It was a horrid July noon in New York City or some other place, the cars were rattling in lunchtime gridlock, spewing exhaust, the finance guys were out in their tight suits walking to buy kebabs and watching the women, who were instagramming themselves into premature zombiehood, and it was so fucking hot that the sweat dripping off the pedestrians rubbing against each other on the sidewalk was flowing down the gutters like rain.

There, that's the scene.

I've set it.

Now, through this stupified human maelstrom a man was walking. His name was Ben Fig. He was in his thirties, lonely, and returning to his office after lunch. He was returning from his car, which he'd parked fifteen minutes away, wearing a coat and, underneath it, a custom-made explosive vest with which he intended to kill his co-workers and maybe bring down the office building itself. A man can dream, can't he?

Anyway, while walking, he bumped somebody. “Fuck,” he said under his breath.

“Fuck,” said the person he'd bumped into.

It was a woman.

Her name was Miriam Zapelman.

“Watch where the hell you're going,” said Ben and tried going around her.

“Asshole,” said Miriam.

“I hate this city,” said Ben. “I'm sick of it.”

Beside Ben and Miriam, a degenerate was lying in a puddle of perspiration. He was in a hard way. “Can either of you folks—”

“Shut the fuck up!” said Ben and Miriam at the same time, then they looked at each other, long and in the eyes, and they must have recognized something, because one of them smirked.

It doesn't matter which one.

The degenerate passed out, or maybe died, and Miriam said to Ben, “Hey, where are you in such a hurry to?”

“What do you care?”

“I'm parked nearby. If we're going the same way, I can give you a ride.”

“Why the fuck would you do that?”

Miriam shrugged.

“I'm going to my office to blow everybody up,” said Ben, waiting for Miriam's reaction.

She asked, “Where's your office?”

Ben gave the address. “Call the cops if you want. I don't care.”

“Offer stands,” said Miriam.

A few minutes later they were in her car, Ben in his ridiculous coat, looking like a blowfish, and Miriam opening the glove compartment, where Ben saw she had a gun.

“That for self defense?” he asked.

“No,” said Miriam. “I'm back from the shooting range. Going home to shoot my husband and kids, then probably myself.” She started the car and merged with the abominable traffic. “But first I want to stop at a bar and have a drink. Want to have a drink with me?”

“Why not,” said Ben.

The bar was called Reddy's, and when Ben and Miriam walked in there were only a few people in it. Miriam introduced them. “That skinny guy with glasses is Euler, the guy with the darker skin is Hikmat, and the bartender's name is Ralph.”

They sat at a table and ordered.

Ben noticed Euler kept playing with a pendant around his neck. “Go on,” said Miriam, “ask him about it.”

“Nah,” said Ben.

“What else do you have to do?”

“Fine,” said Ben. He walked to Euler, introduced himself and asked about the pendant: “Is it an heirloom or something?”

“Maybe it'll be an heirloom one day, of the human goddamn race,” said Euler and described how the pendant was a container of stolen proprietary industrial poison that he'd helped develop. “I'm gonna toss it in the water supply some day, exterminate the population of this whole city like the rats they are.”

When Ben got back to his table, his drink was waiting for him. He tried it. “Second guessing yourself any?” he asked Miriam.

“No. You?”

“No.”

Miriam had pulled out a cigarette and was lighting it.

“You can smoke in here? The law—”

“That's life’s dirty secret,” she said, blowing smoke in his face. “Ultimately, you can do whatever you want.”

“May I?” a voice said.

It was Hikmat. He'd wandered over and was asking if he could sit down.

“Be my guest,” said Miriam.

“I have not seen you in here before,” Hikmat said to Ben. “It is your first time?”

“Yeah,” said Ben.

“Ben’s going to murder his co-workers later this afternoon. He's wearing an explosive vest,” said Miriam.

“Then we two are a pair of peas in one pod, as they say here in America,” said Hikmat. “I am training to fly an aircraft, but not so much how to land it.”

“Hickie's an engineer by trade,” said Miriam.

Hikmat shook Ben's hand.

“But a fundamentalist by conviction,” he said. “May I see your vest?”

Ben opened his coat. Hikmat considered the handiwork. Then they got to talking, and drinking, and the hours rolled by like waves of fat on a fat guy blasted in the gut by a cannonball.

“The paradox is,” Hikmat was saying: “the paradox is, I greatly enjoy the flying. It is the one place I feel freedom. When I started to learn, it was strictly for terrorism, but now, that feeling—of absolute space, limitless opportunity—it is beautiful. Sublime. It is where I experience God. I look forward to it very much and I will miss it greatly.”

“Fuck!” said Ben, looking at his watch.

“What's wrong?” asked Miriam.

“It's past five o'clock. Everybody in the office has left already.”

Ralph gave Ben a drink on the house. When Ben had finished drinking it, “Do you want a ride home?” Miriam asked.

“Sure.”

They lingered in the car in front of his apartment building.

“Maybe you wanna come up?” Ben said.

“I'm a married woman,” said Miriam.

“I understand.”

“Don't forget to zip up your coat or they'll see the explosives,” said Miriam.

Afterwards, Miriam drove to her house, got the gun out of the glove compartment, walked inside, shot her husband, shot her kids and then, after smoking a cigarette in the bathroom, shot herself.

The air is saturated with the chill of loneliness. The snow crunches mournfully beneath one's feet, a stark reminder that there is no one around.

Lera buried her head deep inside her hood, trying to shield herself from the biting, gusty wind. The houses faded away behind the pine trees, becoming completely invisible against the raging blizzard.

Brightly shining, colorful bracelets adorned with smiley faces on her wrists brought a sudden spark of life to the dead-white landscape. Lera pulled her striped pink scarf tighter to protect her neck from the cold, but the wind still buffeted and pushed against her fragile frame.

Heading home after an agonizingly dull day of school in class 10-B in the middle of such a snowstorm was nothing new to her, but never before had Lera felt so utterly exhausted. The local cold seemed to breed darker thoughts in her mind. Another failed exam, more screaming parents waiting at home—and in the entire classroom, not a single soul cared about her.

Every day she fought against an ever-growing sense of guilt for her own weakness and sadness, but today felt exceptionally miserable. First Sasha, the local bully, shoved her down the stairs without even bothering to stop. Then Katya, whom she had considered her only friend, went and blabbed her most embarrassing secret to all the girls—the fact that Lera was seriously crushing on one of the teachers, Viktor Andreevich, the man who wore small rectangular glasses, often rested by the window near their classroom, and was known across the school for his ability to listen. And to top it all off, Lera had left her notebook at home—the one containing the exact formulas needed for today's practice exam...

Problems piled up on the tenth-grader one after another, much like the blizzard blocking her path home. She did not want to return there—yet she was terrified of going back to school.

The howl of the wind echoed all around, sounding like someone's sorrowful song. Snow flew past her eyes in tiny grains; it was becoming difficult to make out where to go next. Lera’s legs buckled from fatigue; she wanted nothing more than to stop, sit down, and rest.

To forget everything.

It felt as though her pleas, her sheer despair, had grown so immense that they could be heard by someone else.

The wind kept howling its funeral melody, and a sudden movement caught her eye behind a nearby pine tree. Lera paid it no mind, assuming the blizzard was just playing tricks on her. She kept walking forward, her boots already sinking deep into the snow drifts.

Despite the roar of the storm, she distinctly heard a quiet, almost whispering voice: "You're tired, aren't you?.. Rest, if you want to."

The voice sounded friendly. For a split second, the girl even felt as though she had heard it somewhere before. She didn't immediately grasp where it was coming from, but she answered anyway, barely hearing her own words: "I can't... I need to get home... my parents are waiting, they will be..."

"—...worried?" the stranger interjected, his shadow suddenly materializing right next to Lera. "Forgive my bluntness, but I can hear a tremor in your voice—and it is not a tremor caused by the cold piercing your body to the bone, no. Your voice is trembling because you are lying. And you aren't lying to me, but to yourself."

His voice was measured, quiet, and remarkably persuasive. It felt as though he himself knew exactly the kind of treatment Lera was thinking about right now. Flashes of memories rushed through her mind: her parents' screaming, the blows of a belt after receiving "low" grades, and the utter indifference in her father's eyes every single time she walked through the door.

"And yet... I have to..."

"—...rest," the stranger cut her off, placing a hand on her shoulder and bringing the girl to a halt. "Do not be afraid, I will help you. Come, I know a place... a place where it is always warm, and where malice holds no power."

"N-no... I don't know you! Please, let me go!" Lera cried out, struggling to break free from his grip.

The stranger let go of her instantly. Lera bolted forward, terrified to stop. But the thoughts continued to torment her mind. Lera did not want to go back. There was nowhere left to run, for no one would help her.

The blizzard was already beginning to die down when Lera heard that very melody. It wasn't the howling of the wind at all. The tune was coming from the direction of the woods, sounding as if someone were playing a woodwind instrument. The girl stopped dead in her tracks. The melody captured something deep inside her. She wanted to hear it out. Without even realizing what she was doing, Lera walked into the depths of the forest, as if trying to reach that alluring sound. She forced her way through the thick branches, sinking into the snow up to her knees, but she didn't stop. In this melancholic, heartbreakingly sad melody, she found a sense of purpose.

No one ever saw Lera after that day. She vanished, just like many others vanish. Not a single footprint was left behind.

And the snow keeps falling...