We live in a small town where five-story apartment blocks and private houses stand side-by-side on the same street. There are sturdy, well-kept homes, but right next door stand old shacks—mostly inhabited by either the elderly or alcoholics. This summer, one of those shacks burned down; it went up in flames instantly, and the firefighters ended up dousing logs that were already almost completely charred. They found a charred corpse under the rubble. Some police officers I know guarded the body at the fire site all night long, using sticks to shoo away the stray dogs that had gathered around the remains of the shack. One of the cops told me, while standing guard, his mouth practically watered from the smell of roasted meat wafting off the burnt body—he’d been called out on an emergency alert and hadn't managed to eat anything all day except for breakfast.

I’ve always been small and petite. Back in fourth grade, we were playing «Dodgeball»; I threw the ball at a boy, and—somehow, to this day I don't know how—I broke his arm. He vowed to get revenge. Later, after his cast came off, we were playing tag about two weeks later. We were running side-by-side; I gave him a shove, he fell, and he broke his leg. We never spoke again after that. I still feel ashamed about it.

I grew up in the 90s, and we lived in extreme poverty. I remember one time, some relatives or acquaintances gave us a three-liter jug ​​of honey! It was my absolute favorite treat. I used to go out to the balcony where it was kept in a cupboard, dip my finger in to scoop some out, and eat it right there—I must have been about five years old at the time. Then, one day, I reached my finger in… and felt something soft. It turned out I hadn't closed the lid all the way; a mouse had climbed into the jug and drowned right there in the honey. I told my mom; we fished the mouse out… and then we simply went right on eating the rest of the honey. And I hadn't even remembered that a mouse had been swimming in there...

Recently, I watched a couple with a stroller standing at a bus stop, smoking. A bus pulled up; the dad simply tossed his cigarette aside, but the mom stubbed hers out on the pavement, tucked the butt into a pocket on the stroller, and then they headed toward the bus. There was a trash can right next to the stop! Of course, it’s great when people don’t want to litter. But putting a cigarette butt *in the stroller*—that’s something else entirely!

I’m a student, so a 6 a.m. pass for our local pool is dirt cheap. But—unlike in my dorm—the showers there actually have hot water. And at 6 a.m., there’s hardly anyone around—another thing that sets it apart from dorm life. I go there to swim, have a quiet wank, and get washed up. I’m a total night owl, but this is a genuine incentive to drag myself out of bed at such an ungodly hour.

I work at a spa complex that features traditional Russian bathhouses. One day, a drunk guy comes in, and as I’m escorting him to the baths, he says—in the manner of a stereotypical «New Russian» gangster—«Hey there, sweetie, why don't you hook me up with some girls and some vodka?» I reply that ours is a family-friendly establishment and that we don't offer alcohol or «girls.» He pauses for a second to think, then—with a lewd grin, practically slapping me on the butt—he shoots back: «Well, in that case, how about you and I play 'family' for an hour or two?»

My girlfriend is the purest, most innocent creature untouched by the harshness of life. She never uses profanity, never makes dirty jokes. But today, I accidentally overheard a phone conversation she was having with a friend, and I was absolutely fucking floored. It wasn't anything major—just a few words: «fuck,» «shit,» and «bitch.» That’s all… Now, whenever I see her smiling sweetly and looking at me, I’m reminded of that conversation. It feels as though she’s been faking everything. Maybe I’m being an asshole, but I’m honestly having a hard time coming to terms with this. Could it be that my sweet girl has been pulling a fast one on me all along?

For New Year's, my CEO gave me an expensive watch—as he put it himself—as a token of appreciation for my contributions to the company. I really *had* worked hard and deserved some kind of reward, but I was counting on a cash bonus; I have a perfectly average salary, a mortgage, two kids—I’m your classic middle-class guy, basically. So what am I supposed to do with a watch worth fifteen thousand dollars? Wear it with a suit that cost fifty times less? Selling a gift feels wrong somehow; and even if I *were* to sell it, where on earth would I even list something like that? It’s highly unlikely I’d find any buyers for an item like that on a site like Craigslist or eBay. So there it sits, gathering dust in the back corner of my linen drawer.

My wife is, as they say, a «pedant-fictionist.» She always needs everything to be in its proper place. Whenever she finally pushes me over the edge—or starts getting on the kids' nerves—I’ll casually move things around: I might hide her bra inside a pair of boots, or «accidentally» stash her nail polish in the toy bin. She immediately switches gears to cleaning—grumbling all the while—but she can't actually call me out on it; after all, we had an agreement right from the start: keeping the house clean is strictly *her* fucking problem.

I caught my younger brother pulling my bra out of the laundry hamper. It turned out he wasn't a pervert. He’s just getting serious with his very first girlfriend and was studying how the clasp works so he wouldn't embarrass himself when the moment finally arrives.

I visited San Francisco recently. I was walking down one of the main streets toward a shopping mall—looking all beautiful, fully made-up, and dressed to the nines. Suddenly, a local homeless man approached me: «Hi, my name is John. You look so sad. Don't be down; everything’s going to be okay. Let's have a hug.» And he reached out to embrace me. Naturally, I was shocked. But then I started wondering: do I really look that bad? Or are Americans just that obsessed with smiling? I think about it constantly. And about all the diseases you could catch from hugging a homeless person.

I was turning eight at the time. My mother and stepfather had drunk way too much. After the «celebration,» my stepfather called me over to get my present. The «present» turned out to be a ride on his beat-up old moped. He forced me to sit down, then climbed on behind me. I tried to break free, but he was terribly drunk. Two minutes later, we were speeding down the highway—followed by a loud crash and excruciating pain. I woke up in the ICU; I had survived by a miracle, but my stepfather was dead. The only thing my mother said to me was: «Why him, and not you?» I never saw her again… I hate her more than life itself.

I was out walking my dog ​​when I saw a person lying on a patch of grass. He was lying face-down, and he didn't look like a homeless person… I can't just walk past in situations like that—you never know what might be going on; anything can happen in life. I walked over and asked: «Are you alive? Are you okay?» The man lifts his head slightly and, staring at the ground, declares: «Please, everyone—just fuck off! I feel really GOOD right now!» Nodding vaguely into the void, I headed home, while the fellow—having returned to his original position—remained right there on the lawn.

I once had a colleague—a thirty-two-year-old woman: married, with two children. A tough cookie, too, I might add. But then she found out her husband was cheating; she tracked down his mistress—and that’s when the hell broke loose: insults, ambushes outside the apartment building (resulting in a cracked skull), and threats. And not just from her, but from every member of her family. They absolutely hounded the guy: «How could you? You have children, you piece of scum!» The mistress couldn't endure this living hell and eventually bowed out of the picture. But the husband, it seemed, had fallen hard: he started drinking heavily, lashing out at his wife, and beating her. She finally had to let him go when, one night, he tried to strangle their children—who, in his twisted mind, were supposedly the root cause of his misery...

We once went to visit some relatives of ours; they had a three-year-old son—the kind people describe as having «ants in his pants»—absolutely ceaseless in his energy. While all the adults sat in the kitchen chatting over drinks, the boy was left unsupervised. He ran around wildly, making a racket. When we finally went to check on him—wondering why we couldn't hear him anymore—we were absolutely horrified: the child was lying face-down on the floor in a pool of blood, with the tip of a blue pencil sticking out of the back of his neck. Apparently, he’d been running around with the pencil in his hand, fell, and impaled his own throat. The paramedics barely managed to save him.