soul contract with visceral aversion. A tremendously mediocre poem by an author who knew next to nothing about its topic, and had nothing to say. The sheer disgust and disappointment he experienced when he processed the meaning of the words on that page made his muscles strain and his organs squirm. The utter insipid vapidity of those five lines permeated the room with their near-perfect valuelessness. Hodnin recalled how proud and excited he'd felt when pen met paper for the first time, when he wrote that cheap excuse of a poem — how every letter of his barely legible handwriting added a sense of intrigue, as if he was creating a hidden literary treasure that would be uncovered long after its author disappeared from the face of the Earth, and be lauded for its creative genius. The disconnect was so apparent, and so vibrant, that Hodnin's hand almost immediately seized the corner of the page, pulled it from the binding, and crumpled it into a ball. Three more pages followed, though Hodnin didn't even bother reading their contents this time. All three fell upon the desk. Hodnin set the notepad upon his desk, open to a fresh page, and readied his amateur hands for another go. He removed the pencap and set it aside, then scribbled a bit in the top-left corner of the page, to get the pen's ink flowing.

— Let's write about, — the top of the pen touched his lips in an authorly way, almost like he was posing for a photo-op, — city life, a classic topic, Bukowski wrote about it at some point, probably.

Thoughts chased each other in his head. Every idea felt like it was competing with every other idea — but none of them seemed to stick. The empty space on the notepad constituted a call to action, a persistent reminder of his looming incompetence. At some point, Hodnin couldn't take this void anymore, the creative abyss, begging for absolutely anybody to set some ink upon it; he started writing. Not even five minutes later, the page was defined by Hodnin's scrawl. He looked at his own creation for the first time since starting. His eyes walked across the page as he read A City Stands on its Feet.

A city stood on its feet,
its buildings forming legs,
its houses forming arms,
the shops that littered the streets were its eyes.

The buildings stood on their feet,
the houses stood on their feet,
the shops stood on their feet.

What does that mean?
I ask myself, what does it mean?
And I sleep again, listless and without recourse,
for city life is but lies.

Certainly, this new poem contained a more interesting metaphor than in The Beauty of Love, that is — it actually had one. But that didn't matter to Hodnin — stuck in confused pride-disappointment. His state oscillated between mortal satisfaction, a self-aware understanding that he would not, could not, be as great as the people whose names he brazenly invoked — and the primordial delusions that pushed him simultaneously to the brink of disenchanted insanity and feelings of grandeur. Their quality left much to be desired, but the more he looked at the words, the less he wanted to destroy them. He clicked the cap back onto the pen and packed it back into the desk drawer along with the notepad. Then, he stood up and looked out the window, catching the moment as the last of the day evaporated, replaced by the night; Hodnin saw from this that he'd spent no longer than a short while on his latest work, a fact that did nothing to assuage the vortex of contradiction. He sighed and closed the blinds.

Direly aware that there was nothing left to be done today, Hodnin used the bathroom — partly to relieve himself, but mostly to stare at his reflection in the mirror. The light from the shoddy, flickering ceiling lamp pierced his being; he stood far longer than healthy for even a mentally stable person his age — and finally went back to his room to set himself in bed. It was no rarity for him to wake up so late that he had no choice but to fall back asleep and await the next day. Long ago, he had acclimated himself to never completely waking up, so that he may exit his haze and resume his sleep at any time.

— I can do better. I will do better.

The wind on the other side of his thin wall howled and screamed, and to this symphony, Hodnin left the conscious realm once again.

IV

Hodnin had not yet opened his eyes, and yet his dreamful state had started to subside gently. Partly, he did not want to open his eyes because of how pleasant the current moment felt, waking from the closest a mortal man could experience to the thousand-year slumber of giants. Partly, though, he was confused as he felt a gentle baking on his face, his thin eyelids failing to block out the light of the sun — a great, fierce fire that penetrated the blinds with which we are all born, the entire world flush with a dark tint of red. And the wind's motherly embrace of his entire form, the hard rocky feeling of his mattress. Hodnin finally realized.

When his eyes peeled open, he was no longer on his bed — no longer even in his house. It was the late morning, and he sat up to a chorus of birdsong and a piercing tranquility. The Earth appeared to age a whole three seasons around him during his divine rest, the hitherto ever-present snow was nowhere to be seen, and large trees demonstrated their aerodynamics with gentle sway, their branches curling and uncurling, whisked about by the speeding minutes. It was some kind of yard or public park, Hodnin thought. He cared not for how he ended up here, how he ended up now — the global discontinuity seemed somehow correct, in spite of its flagrant violation of all known laws of time and space. Hodnin stood on his feet, cloaked in his usual tatters and hat, and let his vision adjust properly to the sudden influx of light. Then, he rotated slowly about his central axis, he took in his surroundings.

Beneath him was an asphalted path — it was neither particularly long nor spacious, but produced a friendly impression; the sides of the passage were lined regularly with shallow pits, in which apple trees were planted, freshly stripped of their fruit, though the occasional worm-infested apple laid by one of their bases. The stationary creatures' leaves were yellow-green with golden-red rims; the trees changed their wear in accordance to the onset of the permeating autumnal climate. Off either side of the path, trampled grass spread out. At the near end of the path stood a rickety iron-and-wood gate, and at the far end — a red-brick building suited with a shingled roof and boarded gables, two stories tall. A few of the lights were turned on, though most of the ashen windows were left with curtains separated, favoring a natural light illumination scheme. Most interestingly — not one soul in eyeshot. After basking in the weight of the sheer relaxation encouraged by the place's architecture, an old sign caught Hodnin's glance. He squinted his eyes and blocked the sun with his hand, then read it.

St. Michael Children's Elementary School

— Hm, that's were I went to school, nearly thirty years ago. No, not thirty... hm, twenty-five by my estimation. I would have been ten. The fifth grade. I haven't seen this place in years, — he swallowed to compose himself, — how ridiculous to think that all I wanted at that age was to leave for home. No wonder it feels so familiar.

Among the many things Hodnin loved doing yet rarely got around to was walking. More accurately, strolling. The feeling of entering a trance and just roaming through some place — his favorites were deserted buildings and clearings. Nonetheless, something about seeing his elementary school once more, twenty-five years gone by, called to the depths of his being. After standing a while longer, he shifted his feet and warmed up, and walked towards the school building, hoping to stretch his legs and perhaps even reunite with some old teachers; he attempted to recount some of them.

— There was Mrs. Prenebre. I wonder if she still teaches here. Though maybe that old hag's dead by now... not that I'd wish it upon her. Though with the amount of nights I sat up doing her work, perhaps I ought to, — Hodnin chuckled to himself.

At that moment, a strange temporal phenomenon spun its finger through Hodnin's fate. He had traversed the distance between the outer gate and the schoolhouse too quickly, a mere fraction of a second too quickly. The effect was so fine, so subtle that Hodnin even doubted his perception, but the indescribable sensation of a flash of time unlived was crushing. He felt a bit shaken, but now that he was in front of the entrance door, he figured he might as well step inside — ask around, see who's familiar in this place. Either way, the universe had evidently engineered an impending confrontation.

Once the browning metal door yielded to his outward tug, shrieking as it rotated among its hinge, the atmosphere noticeably altered. An undertone of familiar quaintness and pleasantness persisted, but his emotional state rocketed twenty-five years back. He felt a more mature, older version of the ten-year-old's first day back in school — and, in a way, it was his first day back in school. The floor was built of fake, glossy wood; the walls of bricks painted in thick white and green stripes. The wall at the end of the corridor was adorned with a clock hung high, a grandfather clock standing right below it. The numbers on them didn't quite make sense, they seemed to wash across the surfaces of the clockfaces in blatant disregard for any onlookers who wished to tell the time. The two clocks, however, were a faithful recreation of Hodnin's memory.

— Heh-heh, they've even still got both clocks. You really wonder why they had not one, but two, antique clocks. I mean, admittedly it was fun to project our desires on them, wasn't it? "They've got two clocks so the time passes twice as fast", heh, — he stood and allowed this oddity to dust off the space it reserved in his mind years ago, then continued, — too bad, clocks. Time passes twice as slowly these days. Though I suppose that means you're still doing something.

His retrospection was viciously interrupted as the school bell rang. It was time for the kids to move to their next classes. Right then, Hodnin considered his position — a stranger with no right to be where he is, and a particularly grisly-looking one at that. He was afraid that he might scare the kids, or at least confuse them, raise questions about why such a visually repulsive man stood in their midst. So, when the older kids exited their classes and walked around him as if he had no place in the same realm as them, ignoring him as though his very presence was illusory, he fell into bewilderment. The crowd simmered around him with the inane chatter of eight-, nine-, and ten-year-olds, and a few convoluted minutes past, silence reigned once more. Not one glance had been thrown, even accidentally, in his direction. Whenever Hodnin felt that someone looked at him, it was more like they were looking through him. His visceral mind compelled him to find out why. He walked some distance down the main corridor, laden with mostly empty lockers, left and right, and terminated his step in front of a random classroom.

He knocked and waited.

No response.

— Maybe it's empty.

He stepped to the side, where a rectangular piece of the wall separating the corridor from the adjacent room had been carved out to form a window. If it were not for the same ashen frame that decorated the outward-facing windows, one would never be able to tell that the hole was intentional — so poor was its construction. Hodnin peered through the dusty glass — the class was not empty. His heart sank and raw disbelief filtered through his bloodstream, though not because the class was full of children. Rather, it contained one particular child, a very familiar one, about ten or eleven years old.

— Eugene? — The class's teacher called out.

— Present, Miss, — the child responded.

Even though the teacher continued calling names, tiredly ticking all the boxes as she went down the class register, Hodnin heard none of it. Such unreality set in that he didn't even feel the stupor of that three-word interaction. This cosmic anomaly confirmed the suspicion he had from that very first minute in the yard, but dared not voice. He would have sat idle for hours longer, were it not for a child beside the young Eugene voicing his concerns.

— It's not nice to tease your brother, Eugene.

— But he's just a little baby, he's so-o small.

— I'm telling the teacher.

Sweat. Hodnin awoke — this time within our common, corporeal realm — and every muscle within his upper and lower body was tense. Biceps, hamstrings, triceps, deltoids, neck — everything under stress, all forcing movements over with their nominal master had no control. Involuntarily and soundlessly, he jumped and began to shake. A few seconds passed; his racing heart slowed to a jog; he scanned the room, as if hoping to verify that nothing had shifted in his absense, that the house had not betrayed him at his most vulnerable. Everything was in place, the wind was still wailing beyond the wall, and the world outside was still shrouded in darkness. He looked up slightly, breathed a deep breath, and hung his head once more with shut eyes. As Hodnin's heart continued to pace itself by its usual rate, he realized two things. First, he needed to get out and walk around. Second, he needed to process what had just happened while doing so — Hodnin remained a stranger to these kinds of experiences, dreams reminiscent more of visions than senseless collages fabricated by the subconscious mind. He stood up, whole body creaking as his muscles recalibrated, put on his coat and hat, threw himself out the door and down the complex's stairs, and stepped foot on the street.

— Right... that's what happened ten years ago, — he spoke softly to himself, treading along the sidewalk as inviolable blackness surrounded his every side, — his death. I can't believe I could forget, — he referred to that very moment at the piano keyboard, as his brain wandered just far enough to have begun questioning what happened ten years prior, when nothing came to him.

Eugene Hodnin's brother, Basil Hodnin, died at twenty. Basil had been, at that fateful moment, crossing an over-water bridge by car, his friends in the back. Nobody figured out exactly how or why, but one of the wheels had slipped, and the car soon after found itself barelling towards a particularly weak segment of walling. The whole vehicle — tumbling, alarms screaming — sent itself overboard the bridge, along with the four unfortunate men inside. The seconds between the last of the car's contact with road and its first with the river below passed slowly. Basil did not even have enough time to recognize what had happened, but the fraction-of-a-second impulsive part of his brain knew it could not have been anything good. The unmistakable screams of men witnessing their last moments radiated outwards, corrupted the whole of the surrounding environment with their horror. All four friends died that day.

— You always got everything faster, didn't you Basil? — Hodnin's forward motion ceased and his gaze focused upwards, at the waxing gibbous that gazed back at him, — unfinished. That's what they always called me. Unfinished. How was it to be finished, Basil? Five years younger and five steps ahead, — his nose ran cold and reddened, — even died before me, — a chuckle escaped from between his lips.

When news of Basil's untimely death reached them, the whole of the Hodnin family had fallen into shock, with one notable exception — Eugene Hodnin, who, upon learning the news, felt instead a muted satisfaction. Everything Basil had done in his short life had put Hodnin into question (at least, from his own perspective). All throughout school, Hodnin held a one-sided adversarial relationship with his brother. The five-years-younger Basil always received better grades, had better friends, the teachers always doted on him more than they ever had for Hodnin. Hodnin's resentment grew stronger and stronger with the passing years — a resentment made all the brighter by the fact that it had not been reciprocal, as Basil never expressed such an attitude towards his brother. When Basil died, Hodnin was awash in an emotional approximation the sense of justice that comes form the execution of a violent war criminal. The difference, of course, was that Basil had committed neither genocide nor economic warfare. His only crime had been making his brother feel inadequate.

As time passed, and the years went by, Hodnin was forced to confront the disgusting irony that wrenched his perception of Basil. He reflected and re-reflected, thought and thought again, dug the soil of the recesses of his tormented mind for even one major instance where Basil had genuinely disrespected him, wronged him. The more he dug, the more he felt as if he were grasping at straws. Minor disagreements that inevitably happen between an older and younger brother. Most of the time he had been the instigator. Five years and fifty-six days days after his brother was ripped apart in his car, Hodnin came to the inevitable conclusion — he no longer hated Basil, he never should have. Despite making peace with that fact, he'd never acted on it. In particular, he had never visited his brothers grave even a single time; whenever invited by his family — back when that used to happen — he would invent a reason not to come.

— Maybe it's time, — Hodnin's hand reached into his right overcoat pocket, and pulled out a stray note, — ten bucks, that's probably enough... I think.

The gnawing winter blizzard parted for a second, yet in that time, Hodnin caught view of a convenience store emitting its light from around the corner at the end of the sidewalk. He usually visited this store; it was not the cheapest in the region, but its position — ten minutes of walking distance from the building where he lived — made it the most appropriate option in his mind. It had a clock on the wall, useful whenever Hodnin left his phone at home and wanted to tell the time. It would be useful now too, as the darkness made it difficult to distinguish between late night and early morning. He started making his way to the corner.

Walking into the store, the difference was night and day — cold and warm. The store had nothing beyond what would be expected, but the brief interlude of a well-lit, (relatively) warm environment with music playing punctuated the morning nicely. Prior to anything, Hodnin's eyes crawled up the cracks on the tiled wall to the round, plastic analog clock. Half-past three. Before the clerk could question why such a tasteless bum had waltzed in just to see the time, Hodnin walked to the biscuits aisle and picked out a cheap pack of square-shaped tea-or-coffee biscuits. Then he went back to the entrance, dropped the $10 on the clerk's counter, and left without even asking for change. As he walked back to the complex, the surrounding weather made its presence known — one wrong step, and the darkness might have swallowed him whole. Despite the antagonizing fierceness of the morning wind and snow, Hodnin somehow made it back to apartment No. 37. Calm enough to make up for the missed sleep of the night, he napped for a couple hours. Either way, he refused to drive in such hostile conditions, and privately wondered whether his car would even have started up.

No dreams found their way into Hodnin's head during these hours, nor did any muses catch his thoughts. Despite this, his momentary slumber was tranquil — for along with his body, the shards of hatred, that shattered beneath his feet upon every step he took, had frozen in time. When he woke up, he felt noticeably lighter, as if the pits of his soul were excavated, some hanging malady excised. Without wasting a moment, he stepped into the common quarters with the biscuits in his pocket, used the restroom, and descended down the stairs to the back exit. Not even a minute after reaching the base of those stairs, he drove out of the parking lot. The cemetary was quite far, on the very outskirts of the city — an hour and a half away. In spite of this, he was determined to make right between him and his brother what he had previously wronged.

Thirty minutes of silence elapsed. Hodnin looked over at the biscuits.

— Why do people even leave biscuits on graves? Probably some... some kind of worthless superstition, that's probably all there is to it, — saying this, he confused himself, — why did I even get them? I'm not even superstitious... All this religious drivel, superstitious... eh-h, superstitious... drivel. Well, whatever, I have them now.

An hour more elapsed, and he pulled into the little dirt patch in front of the cemetary. Not quite a parking lot, and it didn't even have enough space for more than a small handful of cars — which was not a problem, as visitors were few and far between. He got out of the car with the biscuits and shut the door behind himself with an authoritative thunk; then he began to stroll through the rows of haphazardly aligned tombstones and searched for the one with his brother's name on it.

The exurban cemetary, already disused and uncared for all through the other three seasons, was a pathetic sight during the winter. Minor mountains of snow accumulated on the graves of those unfortunate enough to have no remaining family members to clean them up. The perimeter of the graveyard was lined with leafless black trees, fractal patterns turned upwards to face the sky. They formed an impenetrable-seeming barrier that secured the buried souls from whatever horrors roamed without. The place projected such a sombre feeling upon its surroundings that not even the wind dared disturb the peace of the resting.

After a considerable meander, Hodnin found what he'd been seeking. A gray, polished tombstone with a wooden cross sticking out from the top, a pit dug out in front, where his brother laid. A little placard had been set upon the front — an engraved picture of his late brother's face, along with some text.

Basil Hodnin
1995–2015

Hodnin felt as though he should be experiencing some kind of great pain, or a deep stinging sensation in his chest — after all, that's what people usually did once they truly came to terms with the death of a loved one. He'd obviously not talked to Basil in ten years, but actually seeing his burial site lended the death a new air of finality. However, Hodnin felt nothing. This was exactly what he had expected — the only new emotion that threatened to seep into his head was a new sense of connectedness with his brother, a sense he hadn't felt prior. Without a single utterance, he tore open the pack of biscuits, and took two out; he laid both at the base of the tombstone, and stepped back. A couple crows came to peck at the biscuits, which strangely angered Hodnin — until he thought about it to himself.

— Maybe this is how it ought to be. It's not like anybody else is getting use from those biscuits. Basil certainly won't be eating 'em, heh-heh.

A cheerful facade, but it was supremely evident just how touched he was by the fact that his brother's spirit hadn't repelled him from the cemetary, that it had allowed him anywhere near. He found his way to a nearby bench and sat down. It crunched beneath his weight — wood so old, it hadn't felt the pressure of a human upon it in probable decades. The minutes flew by and Hodnin just kept looking at that grave, feeling the soothing effect of the cool air. Eventually, he knew it was time to leave. Not that he'd overstayed his welcome — the moment just felt right for it, like letting go of a hug. He stood, patted the snowflakes off his coat and hat, and walked back to Basil's grave.

— I don't really believe in this, but... I just feel like I should say it anyway, — a prolonged period of silence followed, — I hope you'll have it in you to forgive me for everything I've done, Basil.

Hodnin stood for a few seconds longer, then turned round and walked out of the graveyard and sat back in his car. The key went back in the ignition and he twisted. A handful of moments later, he was steering out of the cemetary's premises and charting the path home. Morning changed to noon, and the day ahead seemed bright.

V

Driving back to his little holding cell, Hodnin used the relative silence as an opportunity to forget the troubles that had been ailing him and his self-worth during the last few days. The gentle vibration as the car drove, and the roar of its engine as he depressed the accelerator pedal sent him into a trance. Nothing seemed to matter — nothing but the road ahead and the hopeful future that inevitably awaited him. Every time he was ripped out of this near-total flow state felt to him like a violation. Whenever he had to wait for the odd traffic light or crossing pedestrian, he was confronted with the reality that nothing would change about his life if he didn't take matters into his own hands.

The car finally pulled into the compound's designated parking area. When Hodnin stopped the engine and its persistent hum fell quiet, a smile painted his face. A true smile — not the degrading fabrication he sometimes considered himself compelled to hang up when interacting with somebody.

— I'm glad I did that. I'm glad. I hope Basil is glad, wherever he is...

Hodnin had already stepped out of the car and shut the door; he looked around confusedly. Sniffing the dirty city air, he came to his senses and remembered where he was. Hurriedly, his shoes clicked and clacked as he moved to the backdoor of the apartment block. He walked so quickly that the opened pack of biscuits almost fell out of his side pocket; he caught them at the last moment and kept walking. He pushed open the creaking door and held it ajar, walked in, and ran back up the stairs. Apartment No. 37 stood before him. Hodnin fiddled with his keys a bit, got the door open, went in, took off his coat and hat, and sat back in bed. Everything felt disgusting and itchy.

— These God-damned clothes. I need to change them already. It's been... I don't know... a week? Two weeks? What am I even considering this for? — He peeked out his window and saw a man walking past the building opposite his, — one week, two weeks... either way, that guy and his ilk'd find it repulsive. And frankly, so do I, — he paused, — what a waste of time and precious mental energy! I'm changing!

Credit had to be given to the building management where it was due — the washing machines always worked, and, despite there only being half a dozen, they were enough for everybody (though perhaps this was more of a commentary on the kinds of people who cohabited the compound with Hodnin). Thanks to this, Hodnin was never at a material shortage of clean clothes. After reading some self-help books years ago, he'd gotten it into his head that everything around the house needs to be planned and executed machinistically. Theoretically speaking, he still believed this, though the policy had — de facto — long since been abandoned for everything other than clothes. Despite Hodnin's habit to live in the same set of clothes for prolonged periods of time, he never failed to have something else primed and ready to cycle into, such that the current set may go in the wash.

He took off his filthy shirt and pants, socks, belt, and underwear, and tossed them aside, to be dealt with later. Sliding into new clothes had never felt smoother or more purifying.

— Reborn! Shedding the old and embracing the new. How symbolic, — he chuckled slightly at his choice of words, — and how literary!

Hodnin did want to lie back down, now that he'd changed his skin. Before he did, some boxes in the opposite corner caught his attention. They were old, empty boxes — shoe packaging; the only thing that threatened to give these assemblages of cardboard any monetary value were the name brands plastered over the top. One of Hodnin's neighbors was considerably better off financially, so these expensive marks of status would find themselves wedged between whatever other waste found itself in the dumpster behind the apartment complex. Sometimes they were even imprinted with professionally photographed demonstration shots of the shoes that would be inside when purchased — sneakers, regular and collector's editions. Hodnin always fished those boxes out when he saw them discarded; he felt a bit richer having name brand shoe packages in the same room as him. They reminded him that he was only a temporarily embarrassed millionaire who would soon take his rightful place in life. He knew that, when that one brilliant idea he was waiting for finally struck, he would no longer need to fake his status. Those shoes would sit in his room for real. Until then, the boxes sat as mementos.

— One man's trash is another man's opportunity to make it. Though it's hard to believe these... beauties... could be trash at all! — He picked up a box, held it out in front of himself, and reoriented it until he had seen every edge and corner of it multiple times, — what an absolute fool that guy is! One day, he'll look at me and realize what a mistake he's made, heh.

Hodnin exhaled slowly, set the shoebox back down, patted it off to remove the surface dust, and walked back to his bed. He laid down, arms spread, hands behind his head — having not even gotten under the blanket, he just laid on top. With his eyes closed, he remembered Basil.

— What would Basil have wanted for me, hm? — Silence squeezed the room by its throat for uncomfortably long seconds, — success, maybe... He was always just rooting for me deep down, I know it... I bet he knew what I wanted in my life... hm, no, what I needed... — He wiped his left hand across his greasy face, — he would've wanted me to be successful. That much's got to be true, — he opened his eyes and sat up somewhat, — and you know what? I'll do it. I've already started. I just need to... keep the ball rolling, as they say. I have all day today... and, well, every day... so, this day, I'll...

Hodnin's cellphone rang out again. It was the rare E-mail he would occasionally receive from his mother; he read it.

My dear Gene,
I hope you're well. I hope all is well in your life. Have you settled in with that wonderful Adelaida yet? I can't send in the usual money quite yet, for I have fallen ill with an intense cough and need to put the family expenses towards my recovery. The doctors say that it's some particularly violent flu and it will pass quickly, so I shouldn't wish to hold you up too much. I hope you'll understand.

Hodnin finished reading it and shrugged, his eyes ran over the words with about as much care as he usually granted to most members of his family. A mild frustration rose from within when he realized his nights out drinking may be severely limited for the forseeable future; then he did a double take, and glanced back to the text of the E-mail.

— Adelaida? She's still thinking about Adelaida? — He breathed a long sigh and pushed his hand against his face.

Hodnin generally avoided conversing or exchanging messages with his parents; the reason they only communicated through E-mail was because he'd refused to give them his cellphone contacts, lest they "pester him". During one particular correspondence, last summer, his mother kept dragging their discussion back to his lack of romantic exploits, even at the tender age of thirty-five. To toss a rose-colored blanket over his (indeed undeveloped) romantic life, he made up some half-baked, half-witted half-story about a woman named Adelaida. Supposedly the two had met in the checkout line at a convenience store and immediately hit it off. He figured this story would be profoundly unconvincing, but knew it wouldn't take much to persuade his perpetually ill mother, especially as mental decline started setting in. Hodnin's miscalculation proved grave — his mother didn't forget a single detail concerning Adelaida, and her memory had not been malleable enough to coax her back into something more reasonable. Every time the two talked, the topic of Adelaida seemed to come up. Enough time had passed that Hodnin simply went along with it — he did not have the heart to explain the truth of his situation, not after he'd buried himself so deep. The mere mention of this fictional woman was enough to send him into denial and willful ignorance. Still holding his phone, he swiped up on it and closed the E-mail reader, then opened his favorite-old social media feed. With increased relaxation and widened pupils, he laid back down, turned on his side, and the next two hours passed faster than he could blink.

The irony of the situation was not lost on him; he returned to his senses.

— What am I doing? Right when things are starting to turn around for me! I even told whatever spiritual mumbo-jumbo remains of Basil that I'm about to go a different way... a better way... Yes, no more wasting time. I'm getting up, — he tensed his abdomen to arise into a sitting posture, at which point he stood up and dismounted his bed.

Hodnin paced and frolicked — mentally. The central question had still not been resolved.

— Fine, let's think deeper for one second... just for one second. The Greats all left legacies, that much is obvious; an uneducated rube could figure that much out, I can go deeper, much deeper, — with this, he also began pacing physically around his miniscule flat, — then, we have that they took life into their own hands. Again... not exactly a revelation, is it? Hm, but what did they have then? As people, I mean... what was it? — About a minute's silence elapsed as Hodnin's feet kept moving, one before the other, until he'd turn around and do the same in the other direction, — they all had muses, didn't they? Hm, yes, yes, of course, naturally... they were all inspired deeply by some person or thing. Love, nature... it all makes sense... it makes sense why these topics come up so much, doesn't it? Because they always inspire in one breath, and call to action in the next, — another minute of silence, — I know what I need to do. I can't believe I didn't see it sooner! — Hodnin's tone was humorful; he chuckled with the epiphany.

At this moment — no later and no sooner — Hodnin's fate was sealed.

— Let's find something, anything... absolutely anything, just for inspiration. Up till now, they were more inspired, and that's all because they went outside and looked for things to be inspired by... then the writing just came naturally, effortlessly, a knife, hot, descending upon the butter of words and meaning! — He was evidently proud of himself, thinking on his feet, all these literary-sounding metaphors pouring out with little effort, — I know now, what I'll do. I'll go outside, I'll find something inspiring... and then, I'll write songs about it. I'll make poems about it, books even.

An hour of mental self-satisfaction and cultish imaginary pursuit of art later, and the sun risked dipping below the horizon. The ever-beautiful sunset almost threw itself at one's eyes, especially now that the wind had settled down and calmed for the time being — the air was clear. Hodnin and his aching voice knew it was time to stop blabbering and start heading out, searching for a muse.

His arms slipped back into the overcoat, and his head the round-rim hat. He left everything at home, save his keys, a pen, and a notepad, then walked out. Once more — down the stairs, through the rotting corridor, and out the building. On his way out, the two-day-old piano keyboard looked pleadingly at its master — the thing seemed antique at this point, so long had it been abandoned. Nothing inspiring could possibly be found in the vicinity of the city's inner urban district; Hodnin knew he'd need to get somewhere more beautiful, somewhere more wild, somewhere without people. He turned right along the sidewalk and began walking towards the footbridge overlooking a little lake, where the concrete sickness should only barely be visible in the distance.

He zoned out during his walk; his consciousness retreated back to its natural domain as his being was no longer occupied with its surroundings. Hodnin thought back to Adelaida and how he'd lied to his mother. As always happened, the thoughts, confined and monitored within the mental panopticon during normal operation, mounted an escape when the guard fell asleep, and he began vocalizing his inner counsel once more.

— I know what I can do artistically, I can talk about Adelaida... Hm, I'll imagine the perfect woman, and I'll imagine her beauty, her care, everything great and... tender... about the world will radiate from her. That'd help me down the line, wouldn't it? When I run out of nature to talk about, to write about, I'll think of something better. I'll think of Adelaida, she'll inspire me... But then, what if I really hit it big? What if I walk up to the stage, to the big interview that they'll surely put in front of me, and they ask about her? That's surely not beyond possibility... is it? No, no, I'll just make something up. I'm sure I will, of that I'm certain, — the thought that he'd be uncovered as a fraud bent and tortured him in a paradoxical manner; especially since Hodnin would obviously never reach that beautiful moment where he'd be on stage in front of a rapturous crowd, — u-ugh, all this thinking is bad for me, bad for my creativity! I'm going to the lake to write about one thing: the lake and the lake alone! Why does Adelaida even matter? Does she even matter? How could a fake woman matter? It's all irrelevant anyway!

Hodnin had a few such monologues during the walk, all confused and indecisive — and all concerning Adelaida. All the passersby, especially the women, would quietly look away in shame or cross the street to avoid coming near. It didn't help that he knew no control over the volume of his spiel as it progressed.

The density of apartment buildings and formal blocks decreased, the frequency of little wooden homes and uncared-for trees and grass increasing proportionally. As Hodnin approached the lake, he also faded back into a natural waking state. The Scirpus plants and tall-grown, weed-ridden grass told him he was in the right place. When the footbridge came into view, his head — for the first time in a long while — was completely clear, devoid of worry. The lake was quite small, circular, the side-length of a single residential building in diameter. Long ago, a bridge was built over the water so that visitors may stand and look down at the small creatures swimming beneath their feet. On hot days, frogs and little fishlings would use the cover of the bridge as shade. Once in a blue moon, a lone fisherman would come here with rod and bait, and leave after only a few hours — realizing that nothing worth catching made the body of water its home. Hodnin set his hand on the railing of the footbridge and pulled himself up its gentle slope, walking until he reached the peak of the aged, wooden arch. With every step, the integrity of the whole structure felt as if it threatened to fail — but the old bridge stood, as it had for half a century.

Hodnin stood in silence. The water was still, nobody was around, and the only audible noise was the sound of bugs chirping or plants ruffling. The sun in the distance was about half-way visible, and the sky filled with the usual red and orange hues. Despite the profound environment in which he found himself, Hodnin felt no inspiration. He knew how he should have felt, he knew what he should be experiencing, yet none of it came to him. At most, his heart was more at ease that usual. It was pleasant, great even, but it didn't give him what he wanted — inspiration. Feeling no animosity, but not wanting to waste his time on something that wasn't helping, he inhaled, exhaled, and turned to the side with closed eyes. The general niceness of the environment was the only thing that dampened the disappointment he would otherwise have felt. As his body faced the end of the bridge he'd just ascended, a distant feature of the environment caught his glance. He turned his head back and looked again.

— I know that mountain... That's where they dug that old decommissioned mineshaft those years ago. Where has this city's industry gone? Disappointing! You spend millions digging and maintaining a golden goose, and abandon it with the stroke of a pen, all because of a little Carbon Monoxide? Ridiculous! I mean, I get not wanting to poison yourself, but you could just not go to those parts of the mine system, just leave them alone, seal them, dig elsewhere! Just imagine, for a second, — he pretended he was arguing with some phantom advocate against continuing the project, — what our city could have been! A house of industry! Of mining! And... uh, and so on. Damn it. I'd probably even have a real job if that were the case. Oh, well.

When that old mineshaft was initially started, the city's income had demonstrably increased with its coal exports. Investment poured in; the few urban and suburban parts of the city with desirable quality of life traced their development back to this initial funding. As the shaft was expanded and miners started falling unconscious, the careless management of the oxidizing coal deposits made itself known. The government stepped in and forbade the company's operations in the mine until safety-standard ventilation systems were installed throughout. That process never finished. The mining company responsible for the mine went bankrupt. Since then, no person or group had stepped up to finish what was started. As far as anyone was aware, not a single pair of eyes had gazed upon the insides of those winding passages in over thirty years. Neurons sparked in Hodnin's brain.

— You know what? — he said, rubbing his chin, — if nature doesn't do it for me, I bet that would. What could be more inspiring, more Romantic, than a lone explorer wandering through the confines of the Earth and documenting his travels? This... this is the great idea... definitely, the great idea, — when he really focused his eyes, he could see one of the mine's side entrances, boarded off and begging for somebody to trespass, — I think that could work, couldn't it? I'd write poems about the darkness, the squeezes, how I rationed my supplies... It would be great, perfect... I'd become a star. And this is how I'd prove it. This is how I'd show all the disbelievers I'm capable of greatness. I know it. I know it.

For a little while longer, Hodnin just stood and took in the view of the mountain, imagining how it would look from the inside. Then, he felt something brush against his exposed left ankle. Initially he thought it was the wind — but there was no wind. He turned his gaze to his foot.

— Holy!

Faster than he thought his rusty body could move, he swatted at the brown mass of legs and shielded back. The cockroach detached from his being, and scuttled to the side; Hodnin kicked it into the lake through a slit in the bridge, and watched as the creature flailed and died. He put a hand against his chest and felt the ceaseless pounding of the heart within. The fear slowly subsided when he checked the rest of his body and found that nothing else had dared to climb upon it. He breathed a sigh of relief, and the sun finally finished setting.

Hodnin hurriedly got off the bridge and made his way home. The hours following that lake visit were unusual. He laid in bed, monomanic. For probably the first time in his adult life, he was driven, passionate about something greater. He had a goal. Falling asleep again — he didn't know what tomorrow would hold; he simply knew, whatever it be, that it would be important.

VI

The fated day of preparation descended upon Hodnin's world with wrath. While normally, he would wake up and spend some minutes — minutes that often bled into hours — cowering against the upcoming day in his bed, he had awoken today with an immediate sense of purpose. On a spiritual level he felt that today's waking hours were not to be burnt in vain. And so, as soon as his consciousness returned with the fading of the night, Hodnin shed his dreams and forcefully threw the covers off himself. With the same energy, he jumped from his resting posture — moving so quickly he almost tumbled. He bounded to the corner of his room, where laid a canister of emergency gasoline, then to the opposite corner with his desk and money, then to the corner next the entrance. Dressed and about as ready as he would ever be, he flung the door open. The sun had just cracked over the horizon.

Hodnin pulled himself through the frame, canister in hand, keys and money in pocket. Though he had no way of forseeing the fact, this would be the last time he ever stepped off the sunken wooden floor of the tiny cabinet he had reluctantly called home for almost his entire adulthood. Despite not recognizing it consciously, the spirits that lived in the back of his mind, propagating and repropagating his desires, summoned a dreadful anticipatory feeling. Hodnin's heart felt as if pressed from every angle by his own innards, his ribs making their torturous presence known. He dragged his other foot out the door, turned around, and closed and locked the door, its wood body wailing through the whole process. As always, the jagged inscription read "37".

Walking towards the stairs, Hodnin considered the journey ahead.

— What do we need? What... do we... need? — For a second he stopped in his step, then lurched forward and continued his pace, — for one, a backpack, and a good one at that. Hm, a hiking bag of some order. Then canned food, I'll be there for a while... maybe a week? That's got to be enough time for something to happen, to come across some outcropping of... of... whatever it is they have outcroppings of in mines. But how would that... Whatever!

He was at the bottom of the staircase, only the fetid, dim corridor and the door that sat at its end laid in his path. Hodnin walked forward, silent for a few seconds, until the inner council resumed its discussion.

— Backpack, canned food. Some tools, probably, of some kind. A tent to sleep in... No, not a tent, a tent's pointless, I'll just take a sleeping bag, there's no risk of rainfall in the depths of a cave, a tent is pointless... What else?

The rusted metal door. Hodnin braced and pushed it open, too concentrated on his own matters to care for the dismal scraping that the bottom lip of the opening door made as it terrorized the concrete below. A year ago, one of the hinges had busted in just the wrong way — the door had fallen slightly out of its initial position. Every time it was opened or closed, the bottom would be slightly sanded against the pavement outside. Hodnin stepped outside, turned around once more, and closed this door as well.

— We'll see at the sports store, they're big. They have things, things for camping and caving, probably... No problem with doing a little shopping...

He stopped and realized that he'd exited through the front door of the block rather than the back, which led more directly to the parking area. Though it was a minor inconvenience at most, Hodnin felt rage at his own inattention; every minute that kept him from his goal was intolerable. He turned left and briskly made his way to his car. Twenty or thirty seconds later, he stood just beside it — he twisted the cap off his canister and put in its place a cheap fuel port adapter, wrenched open the corresponding lid on his automobile, and started refuelling. Originally Hodnin had thought to simply drive to the nearest gas station and refuel there, but wariness about how many days he'd been coasting about the city without refilling the tank made him do it the old-fashioned way, lest he not make it to the station before running out, causing a delay in his plans. Today, delays were unacceptable.

After finishing, he tossed the canister in the backseat, hopped in, and set off to the sports store (though not before failing to start the car a few times). It was especially snowy that day; all the municipal bins Hodnin passed on his drive had become mounds of white, crystallized water. The roads were kept barely usable by the fact that cars passed over them, generating enough heat and friction in their presence that the snow had a fraction of a second too little time to accumulate into minor mountains. The sports store was not far away, it was a separate complex — about a ten minute drive from where Hodnin lived. A thin sheet of ice glistened on the asphalt of the road over which it formed. The car's tires screeched as its engine's pistons pushed and pulled with all their limited force — the ostensible speed limit was not a concern for Hodnin, even in the given terrain. Ten short minutes elapsed, and the car's wheels halted their revolution.

Hodnin got out and looked at the sports store — a large complex with walls barren, except for some advertisements that hung on the side for miscellaneous goods unrelated to what was sold inside. It was two stories tall, boxy, its glass-and-steel frame left little to be inspired by. Walking inside, the whole environment emanated a rotten corporate malaise. Every window was polished from the inside as it was from the outside, with not even a smudge of dirt threatening to give the building character; thick central paths divided the floor into four sections along a plus, with the store's single, crowded checkout stand in its very middle. A man stood within, servicing customers, dark spots lining his eyes and a strained contortion of a smile on his face. His uniform shirt — white body, blue sleeves, light gray stripes wrapping their way up along it, finished with a name badge on the chest pocket. However theoretically clean and orderly the atmosphere around him was, the weight of human suffering that contextualized its presence made it intolerable. Hodnin recoiled as the smell of the complex hit him, as if they'd chosen to pump up gallons of perfume labeled something like "For Men — Antarctic Mood and Beady Ice". He looked around for a second, then noticed a display wall flush with professional-looking hiking backpacks, and walked in its direction.

— Welcome, sir, would you like any help? — A woman's voice raised from behind, clearly an employee.

— No, thanks, — Hodnin spoke without turning around, trying his hardest to express passive-aggression at the intrusion upon his solitary being.

A couple seconds later, Hodnin turned round and looked at the employee — who wasn't even talking to him in the first place. The white-and-blue-and-gray shirt was facing the other way, the nametag not even visible. She was talking to another customer who had just entered the store. Then, the figure she was speaking to simply went off — a man, slightly overweight, stubbled jaw, faint stains on his well-worn Hawaiian-print holidayer shirt and light coat.

— So, I bought this tent, — he held up a tent by the handle on the side of its containing bag, leaning into the employee, — when I bought it, one of your employees told me it was waterproof. I went out in the rain, and this piece of garbage did jack all, I came back sopping wet, do you have any idea what that means? Have you even gone camping yourself? — He choked on his own breath, coughed a couple time, cleared his throat, and continued, — I'm going to speak with the manager of your shop about this matter.

The employee had no response for a few seconds as she gathered herself, the interaction having gone in such an unexpected direction. Hodnin stepped a couple times to the left and caught sight of her paling face, at which point he simply turned away and kept walking to the backpack aisle. Something intangible about what he'd just witnessed made his face wrinkle — the three-way contradiction of realizing he wasn't even being spoken to, the interminable shame of seeing a member of the same species act in such a manner, and something else, something he couldn't quite grasp, but felt strangely violating. Having approached the display shelf, he inspected the bags.

— Hm... That one's 50 liters... I assume that's capacity, it looks pretty big. E-eh, surely it's good enough, — he picked the bag up and put it against his back, — seems fine to me, honestly.

He kept it on his back and proceeded around the store. Next, he stopped at the sleeping bags; he picked out the first one he found labeled "Cold and Water Resistant". Hodnin was conceptually aware of how bitingly cold, wet, and especially how dark the underground often got — with that, the realization came.

— A light! Yes, and spare batteries... definitely many spare batteries.

Hodnin packed the sleeping bag into the backpack, walked out into the central paths of the sports center, and began searching for a headlight. He walked for six or seven minutes before his unsteady gaze accidentally stumbled upon what he wanted — a pile of strap headlights. He picked one up, wrapped the strap around his hand, and inspected it.

— The strap's decent, the button turns it off and on... Does it... yes, yes, it has a low power mode... which makes sense, — he unwound the strap from about his fingers, then put it around his head and tightened the elastic, — it fits very well... great!

Hodnin put the headlight into the backpack along with the sleeping bag. From an adjacent shelf he picked up a couple packs of AA batteries and haphazardly tossed them in as well. One group of items remained on his shopping itinerary: food and drink to last a week. With everything he needed packed, he entered the queue for the checkout; the busied clerk still stood at the counter, his life pathetically reduced to the lazy cycle of scanning items and printing receipts. Ten minutes went by; two people stood in front of Hodnin. He glimpsed at the terminal where the prices of items registered with every beep of the clerk's scanner.

Water bottle, plastic — $14.98

He felt the backpack on his shoulders and realized he'd been shopping and taking random items without any consideration for how much they could even cost. He had just under $300 on his person — fear set in that he may not even be able to afford the things he'd chosen out. But, before he could fully digest what he was doing, Hodnin stood before the counter. He laid out the items in the bag, then the bag itself.

Beep!

Total — $282.78

Hodnin's heart rate noticeably increased. The purchase would leave barely enough money to buy food for the trip, let alone any other expenses. Seconds of dead air passed. His nerves were set off, but one thing kept forcing its way back into his head — the mineshaft, the caves, the art, the glory. Set in his habit, Hodnin mumbled aloud.

— What's $300 for a whole legacy, eh?

The clerk was too exhausted to even feign a reponse other than the manufactured happiness that characterized his neutral state. Hodnin caught on, embarrassment bubbled under his skin, and he handed over the money. Ten-or-so seconds later, he held a receipt and change, both of which went directly into his right overcoat pocket. He put all the loose items back in the backpack, slung it on his back, and walked out of the sports complex, back to his rickety car in the parking lot. A bright glint gave Hodnin's eyes a novel sense of life, and the backpack went on the front passenger's seat — as had the piano keyboard days earlier. But Hodnin remembered not the piano keyboard; his thoughts were occupied with the food, the last leg of the preparation that he'd have to buy. He started the car, breathed in, breathed out, and started driving to the corner store near his house, hoping they would stock the preserved goods he needed.

— Do I even have enough for the cans?

The ebbing-flowing wind beyond Hodnin's windows flaunted its all-puncturing nature. Especially with the influence of the night's snow beginning to recede, a pointed current of air covered the city. The smooth noise produced by the morning's turbulence lended the drive clarity; after some point, Hodnin ceased thinking about the food — all that existed was the road that led from point A to point B. The commercial district, the outer residential district, a person was crossing the road. Rubber shrieked as Hodnin threw his entire weight into the brake pedal.

— W-what the hell, man? — The inattentive pedestrian shouted, a young man of about 25 years, evident fright in his voice; he wore a long overcoat, his face was pale, his pupils grown visibly, legs trembling under the coat.

— Don't you see, I! — Hodnin stopped shouting, rolled down the driver's window, stuck his own shocked face out, and continued, — don't you look where you're going? Why are you walking there? Where are you...

— It's a pedestrian crossing. Right of way... pedestrians get right of way, — he spoke with a tremor in his voice.

— Fine, get yourself out of here, go! — Hodnin then honked his horn a couple times, for good measure.

The young man shook his head, scrubbed his hand across his face for a couple seconds, blinked a few times, turned back to the left, and walked to the end of the crossing. Hodnin watched as he shakily stepped forward, then exhaled loudly through his teeth, before looking down.

— What are people thinking anymore? No common sense these days, no common sense. What even makes you think you can just cross without looking? — He panned his head to the young man, who'd already left his auditory range, knowing that he couldn't possibly respond to his questions but wanting the satisfaction of asking them anyway, — it's the roads. The realm of cars and trucks! Do you want to get flattened, or is your head just so full of empty space that there's no room left for coherent thinking? — Dead air reigned for half a minute as his heart returned to its typical pulse, — I should have been paying attention, shouldn't I? I can't believe it, what a... moment? What a... You know what? It doesn't matter, I have something to do, and I'm going to do it.

As Hodnin finished talking, the pedestrian rounded the corner and left eyeshot, though not before dropping a relatively small, rectangular piece on the ground. The rectangle shuffled along the sidewalk in the wind, then found a small nook where it parked itself. Hodnin diverted his attention towards the object; now that it was closer, he saw it had some stitches running across his sides.

— A wallet?

He pushed open the car door, still parked before the pedestrian crossing, lifted himself up and out the vehicle, and walked a few meters to the little divot in the pavement where the object had scurried. Hodnin knelt down, picked it up, and unfolded it — indeed, it was the man's loose wallet; inside laid a standard issue $50 banknote and a driver's license. After fighting his unconventional morals for a few long seconds, he decided to pick out the note and leave the wallet where it had settled.

Hodnin held the note in his hand, then pulled out the rest of the money he kept in his coat; put together, he had just about $60, certainly enough for the food he needed, especially if he kept it simple. Hodnin heard the voice of God Himself as the notes and coins went back in the pocket. Walking back to the car, all he could think about was whether or not this sequence of events was a sign of his impending creative sucess. He sat back down in his car's driver's seat and rolled up the window, cursing himself for leaving it open and allowing some loose scraps of snow to fly inside. Remembering where he was, and what had just happened, his extremities worked on instinct as they pushed the clutch, accelerator, switched to first gear, and took off without a further word. Half-way between midday and morning — his target was not far.

Within five minutes, Hodnin parked himself on the street directly outside the corner store. His whole body was shaking, spasms traveled down his face, such was the stifling weight of what was to come. Time itself warped and mutated with his perception. Having barely left his vehicle, Hodnin now sat back inside, about a week's worth of canned meals and biscuits laid out in the back seats, none but change and keys in his pocket. Images of the mountain across the little lake flashed before him, and he broke out of his stupor.

— Is that... it? I think it has to be, let's see this, — he tilted his head to the side and leaned back over the driver's seat, — canned corn, chicken, tomato, more chicken, tuna, some kind of rice... Seems like everything's in order. What's that? — He held up a small vial containing chalky turquoise tablets, — "HQ Treatment Water Tablets"? Oh, oh... that was pretty smart, actually, wasn't it? Just carrying water treatment pills instead of taking bottled water. I mean, it is a cave, there should be no shortage of groundwater. Oh, and a notepad with a pen... Hm, the most important part of the whole journey, the entire reason for its happening. — He turned his head left and looked at the backpack, still comfortably taking up space in the front passenger's seat, — let's get this stuff all nice and packed away.

Hodnin opened the driver's seat door, got out of the car, and the following minutes were spent on organizing, reorganizing, filling, emptying, refilling, and generally struggling to put everything in the backpack in a satisfactory way. Some time gone by, and everything was packed optimally. Hodnin recounted his preparation's supplies.

— Backpack, headlight, sleeping bag, two packs AA batteries, pen, notepad, fourteen cans of food, and water treatment tablets. Do I need anything else? — Hodnin froze in thought until his mental clarity thawed and returned, — no, no... there can't be anything else, and if there is anything I've missed, then clearly I don't really need it! Whatever... it's time to go home, make some final preparations and so on.

Though the snowfall had slowed from a veritable blizzard to more of an occasional snowflake that drifted in the wind, some snow had accumulated on Hodnin's seat and below; the car door had been open the entire time he was sorting his duties. Sitting down, he felt the wetness of the snow melting — enough to be annoying, but not enough for one to show such an opinion without judgement of their mental weakness. Hodnin's face curled, his feet thankfully protected by the boots he'd worn going out. More concerningly, this moment marked the tipping point where his enthusiasm about the whole venture had begun to wane. Two minutes remained until his apartment block would be in view. His conscious mind tore itself asunder with thoughts of the abandoned mineshaft, the transformation, receiving the love he justly deserved from the world — perhaps even the idea that, one day, he would have a real Adelaida. But his body wanted to yield, unused to waking up so early, to maintaining such consistent energy for so long. Hodnin's thoughts spun, each gravitationally bound to one-another, and the memories found their way into the whirlpool; Hodnin remembered the music store from days prior. He remembered the piano keyboard and what he told himself about going back home for more money.

Hodnin saw his dear, ashing complex to the right of the road — and drove right past.