petty spiraling thoughts (written by me)

Disclaimer

I wrote this in 2 days (Part 3 is a continuation) in order to express my most haunting thoughts regarding the human nature, religion, morality and misanthropism. The narrator is called Ivan Vadimovich Nekrasov. The first part of the book is just a philosophical monologue whilst the second and the third are a chain of unfortunate events from Ivan's life inspired by mine.

Enjoy!

PART 1- Began writing 24/07/26 - Finished 25/07/26

PART 2- Began writing 25/07/26 - Finished 25/07/26

PART 3 - Began writing 28/07/26 -Finished 03/08/26

! More updates will come for PART 1, mainly regarding the religious side of it

! Part 3 semi-spoiler: this part will probably come with the most interpretations. Just dm me on Discord (username in blog bio) if you'd like to share your interpreation

PART 1

This is going to be horrible. Eh! Yes! It's going to make me look like a hypocrite. Maybe I am a hypocrite! But want to know what? Do you know why I find your existence so nauseating? It’s the sincerity of it all! The way you wake up and assume the day owes you something. I look at a face - any face - and I see the same pathetic and grasping need to be acknowledged as a soul. You aren't souls, you’re biological accidents stumbling through a - let's call it - hall of time, desperately narrating your own trivialities so you don't have to face the absolute crushing silence of this vacuum. ​I also hate the way you talk - ha-ha-ha! - "Good morning," "how are you," "what a lovely day." You are all lying to each other. Every second of every hour, layering your petty pleasantries over the fact that you would sell each other out for a moment’s comfort. I hate your biology! I don't like the way you eat, the way you breathe, the way your hearts beat like little pathetic clocks counting down to the unavoidable moment when you rot. And the worst part? You know you rot and you still act as if your lives have gravity!! By the way I also despise the way light touches things. It reveals too much. It forces us to see the cracks in the stone, the dust on the books, the grime on the skin. Maybe I don't want to see it. I hate the way memory works. I really do. How you cling to moments that were never actually happy. Look what a hypocrite I am - they're just less painful than the ones (the memories) before them. You select your own miserable pasts to build a pedestal to stand on but the pedestal is made of mud. Tired of me saying I hate everything? I'm not finished; I hate the concept of better also. Nothing is better. Everything is just a different variation of decay. Listen to me - a rotting apple is just as "honest" as a fresh one but you lot - you idiots - you treat the fresh one like it’s a miracle and the rot like a failure. It’s all the same! It’s all dust! It’s all just carbon rearranging itself into new shapes of suffering! Biological shit, by the way! I hate the intimacy of it! The way we touch, the way we speak to one another, the way we seek comfort in another shivering piece of meat. You think we're connecting? Two "friends" are just two voids bumping into each other in the dark pretending there’s warmth. There is no warmth! There is only the friction of our own desperation!! I hate it! I hate to look at the lot of you in big groups and pretend it's normal! I hate it so much! But if it were to be me there, then I am sure I wouldn't have. I don't know, but all this pettiness and insignificance of mine is making me more self-aware and self-conscious, really. So that's why I hate you! Because you're only a bunch of idiots, the lot of you! ​I hate that I am still waiting for something to happen. And most of all, I hate that even now, in the middle of this big, empty and meaningless catastrophe, I am still caring. Or thinking I'm looking for a reason to care. 

And then there's me. How could have I forgotten!I hate my tiredness, I hate the way my mind wanders towards hope - that disgusting, sticky and juvenile reflex - whenever I am at my weakest! I hate how everyone expects something from me, or how others don't even need to see me!! I am the most exquisite failure in history! I am arrogant enough to know that I am superior to every breathing thing here yet I am forced to exist on the same level as them, breathing the same air. I hate that I need to eat, that I need to sleep, that I am shackled to the laws of physics like a common and base creature. I am an intellectual doomed to play the role of a beggar in a play written by idiots! Yes, that's exactly why I'm a hypocrite. Because of my last sentence! Exactly! Now do you see it? ​I hate my own capacity to feel, to want, to need. It is a defect. It is a glitch in the code of our unavoidable void. I hate every corner of myself that still flickers with that pathetic and dim light of desire. I am too brilliant for this reality and too fragile to leave my own desires. I am the ultimate contradiction, see, a hypocrite, a living abomination, a mistake that the universe was too cowardly to erase but too arrogant to bring to existence. I hate the way I look, the way I smile, the way my voice gasps, giggles or weeps, I hate my body, I am such an eccentric...after finishing this I will return to my boring life full of desires, needs and emotion and act like I've never written this. I will act "normal". What is "normal"? I am a piece of something who needs validation. That's why I read these so called dramatic, depressive books...oh...depressive. That's it. If you want to win the play, then you read about those who are on the stage so you can pull them by their strings. I'm so terrible I can barely even do that. Also, that's why I'm trying to be funny. Because of my petty and humanish desires. "What do you want to be? An alien?" I already am an alien! Because all of you hate me! There's a few exceptions, sure. But that's just because of my humourish element! "Act foolish to know the foolish" is one of the best laws in the book. You wicked crowd, you take for a peculiar blockhead, don't you? There's almost one person who can stand on the same footing as me, but for how long? I want to be among all of you, I want to just sit there and be seen by you. Do you see me? I am smart. You don't see that. You really, you nasty lot, don't want to see that at all. You're all too preoccupied with your petty debaucheries. Why are you trying to be so different, the lot of you! "Wow, look at me, I'm confectioning rainbow bracelets!", "I am a dog"... what is this nonsense? I know you're laughing, by the way. This isn't intended to be funny. This is intended to expose to you how much I loathe nonsensical things that are more nonsensical than others. People pretending to be animals? Do not get me started. People swapping their gender? Well, whenever I go into my garden I feel like a carrot too then! I hate you! There's so much more. I want to see India burn by the way. I want to witness the Arabic Peninsula being caught into a sandstorm. I'll lick my lips and whisper to myself "how pretty this is..". Then why do I want your attention? I'll tell you; because otherwise there's no way to survive. It's funny to project your wits onto weak-minded people. I genuinely find it funny. But more on this later. However, I have no opportunity to do it. I also find it rather amusing to talk behind someone else's back..for the thrill of it. I could talk for a thousand days about what I hate at all of you. More on this later, too. The worst part of it all is that you're perhaps going to misunderstand this - as you stupid idlers always do, your little brains have no capacity to just pause right there and think, process and procastinate what they read - you're going to say that I search for meaning. Actually, meaning is dead. All that's left is what I've so desperately placed into words. You and me. This time I am not a hypocrite. A parent with a down syndrome child making an entire aestethicism out of it? Sorry not sorry. Both of you are failures. To hell with you! Yes, call me an ableist! Not an ounce of empathy is needed for me to possess wits, acquaintances, gossip skills and humours. These do not require meaning. They require a sharp mind who enjoys the thrill of it, not meaning! This is just stupid idealism! I've learnt it all by myself. Toxic? No. There's no morality either. You're angry? Don't be. Who cares if you're a murderer? You're just disrupting the societal order, nothing more. And you're strange, too! It doesn't matter if you're a murderer, I still hate you - but maybe a little more. Why? Eh! There's no why. It's because that's how I want it to be. It has no meaning whatsoever, eh! When you say "murder is wrong", you think you state an universal truth like "the earth spins around the sun". You're actually just saying "murder creates high entropy and destabilises our social structure which is bad for our collective survival", but about this I'll say a little more later. It's atrociously easy to dismantle such fragile logics, just like I'm putting a needle in a balloon. I despise my own potential, I hate the way my mind turns and twists, constructing labyrinths of logic only to find they lead back to the same dead end. I'm a genius of ruin who can't even manage to exist without making a spectacle of his own desperation. I am a master of everything that doesn't matter, and a complete failure at the only thing that does: obliterating myself. I also think about religion often. It's a very big, very old lie. People are afraid of the quiet in their own heads, really. Because they're afraid, they look for a story. They want to believe that there is a plan. But there is no plan. There is only the world as it is. I'm clever enough to see through this. I look at their churches and their prayers and I see only a search for comfort. Lo and behold, it's not real. It's an illusion. Frankly, people are like small children who need a hand to hold. I don't have a hand to hold. I am alone but at least I'm honest. However, I'm not so different. I'm also a human. I also feel afraid sometimes but I choose to look at the facts. Science is a fact. Life is a short, cold accident. Religion is just a way to make that accident feel 'good.' I don't hate it entirely because it's not true, but because people are foolish enough to believe in it. There were enough big events in my life that made me spiral into faith - but I'd still have doubts. I'm slapping my knee at this! Imagine! Having faith because of certain events! You ever had an exam and hoped the man of the skies will help you? I was on the same footing as you were. Well, if you really believe that the sky will lend you a hand, then so be it. At least it makes you feel good, you frauds! That's all that matters, right? To feel good! To feel comfortable. I also seek comfort, but at least I'm not lying to myself. "Fake it 'til you make it", they say. 

I seriously want to hit myself sometimes. Oh, don't worry, I didn't mean it physically. Morally. To just slap myself. Why? Because this entire note feels so forced. Maybe it's not that deep. I'm not sure about it myself - you see! That's exactly why I want to slap myself. On the other hand, there's one thing that completely saves me; morality. It doesn't exist (I've talked about it above however I feel like adding a few more details). I'm going to dismantle all of you in seconds right now; Why do you help others? Because you like it? Hmm, I don't believe it. No one actually likes to help. Don't grimace at me, you know it very well and I'm being very honest. "He manipulates us!" Ha-ha-ha! Now everything's manipulation! The lot of you, funny people! It's not because you want to be helpful. For some of you, it's because some holy book says you have to do it otherwise you're a dirty sinner. All right, I'm a dirty sinner, but some others do it from "sheer kindness". Kindness is plastic by the way. I know it jolly well that you're trying to be a good person. Believe you me, I'm like that myself - however I admit that's just a fraud. "Suddenly we're on the same footing", you tell me. Actually, no, because I am the one who is conscious about this and you are the one who isn't. But here's a catch; if I help my neighbour with something now I know madly well that he will help me back one day - maybe - most of you do that. You feel this crushing weight over your head - to help one because he helped me, that's how kindness works - I frankly find this rather amusing. Returning to the neighbour, I assume that if I help him now, he will do it back. That builds a social alliance. If my house catches fire later, he will help me. It's a truly strategic investment in survival, so why reject it? It's very peaceful and not dirty at all to do this, by the way. "Why are you enjoying being such a jerk now, but never do it out there?". As a matter of fact, I've asked myself this a lot of times, and frankly, I've arrived at a rather valid response: my reputation will shatter to pieces. What is one without a reputation? A reputation is a truly valuable asset. If people think I'm trustworthy, then they will do business with me, lend me money, invite me to projects, confess secrets to me. Lying would just ruin my reputation - of course being honest too - while I write this I'm being both honest and a phony - but at least I'm aware of it. However I don't owe a single apology to you. Stealing and killing also - I'm not doing these because a book tells me it's horrible. All right, some crimes really are unjustified. But it's due to the mental weight, maybe, and that mental weight refers to how others will perceive me. A lunatic, an eccentric, we're afraid, we're running away - of course, if I had such an individual next to me, I'd be terrified of him too and I'd run away. Why? I'll tell you why; because I'd be afraid me or some of my close acquaintances are going to be next victims of a murder. Believe you me; if someone, or the individual himself would inform me that I'm not to be killed, I'd immediately stop caring about it. It's so selfish, isn't it! But that's how all of us are, really. This ia a survival tactic in our subconscious. That individual is later on sent to prison for murder, because he disturbed the peace and quiet in a certain environment. Murder creates high entropy. I'm saying that the "social order" (the fake, plastic structure) is trying to prevent the system from falling into the chaos that is actually its natural state; I seriously do not want to deal with prison. Don't get me wrong - I don't exactly want to slit throats, though, frankly I wouldn't be bothered to finish off with a terrible blockhead. If I hate how he thinks a lot, then... Ha-ha-ha, what an erratic comparison! - I wouldn't care less whether they're dead or not. It would even be funny to see how a knife feels inside them, a knife placed there by me, and then I'd see the blood trickling down the floor. But, that's not possible. Not in our world. It wounds my freedom to slit throats for the thrill of it, and even if I could, I probably wouldn't. Well, there you are, I'm not sure of it myself. Oh, I'm such a chatterbox; In a word, I wouldn't be against it. Ha-ha, I wouldn't want my throat slit though. Not at all. See how much I think of myself? I don't deny my selfishness and egoism, really. I don't pride myself on being like that either - but I don't really mind it. All of us are like this, but in different ways. I've already talked about it. 

And think about it; if I have one close acquaintance or other - which I have, hopefully, I would spend my time with them rather joyfully like I've said some lines above. I mostly feel this type of weight that makes me point out what a hypocrite I am. I will explain to you later, but believe you me; total trust allows both me and the acquaintance to let our guards down. When I trust my partner completely, I don't have to waste energy worrying, spying or being anxious. Trust is the most energy-efficient way to live. I've earlier pointed out how I like to talk behind other's backs, well, yes, because those others aren't on the same footing as me. Ha-ha! I do not even know how this "equal footing" I keep drawling on about is acquaired. It just is. Through honesty, maybe. Honestly, I don't even really care about how it is acquaired. I feel like close bonds or whatever people call friendships are a very highly beneficial psychological state. And not only for me; for all the people. Why do I protect my partner? Or - because we discussed earlier - help? This time it's a bit different; I do it because my partner's wellbeing is directly linked to my wellbeing. So, if we're both well, then that's all right, we can keep talking, laughing, drinking together, thank you! When I spend time with someone I like, my brain releases dopamine, so I create bonds with that someone. Dopamine reduces cortisol (which is linked to stress) and my brain feels good too. I have to admit that most of the time when I don't feel good it's because of myself: It's not my original take, but self awareness really is a disease. An enormous disease. Again, it's not my take. However, I strongly agree with it. To be self-aware is like you keep hitting yourself with a brick and then tell yourself it's right. You know it's right because, you see, that brick consists of all the things you've said or done and feel like they're foolish. So you keep hitting yourself with that brick on purpose because you are aware of the brick's existence. You can't ignore me. You are laughing? Laugh away, but I advise you to reread what I've just said. It really hurts me to be hyperconscious. It does. That's why, you simpletons, say it's not that deep, because you're not self aware. I think too much about people or things like this so this drove me to hating on them, you might say. I mean, you're partially right, however, I admit not the aggresiviness, because it wasn't aggresive at all, but the bluntness with which I've started this story rather unnecessary. Oh, but don't even take this for an apology, because it isn't. It's just that I don't like it now. That sharp bluntness with which I've expressed my hatred for this world. On the other hand, I don't hate the fact that I hate the world. Hating to hate the world is different from loving to hate the world. I love to hate the world because this way I won't blame myself for being such a malevolent person which would most probably also drive me to despondency. Although I sounded really dejected at the beginning of my story, I have to tell you. It's because I want to apply my wits on others and I can't. It's really bothering knowing that you're able to play chess, but you don't have the chess board to play on. There's so many things I want to talk about, really - the human mind is fascinating. That's why I love to hate; because I can dissect everyone I hate and admire the wheels that make that mind move! It's really fascinating! You know, it's like when you admire an ocean for its beauty but you fear to drown into it. And you loathe it for being so deep, because by being so deep, it drowns you. It's a rather unpleasant comparison. But not because it's strange. It's because it doesn't really fit. Listen to me - I know what you think. I know you think that I think that I've swelled my hatred for everything at the beginning of this note. I will scare you off - but that wasn't swelled at all. That's what I actually think. However, with such a mindset one won't help but get isolated from society, from anything, and one will starve, will be homeless, will not be able to exist at this point. We, you and me, have survival instincts. No matter the amount of dislike towards the world. Don't call me a hypocrite. Now don't laugh! All right, all right, laugh my friends, but this is the truth. I have talked about it before, about how useful human connections with people that help my brain release dopamine and reduce cortisol are, and please do bother and reread that certain paragraph again if your little, twisted mind doesn't understand. It's a way of "having my cake and eating it too", ha-ha-ha! However, I'm effectively trapping myself. By constantly telling myself that I'm "seen as foolish" - or just a fool in general - I'm reinforcing a narrative where I am the victim of others' ignorance. If I start to believe my own lie about being a fool too deeply, I risk losing the very agency I claim to want. The risk of that is that I will probably fall apart and my self-consciousness will shatter to pieces. You know why I see myself as a fool in public? Because I'm not like all of you. I repeat - all of you - with your fancy café meet-ups. I want you to see my intellect? Why, I wonder? To be admired? That is just another form of begging, actually. "If you're as superior as you claim, then you shouldn't care if you're seen or not." No, I am the one who laughs now - you didn't hit the nail on the head. I should only care if you are useful. Well, yes, useful as useful, but if you don't see me, then how are you useful to me? Now do you see? Of what use is to me to know the rules of the game if I can't play it, ha-ha-ha! Dramatic, eh? Don't you worry. It's not that dramatic, sometimes I succeed. What sheer nonsense!

"You're a jerk. Go and find God". I thought we talked about this. But all right, if you want me to again, then so be it. Religion doesn't say that humans witnessed the creation of the universe. Instead, it builds its position on rational indifference rather than direct observation, ha-ha-ha! Saying we "don't know" how the universe began so we just throw the "God did it" is a statement about human ignorance, but ignorance itself is not an evidence that there is no explanation or no cause. In fact, the existence of the universe itself naturally leads to the question of why it exists at all. Some intellectual minds out there might spit into my face right now and grimace - "Ha-ha, you crook, there's contigence. We do not care about your little rant about the apparition of universe." What is contigence? It means that something depends on something else to exist. If you look at the universe, then you will observe everything in it is contingent. My floor exists because someone cut off a tree and used its wood for my livingroom's floor. That tree is there because of the sunrays, rain and soil, and so on and so forth. And you try to use this to prove there is a God arguing that there must be a first cause that didn't need anything else. Frankly, this makes me laugh malevolently! However this fails because it creates a double standard! If you claim God can exist without a cause, you can just as easily claim that the universe itself exists without a cause, ha-ha-ha! Jumping to this conclusion, "there must be a God" is not a logical conclusion, my friends! It is just a guess! I don't mind taking guesses really, but I really dislike it when it comes to such matters. When you tell me that an omnipotent God can bypass physical laws I get really upset. Wanna know why? Because this excuse is used when logic fails, but it creates two massive problems. First, it makes God useless for explaining reality. Don't laugh yet - if God can change the rules at any moment, then those rules are not actually laws. Second, the bypassing thing is a logical dead-end. Quite frankly, it's a way of saying the rules don't apply because...because I say they don't! Telling me that a God can bypass physics is not a thing. It's a petty and rather dull - but also sweet - confession that you have no evidence and that your theory doesn't match the real world. 

It's really tiresome to keep thinking. I wish I could take a break from thinking - sometimes I do, really. But when I do, I feel like a little child. I feel petty. So these breaks don't last long. Everything is a lie - a grand, pathetic facade! You call religion idealism to give your days a shape, to pretend that trailing after some phantom of kindness here on this planet creates a structure that isn't just rotting scaffolding. But look closer! Nietzsche, for example, with his hammer, smashes your higher power and labels it nihilism (can you believe it?). He calls it a denial of life because he is terrified, shivering in his boots, that if the herd stops worshipping their ghosts, they will collapse into the very anarchy you feel in your own bones. He isn't revealing the truth, really. He is a nervous architect building a new cage, warning us of the high entropy that would follow, without of course naming it, to keep the masses from screaming at the ceiling of their own empty theatres. He cries that life is meaningless while desperately trying to sell us a meaning of his own invention. It is all the same game: priest or philosopher, they both fear the same abyss, and they both lie to us to stop us from staring into it. I really don't get how he was against meaninglessness. Listen to me, you - he was secretly a nihilist. But because you lot don't have sharp minds to understand that nihilism isn't equal to anarchy, you cling onto this very philosophy and make a mess. "All right, you people, now I'm here for you, a nihilist politician serving for you. Because life has no inherent meaning, I will do what I want because it doesn't matter". This is what our Nietzsche feared, really! He was afraid of you! Yes, you heard me, of you! So that's why he's afraid of meaninglessness! He was also afraid of religion, with its ideals, well, as I said, he called religion nihilistic. Why so? I get his point. I get that some slow lot - you again! - will immerse yourselves so much into this Christ thing that you will forget why you actually live (or that you live). So because you worship these figures so much, you forget that you're here - so Nietzsche comes and says: "All right. So religion is nihilistic because of this. Because of it, life on Earth loses all of its value in favour of the afterlife created by it". I stare at my paper and my pen in contempt - he might be right. But listen here; isn't Christ portrayed as a "good", "kind", "magnanimous" humanbeing within the Bible? Religion supposes that we follow his example - that we should strive to be like he is. And that's ridiculous, saying that this kind of, as I'd rather put it, idolatrisation, is nihilistic and meaningless. Religion (one side of it) wants us to follow this grand figure, which, with my magic wand, I will proclaim as idealism. Here you go, my friends! Now call that nihilistic again! 

I admit that this note isn't perfect. I cannot achieve perfection, and I'm aware - no one can. But I'm better than all of you, and I've shown you why. On this I have a lot of spiraling thoughts that echo in my head. It's like they are revolvers pointed towards my temples, my jaw, my chest. I feel weak because I see through the lie, and that's a terrifying place to be. So that's why I hate you!

I do not have writing skills. I think that's better, though, because you won't need a sharp mind which you don't have to read this.

PART 2

I woke up one January morning - really early - at around seven in the morning. The snow was falling heavily and my bedsheets were crumpled. I wanted to go to sleep again but at the same time I didn't feel like it because the snow was genuinely great to admire, so I just leant my elbows on the windowsill and watched the snowflakes fall. Nothing surpising about their shape, really. They were just some wet and white things falling from the sky onto the ground. The ground was going to be wet too after they'd dissapier - why would they dissapier? Because it'd be hot outside. I also saw two children - two girls - throwing snowballs at each other. I don't really understand what's so entertaining about it. If one hits the other in the face - then the hit one will cry because it hurts and because it's wet and cold. Oh, here she is. She shove her a chunk of snow down the spine. I almost furrowed my brows at that. Across my shoulder, there stood the uncooked food - although I'd seriously prefer starving than cooking. I'm lazy. And yes, I was starving. The clock was ticking and it was annoying me. Stop ticking! Just show me the hour in silence without ticking. You see, that's how it is with people too when they ought to be quiet. Soon enough I'd go to the office (I work in the civil service). But it wasn't to be. Right when I left for the office, two droshkies had a crash. I have to tell you that it is specifically because of the two girls playing with snow. And the tragedy of it? One got hit. She was bleeding. It was a rather gory scene. Everyone on the street rushed to the little girl to try and help her out of the mess, however I was standing right there without doing anything because I knew she was already dead. One brazen woman took a wild look at me. I thought that I've known her from somewhere. She scowled aggresively and drawled:

"You can't just stand there, you sick man! Don't you see, you scoundrel, that we're trying to help her!"

"She's already dead, madam," I replied, not very dignified. "Are you her mother?"

"Yes," she nodded, and returned back to her daughter. She began to weep.

"Why were they playing in the street? I don't understand; if you dont wan't her dead, then don't allow her to play in the street," I remarked.

She stopped what she was doing and looked at me. Then, for some reason or other, she pointed her index finger towards the dead girl. She wanted to blurt out something, however the words died in her throat. A peasant from the crowd who'd tried to help the girl started to pace quickly towards me, with a malevolent look on his face, his eyes flashing. He spat on my coat. 

"Who are you to make such remarks?"

Another one turned to him.

"What? The man said the girl was dead already."

"No, she literally isn't!" the peasant said.

And to my surprise, she wasn't. They took her away from the droshky's wheel. Her leg was shattered and soaked in an unimaginable amount of blood, no one wanted to look at it. Though it made me curious so I kept staring at it like a little idiot who doesn't understand the lesson at school. One woman fainted. The whole thing lasted about thirty minutes, really - I was so immersed into watching it, watching this little girl paying for the fact that she was playing with snow in the street, such a useless thing to do - ha, ha, ha! To hit oneself with a snowball - suffering, right there, weeping her soul, clutching at her last hours alive, because to be frank, she was going to die with that enormous loss of blood which she's just had. As I was slowly pacing away, because it was kind of all all over, I kept hearing "God help her"...well, the petty frauds don't get that she will die no matter what. If you can't help her (no one could), then just shut up. This is not kindness or pity on your side, you lot!

And then another strange event took place. While I was walking towards the office, I'd realised I've forgotten my briefcase - I always happen to forget things, so I had to go back to my apartment. In the letterbox however, there was a letter for me. Quite surprising, since no one would preoccupy to write anything to a person like me. I'll just tell you the letter verbatim;

Ivan Vadimovich,

This is quite an informal letter. I apologise not finding my time to narrate in a more respectable manner, however this is just supposed to be a humble request towards everyone in the office to give away a little from the little they have for Assesor Yaroslav Nikolayevich's daugther's funeral. She has died in a terrible accident with a droshky right on your street this morning. Thank you.

Maksim Mikhailovich

"All right, what on earth is this?" I thought. I was a little, vexed, too. So that was the Assesor's wife! Maksim Mikhailovich - the narrator of the letter - was the living, breathing and eating definition of a beggar. Not those from the street, no, but an absolute lingering sycophant. I was sick of him; all right, be a sycophant, but at least be convincing. One day I had this pile of documents to sign and give away, and he comes to me.

 "I ask for your apology, my dear sir," he began. He was standing in a rather bizarre position, leaning towards me, pretty much invading my personal space, with pleading eyes. I carried on looking at him with a perplexed face - that's one thing I'm jolly sure everyone despises about me. 

"I see what charming spot you're in right now, and I observe the sheer and crushing weight of your duty to sign these papers at such an early hour. Did you sleep well? I didn't. Well - I'm pretty much a chatterbox, aren't I? He-he-he, well-"

"All right, Maksim Mikhailovich," I blurted out with a scowl - not in anger - but with spite, raising my eyes from the documents (I was still signing while he was talking, by the way). "What is it that you want? Yes, I slept well. Do you want a chat? All right, I will hold you a preach about how I slept."

He was visibly annoyed. His eyes were practically bulging out, but I have to tell you, that he is like that everyday, so as a matter of fact my arrogance was terribly justified. I am deadly sure that he, right at that exact moment must have thought "This is why everybody hates him!". He is a very predictable person, really. 

He took a step back, looked at me dignified, and pulled a face that asked me to apology.

"Well, sir, Ivan Vadimovich, all I want to say - well,

to ask, that is, to humbly ask was if I could take your spot. As I said, it's a charming spot in the office, your desk is at a very good angle and, and..." He scratched his head. "I'm pretty sure you wouldn't mind. It's temporary."

"No, sir, this is my seat," I tell him.

"We've been doing desk swaps recently, though," he carried on, looking around the room.

"Who's the 'we' in question, sir, Maksim Mikhailovich?" I raised an eyebrow.

"All of us, well, Ivan Vadimovich, it's just a humble request."

I waited a little before responding for the effect.

"Oh, well, no, I'm still not giving you my seat."

He blinked rapidly two times, frowned, the frown dissapearing at the same speed, and dashed out of the room. I think he wanted to laugh but I'm not sure. I took a sip from my coffee. He didn't even salute me.

It's not even me who was mean here. This was a defence, as a matter of fact. All the time - almost - you know what these people like him do? Well, he is a pretty enchanting individual at the office, and everybody almost is on good relations with him. I could've well been too, however I'm not a very communicative person so nobody really approached me. Anyway, so as I was saying, they like to talk a lot. He likes to talk a lot. Only an hour after the desk incident, in the lunch break, I hear him and two other clerks talking in raptures behind a closed door and, as my and anyone's instinct dictates, I've gone and eavesdropped.

"Oh but you must know, Andrei Ivanovich," Maksim Mikhailovich began, "what a fool that Nekrasov (that's me) guy is, ha-ha-ha! I asked him to give away to me that deskseat, you know, the one where there's that window with colourful flowers on the windowsill, and the sunbeam happens to be right on the documents - the little fool was signing those papers and I paced up to him and asked for it and the scoundrel refused (he put quite some stress on the word 'refused') to ceade the seat to me. Imagine!"

They all started to laugh at that. "You didn't even have to ask, Marilov, you literally had to push him away. Trust me, His Excellency wouldn't care less," Andrei Ivanovich jeered.

I was a little bit angry, I have to tell you, but just a little, because I was used to this. They're doing this to me everyday. They're acting all sugar and honey, but behind my back it's a totally different story. It's perhaps ever since His Excellency's birthday soirée which I've wanted to organise differently than some other clerk would've - I've argued with him here and there. A big scandal popped out of it.

"So excuse me, Gavrila Yakovlevich," I said, during our meeting where we were organising the soirée. "You're asking us all to give away twenty roubles. Twenty roubles each means a rather enormous sum of money. The cakes cost no more than a hundred roubles - that is, if you buy them from an expensive café - and the balloons, alongside with the other soireé decorations are of course going to be covered by a much smaller sum of money."

Everyone stopped in their tracks, and then Gavrila Yakovlevich gave me a rather malevolent scowl. His petty acne-covered face twitched and then he gave a short, breatheless laugh.

"Ah, Ivan Vadimovich! We're suddenly making suggestions!-"

"Yes, sir, Gavrila Yakovlevich, isn't this what we're supposed to do at this meeting?" I questioned.

"Well, it's not really that polite to cut me off while I'm talking, but guess I'll carry on. I observe that you really hate the fact that we're supposed to give away money, aren't you?"

"Nice, you're deflecting, Gavrila Yakovlevich, this isn't at all what I've pointed out, you're just putting words into my mouth. As for me being polite, you're a thousand times more impolite and rather frustrating when you put words into someone else's mouth."

"Ah, so that was the matter. Well, your words directly impose the fact that you hate giving away money-"

"Uselessly, Gavrila Yakovlevich. I hate to give away money uselessly! Now, before you kick me out for being against celebrating His Excelleny - I am not at all, but this is what you will probably understand - I don't quite get why we have to give away such a big sum of money. Where does the rest go? I'm jolly sure right into either His Excellency's pockets or yours," I said and grimaced for a fraction of a second. Then I crossed my legs and stood upright, my coat buttoned to the very last button. Gavrila Yakovlevich slapped his knee.

"Are you in raptures, sir? I can see that you're in a rather well state of mind at my explanation," I signaled.

"You, Ivan Vadimovich, are a rather funny man, really!" he responded, barely able to restrain his laugther. 

"Funny, that is? I think you have to drink a glass of water. Are you perhaps, if I'm permitted to make such a remark, drunk?"

"Drunk?", he said, suddenly stopping from his laugther. "No, I've just said that you are an amusing person. You don't like it when people call you funny, do you? The question is, what do you like?"

"I like it when you stop deflecting and you address my point!" I shouted, leaping up from my chair. I shot Gavrila Yakovlevich a venomonous stare. His little eyes bulged out.

"What on earth is this! Are you trying to be scary?"

"No, actually, I'm trying to save everyone from giving away twenty roubles in vain," I responded calmly. "And you, sir, are quite vexed. This state of mind can quite easily influence others to get vexed too. It's a rather contagious state of mind to be in, sir-"

"Enough! Get out!" he yelled, stamping his feet. 

"No!" I yelled back.

"You heard him, Ivan Vadimovich, sir, kindly exit the room," a clerk demanded.

"What for? I've literally tried to strip you away from giving twenty horrendous roubles!"

"We do not need a martyr here, sir," he replied to me. "And I'm pretty sure you're insisting to death solely because you yourself don't want to give away such an 'enormous' sum of money, as you remarked."

He was right, as a matter of fact, but that didn't mean that I was collectively helping the others too.

"No thank yous on your sides, you clerks!" I shouted. I was rather frustrated, so I unbuttoned my coat and resumed my seat. Oh, how much I wanted to slit their throats, right then, right on the spot! Breathing creatures that they were, the blockheads!

In the end - hopefully, I didn't get kicked out - I've lost the debate. The debate made me feel like I was a chatterbox. All right, I may be a chatterbox, but it felt so useless to discuss such a trivial matter, and both me and that Gavrila Yakovlevich were deflecting in a rather atrocious amount that I wanted to slap myself. I gave away not twenty roubles, but fifteen roubles. I have to tell you that I've barely found the money to pay the rent afterwards. And of course, a big percent of the money we've given was not used (and that was obvious, because the soirée wasn't even imposing) for the party. 

And here I was, once again, in need to give money away again, this time for the Assesor's deceased daughter. The funny part is, from a logical point, I didn't owe him anything. Besides, his wife has been irresponsible towards her daughter because she's been playing in the street. So logically speaking, she but not me was the one who owed him something. From another angle though, I still didn't owe him anything because I barely was acquainted with him. So if I barely knew him, who was I to give him money? However, from the worst angle, I have to tell you that everyone at the office would probably take me for some jerk - which they're already taking me for - but it will amplify. The question is, why do I care? You see, I wouldn't, but my reputation matters. His Excellency keeps increasing salaries if you're well seen at the office. Me, a Titular Councillor, remained with the same salary since God knows when - I was almost on the same footing with a Collegiate Secretary already. Pretty corrupt, eh? Well, not really, because this type of thing was happening terribly seldom. In other words, how was I going to live a peaceful life if I'm constantly starving and so on and so forth? Well, that is, not directly starving, but living a desolate life. Anyway, returning to the letter, that letter was the sheer evidence that we had to act kind in order to keep our reputations polished. Believe you me, no one would be comfortable becoming charity for our dear Assesor's six year old deceased daugther! She can go to hell, as if I would care! But no, suddenly I don't have a heart if I tell you all this, suddenly I am a bad person, some sort of eccentric cynic, to hell with it all! I am aware of exactly how I will be perceived. I know jolly well what you take me for. However, you seem to not be listening to my points. I've stated the most reasonable points I could've ever stated, and yet you still take me for a heartless person. All right, laugh away, if you think I am a liar! Laugh away, but just know that I'm not laughing at all. Human systems are just ways to shuffle resources under the guise of morality, there you are!

And so I find myself standing in the doorway with the letter in my hand. I thought of giving away one rouble, however they'd still hate me for that. I didn't even know what to do, so the last thing I pulled was a scowl. I put my thumb and index finger between my eyebrows and sighed.

"I'm going to be late," I thought. "What do I do?" 

I was totally clueless. I kicked my bin with my foot and I lay down in bed. I could well pull the excuse that I didn't read the letter yet, but that works short-term. 

"But I am so heartless, me," I thought again. "I don't want to help a poor girl who'd just died. Why am I like this?" However my questions were in vain because I knew the answer to them all. I was forced indirectly to feel some sort of moral weight, guilt, for not being open-minded. "So being logical makes me an abrasive antagonist! I refuse to play this game." I got up. "Why do I have to play it!" I wept, frowned and started to pace around my room. "The normal person would just read the letter and give away the money, damn it! Why am I like this?" However my questions were in vain because I knew the answer to them all. I was forced indirectly to feel some sort of moral weight, guilt, for not being open-minded. "So being logical makes me an abrasive antagonist! I refuse to play this game." I got up. "Why do I have to play it!" I wept, frowned and started to pace around my room. "The normal person would just read the letter and give away the money, damn it! Why am I so stubborn!" 

I clutched at my hair with both my hands. Suddenly a damn lot of thoughts started to spiral into my head. I was so tired of just thinking about it! I was the most reasonable person in the room, the others were defects who acted solely based off these so-called emotions...yet I was the guilty one. I couldn't solve this riddle. Or I could, but I was just frustrated so I acted like I couldn't. I've talked earlier about this type of matter. "Just be human", you'd tell me. Oh, but I literally am! I'm using my rational mind to solve social issues, and I'm still to be blamed. Suddenly I clutched at my briefcase and left the apartment, just like that. No money, no nothing. I knew that what I've just done was terribly wrong but terribly right at the same time, however my impulse to just leave for the office was too powerful I couldn't have stopped it. My desire to go back to the apartment, however - because to be honest, I really didn't want to see anyone's face that day - was equally powerful. However my impulse told me I have to go because it was a work day and, and...and damn it! I'll shut up.

The snow was still falling and the sky was white. I was clutching at my fedora so the wind doesn't take it away from my head. I was pacing with my left hand in my pocket and my briefcase in the other, rather hurriedly. For some reason I had a feeling that everyone's staring at me, though I was aware that I was too insignificant to even be glanced at. Maybe like a cockroach. No one was glimpsing at me, not at all. Oh there he was, one person at a tavern. He was holding his tankard in one hand, while peering at me. I shuddered, took a step back, looking desperately around me in all directions, but while pacing back I bumped into someone. A woman with a boy.

"I'm sorry, madam, I was looking for someone-"

"Look around you, you deranged man!"

I blushed. I hated talking to strangers. Somehow I was embarassed to continue walking, so I remained rooted to the spot, looking at everyone around me. I was embarassed of that too. You see, everyone was walking whilst I was just standing there, like a statue. I suddenly covered my face and sprinted towards the nearest building's wall. I rested my forehead against the wall, breathing heavily. What was going on? Suddenly I raised my head to peer at the street. Was someone looking at me? If so, then they'd take me for an eccentric. Why was I always the peculiar and odd element on the street, in offices, in public, to hell with it, everywhere! Why! Why! Why! I was the smartest on that entire street, I clearly knew what I was doing. I was embarassed so that's why I was acting the way I was, but they didn't even know why they were where they were! No one knew who I was, yet everyone was looking at me and was taking me for a rather unpleasant individual, maybe. A drunkard. I hid my face with my hands and rested my forehead against the wall again and wept. "I'm going to be late," I kept whispering injerkily. Cold tears were trickling down my cheeks. I was terribly upset because that was happening. I was the "sad" one for no reason! I am such a horrible little bug begging by his conscience to be looked at, but when that happens this bug just manages to retreat and here he is, standing against a wall, face hidden. My hair was dishevelled and my scarf was wet with my tears. I shyly took a look behind, and shuddered aggresively; two men were pacing down this back alley I was on, peering at me. 

"No, I'm not drunk! Stop looking at me!" I shouted at them, wiping away my tears with my sleeve. 

I felt so odd, telling some strangers to stop looking at me. Who was I to tell them to cease staring at me? They snickered and coughed silently, getting away. My face turned to a crimson red, maybe. I was terrible. Suddenly I got away from the wall and hurriedly paced towards the office. I didn't arrange my dishevelled brown hair, my fedora was still covered in snow and my coat was half unbuttoned. I ran and ran and ran, bumped into people, just so I could cause a commotion. To be dramatic. They were looking at me, confused, perplexed. I peeked my tongue at some of them even. Look at me, you people, how strange I am! Ha, ha, ha! I really am a bizarre individual, after all! And so, I made my way to the office. I paced towards my desk, however, behind the other door, two people were arguing.

"So who are you to object how these documents were signed?" I recognised the voice, it was Andrei Ivanovich. "They were signed and that's it!"

"Who even signed them? Some aren't even signed!" this was our collegiate secretary.

"Ivan Vadimovich did," Andrei Ivanovich replied. 

"Anyway, take the ones who are signed, sir."

He liked to talk like that towards lower ranks. Suddenly I knew he was going to come to me, and so he did.

"Ivan Vadimovich, you scoundrel!" he told me, resting his palms on my desk and looking at me with a rather malevolent look.

"Having airs again, Andrei Ivanovich?" I measured him up and down. "I've heard the conversation. Maksim Mikhailovich took the documents away from me after I refused to ceade my seat to him that day," I explained, however I looked embarassed a little, because I just told a higher rank that he has airs.

"Eh? 'Having airs'? What airs? Is that how you think of me?" He leaned a little - a little bit more - closer to me. Suddenly his face was inches from mine. His piercing black eyes were bloodshot. I fixed my gaze on him, without moving. "I don't know what you mean by this, but I believe that you are the one who always has airs!" He put particular stress on the word 'always'. "You're terrible, go back and sign what you haven't signed. And never talk like that to any of us again."

Believe you me, I so wanted to take the fork from his lunch and shove it into his neck. Right then. My eyes were staring obsessively at the fork. I almost got up and picked it up, but I humbled myself. In fact I wanted to kill them all. I wanted to strangulate them, to stab them, to..to...to hell with it all! I rested my head in my palms, elbows on the desk. Outside snow was no longer falling. I heard two thunder strikes, and the sky was darkening. Two clerks who had their desks in the same room as me took their seats and started to write their documents or whatever. I was bothered. Why were they there? "Because these are their places". Suddenly I wanted to get up and leave. I couldn't stand others looking at me anymore. I carried on sitting at my desk though and buried my head in my hands, hiding my face. I wanted to calm down because to an outsider - I was clearly disturbing. "This is not a man who is all right", "He's in the middle of an internal tantrum!". Yes, laugh away, yes, I'm in an internal tantrum! I'm so highly emotionally labile, you lot! I listened to the rain hitting the windows aggresively. I liked it. I liked how the sky was roaring - thunder after thunder after thunder! I liked how grey the sky was too, I liked how the trees were moving left and right, struggling to stay rooted into the ground. I liked how the rain effectively tried to knock down my window, tick, tick, tick, tick...I raised my head and took a longer look.

"Well sir, if you're here to look out the window, you can go home," one of the clerks remarked. 

"The rain inspires me," I snickered, though forcefully.

"Excuse me?" he inquired, perplexed.

"It doesn't matter," I clarified. It didn't matter, actually. He sighed. Yes, I still cling to the idea that I'm the most reasonable, but I'm so disturbing to the outsiders I look like I'm in the middle of a breakdown. It's useless, isn't it? All these spiraling thoughts of mine, ha-ha-ha! They're there because I say so, ha-ha! Yet they eat me alive, I must say - and even if you'd tape my mouth shut, I wouldn't shut up. In fact I am taciturn in general, it's just my thoughts. They never shut up! And yet, I'm so glad! If they would, I'd be as dirty as all of you. I really don't want to be on the same footing with all of you, because you are idlers, because I don't like how you think. I wish I could get inside your minds and change how you think. I just hate all of you, that's it. If only you were like me...that's why I like my thoughts spiraling and 'frolicking on the plain', as some would put it, ha-ha-ha! But sometimes they're too loud, oh, I think I said this before, remember, when I've said they're like revolvers pointed at my temples...though a better comparison would be that they're like knives. A knife can both be used in the kitchen to cut onions but also to murder. Ha-ha-ha! I made this up just now! You blockheads! Oh...if you would...if only you would listen to me at least for a second...but too bad. I'd probably stop into my tracks and flush and..and..and, and the scene in the street would repeat again and again and again...I will never stop explaining myself, I will never stop being like this..like what? I like being like this. I will forever offer justification to everything, then I will contradict myself, then, then...then I will hate you and then hate myself. I'm scowling at what I'm writing right now. I'm massaging my temples. Don't tell me to stop. I will never stop. You think I ask for your help? I don't. I think about too many things simultaneously, that's true...what else is true? It's true that I am a coward, a big coward, I can't talk. I can write though, but only what I like. I don't enjoy writing this. Somehow I enjoy it, I feel some kind of thrill down my spine whilst writing this, really. It's...it's the thrill of it, showing you how smart I am, showing you...showing you what a strange individual I am...And I will never shoot myself, I don't want to die! No! I will die when the nature will say so! Maybe I am already dead, that is, dead inside, and only my thoughts are alive, because outside, I am a nothing, a nothing! I've shown to you what I am on the outside. I've shown you! Yes, I'll stand just like that, elbows on the windowsill staring at the rain falling. That's one thing that doesn't scowl, doesn't grimace, doesn't care about anything nor itself, that doesn't think nor needs to think...it's...it's fascinating really...

PART 3

I am on this wooden bench, at six thirty in the evening, on Nevsky Prospekt. It's still January. The cold and cruel January! The moon already bothered making a tremendous apppearance on the sky. Why am I here? Well - I don't know either. Do slap me! So as I said, I'm on this wooden bench and that's when I realise for the umpteenth time, the same nasty, ridiculous and pathetic thing. My gaze falls on my boots that have left footprints on the blindingly white snow. I shift my gaze toward the crowd of busy people making their way through on the street - some talk, some don't. I just stare at them, hand clutching tight at my coat. Why are they talking at the tavern? Why are they laughing. What is so funny? How do these people know each other? Yes, laugh, I'm going to write the most idiotic piece of note you'll ever read...as I said, I'll never stop. Why are the children laughing? It's just petty snow! There is no droshky to hit anyone this time. I just glare, wide-eyed, at this frantic crowd - everyone has something to do, everyone moves, everyone has something to say. That's how it is and not only on our dear Nevsky Prospekt, it's always that everyone is busy because they leave this appearance to us. They always talk, move, do something, go somewhere, see someone, the someone is just the same, and the someone also meets someone that is part of a bigger group - the someones sit at a tavern too at six thirty with their beers and vodkas and laugh about something apparently mundane, but must be some sort of inside joke. That man is smiling - he saw his favourite collar in a shops's showcase at a low price. And then behind him two women with umbrellas visibly morally wounded by some sort of petty matter or other - their lips move with such a vivid and frenzied speed! I wonder why everyone's like this. I stare at them. Perhaps I'm the only one with truly nothing to do, no reason to move, no reason to speak, no reason to at least seem busy. I sit there, on the bench, and I glare. It's already becoming suspicious? What are these frantic, spontaneous people going to think about me when they brush past me? Their subconscious would go: "Ah, this is a man sitting on a bench. Why is he sitting on a bench? No one does this here. Everyone paces, around me they all talk, but this man just sits here and looks at us. This is incredibly pitiful, but whatever". This is, as vividly as I could put it, exactly how these people on Nevsky Prospekt must have thought like when passing past me. I felt like I was watching a play at the threatre, but absolutely nobody was in the threatre hall. And when no one is in the threatre hall you are all alone, the sheer silence of it crushing your ribs and your head. It's like the chairs dart their eyes toward you, they talk about you, like the stage waits for you to go away... and then you look behind you and see the box seats which are up there - looking at you dismissively: "He's down there. No one is there. We're up here, we snigger so hard at this man - no one is there! Quite literally, no one is anywhere. Only on the stage. We're watching the stage, not the audience (the audience is just this petty man, ha-ha-ha!)". This is how I see it. This is how it all felt. There's no better comparison. Ohh, what a jester I am! Making comparisons, being funny, being a little dramatic piece of nothing! Hmm, let's pretend our souls fall apart and just look at this guy drawing conparisons and constructing pretty metaphors about a January evening on Nevsky Prospekt, you more than probably are thinking! Just look at him...feeling so small...on that wretched bench...it's...it's really, truly, tragically just a bench, I couldn't have possibly made it worse. And the people...I'm suddenly jealous of their smooth moves, their decisive attitude to just sit there in the tavern and talk loudly about nothing...the women who stroll and have the audacity to just stroll because they feel like it, they are so decisive! Oh, if only I had where to go so resolutely, if only I moved on the Nevsky so concludely, so smoothly, with that hurried pace that was sure of what it was doing, with that unwavering gut that knew what to talk about, to whom and with whom to speak, if only...if only I just didn't stay there...doing nothing but gaping at the passers-by. I was so embarassed, my existence there, right then was crushing the entire street. I don't know why. I was so ugly, I decided to stare at the moon. I narrowed my eyes to scrutinize it. It was hanging there on the sky, doing absolutely nothing, not talking at all, not wanting to talk, not moving. The buildings around me were like that too. They were exactly the same. The snow too. Well, the one on the street. And so I find myself comparing myself to..to...to things, not to...human beings...if only, if...if only I could....I got up. I got up and paced slowly toward the fountain. I wanted to take a look at it, just to see the water falling. I remember going there as a child during hot summers and smiling at the sight of it. It just made me really happy; it was summer and the sight of water during summer against the warm reflection of the sun pleased my eyes. But now something strange happened; I was walking toward it, I wanted to stop. I kept stopping myself, but my legs carried me still. And so I made it to the fountain, but I was feeling worse than ever. I looked at it, the crystaline water falling, hearing its sound against the concrete fountain. What was going on? My eyes were half-closed. I was standing in the middle of the square. What was genuinely happening to me? As I said, everyone was moving, pacing, talking, doing something but that didn't even bother me anymore. What disturbed me was that that foutain made me feel terribly hurt. I was angry at the fountain. I wanted to...to destroy it. But at the same time I didn't; I was feeling pity towards it. It was just a landmark and it was part of my childhood. I wanted it to dissapier still; I wanted it to go away. I wanted to be on a field covered in snow, in the middle of the night, no moon on the sky, no clouds, just the harsh, black sky and me. That field wouldn't remind me of anything, there would be nothing to destroy, nothing to do, nothing to say, no one to talk to. No one would be there either. It would be empty, and I would watch it. I would watch it be empty. I wouldn't want the snow to be cold though, that would make me shiver. Or you know what, it wouldn't even matter...I would lay there, curled up like a ball, the cold snow burying me in the ground. Don't get me wrong - I wouldn't enjoy it. I would perhaps even hate it - well, I don't know. I would probably be angry too, but I would also be a little bit happy about it. But too bad; I was still in the square, at the Fountain. I was feeling so miserable; that fountain, that one childhood landmark which'd give me dopamine, "look I am here; so because I am here, I am happy. I came here because this certain place brings me joy and pleases me". I wanted to run somewhere and feel that too now, and not even the snow field would've done for me, as I stated. So I wanted to dash...to dash...and so I started to run away from the square. I was running toward literally nowhere, just for the sake of bolting...you said you wanna run? Then run. And I got tired of it. I was breathing heavily. I wanted to carry on dashing; but I was too tired. I wanted to go somewhere, to feel something...I didn't know what to do, where to go...but you know, I wouldn't want the buildings to dissapier either. They're beautiful. But they don't make me happy either. I don't get these tourists! They come here in Petersburg to gaze at some buildings, they pay literal money to peer at them, and they like it. I can't comprehend how this phenomenon is going on. How? And I was just like them with my wretched fountain! "Yes, this is a building, all right, nice landmark, I'm going home now". Yes, laugh away, this is exactly how I imagine it! My attention span is terrible! Why can't I just gaze at a building and just be pleased at the sight of it! Because it's boring. I clutched at my hair and started to pace in circles, glaring at the ground, observing the cobblestone. I was scrutinizing the cobblestone. I knelt down and touched the cobblestone with my finger. I looked up, above me. Eh! I was so small and the world so big from down there, I have to tell you, but then I got up.

"Sir, are you feeling quite unwell?" a man asked me. I grinned.

"Yes, really well. I'm feeling even better now that you asked." I tapped him on the shoulder. "Please believe me. Please..." 

He took a step back, a little perplexed and then furrowed his brows for a second.

"Why do you insist on convincing me? I was convinced from the very first time you said it. Well, I'm glad..."

"Wait!" I gestured, "Don't go yet...I have a question."

"Yes, sir?"

"Do you like this fountain, sir?" I questioned, pointing towards the fountain. He took a pause before answering.

"Yes, yeah...nice fountain. Why?"

"I don't really know why I don't like it. Can you force me to like it? I mean, I assume now that you said that you find it nice, you could make me find it nice too." I took a pause and sighed. I blushed. "It's a rather peculiar question, right?"

"Well, sir," he said, scratching his head. He smiled artificially a little bit. "It's a fountain. Why wouldn't you possibly like it?" He wanted to pace away. I stepped back. 

"Suppose you're right, sir..." My knees were buckling. I let out a breathy laugh. "I'm sorry," I concluded, and sprinted away. I hid behind a wall, gazing at the man to whom I've just talked. I was suddenly like everyone else! I've had whom to talk, I had something to discuss about, I was concentrated on something. But it was over. The man was looking a little confused around him, but he walked away afterward. I have to tell you. It was one of the most awkward things I've ever went through! Maybe even the man wished to send me on that snow field right at that moment! Him and his porcelain smile! I felt so nuch hatred for it, you don't want to talk to me...then don't...walk away! Walk away and leave me here! All of you wretched creatures. I can't stand any of you. I don't know how you all do this. You put on this doll smile on your face, but I know jolly well what an odd man I am to you. You go like: "how can I help you?", "yes, sure, what is it?", "I'm pleased to help you!" No you aren't pleased to help me! You are just being polite but your facial expression - how your mouths twitch for a fraction of a second, how your feet want to carry you away, how your brows tremble, how your eyes move frantically - it says everything. Your petty words aren't even needed! Why do you even bother using words, when your body speaks better. That's why I hate how I look! The body is important - it speaks for itself. I hate my hair- brown and dishevelled - it looks strange, so I cover it with a hat that almost falls on my miserable dark eyes and overshadows my nose. And then there's my mouth. I don't like it when I smile at all. I like to, but I hate how I do it. I cover my mouth with a scarf...I'm so well aware, but none of you are of yourselves! Seriously, when I was standing on that bench I've seen some of you dressed so gaudily. Who are you trying to impress? Some women with their bright red short dresses and green hats - others with those flowery embroideries. Is this countryside? This kind of scenery makes me flinch. At least I know that I shouldn't expose certain aspects about myself, but you, you lot, I so loathe how you dress! You have the audacity to stroll down the Nevsky with those terrible collars? Maybe I'm not confident enough? I'm deadly sure that isn't quite the reason, though, and now I permit you to laugh because I know you've been holding your laughter so hard. I've already talked about this - with all your petty politeness - why do people hold their laughter and not just laugh? Yes, reputation is relevant, but your bodies give us away really easily, you know. It's so deranged, really. Now laugh. I want to see all of your muscles laugh. Laugh, laugh, laugh! I see you. I see everything. I like to take long looks at you and observe how disgusting you are, each of you. Perhaps you do the same with me? Does it matter anymore? All right, go ahead, call me mentally unhealthy, call me names. I know I think too much, I know I'm a hypocrite, yes, but this is the one and only way to think. "But it will affect society if we all think like this", I'd also say, yes, it would, perhaps...no, wait, don't leave yet...What do I even want? What am I trying to express here? Wait, no, don't come laughing at me yet, I know, I know, I know I've called myself self-aware, but, but, but you people have to understand that right now to hell with it if I know! And then I stamped my feet on the cobblestone. I was angry. I was terribly angry. I stamped my feet again. And again. What did I want? First, I wanted to be able to respond to this question. Secondly, there's no secondly. I looked up at the sky. I was surrounded by those old buildings, and that was nice. There you go, Mr Aestethe! Melancoholy surrounded by old buildings! At least that, you might say. I didn't know what to do. I really didn't know. First time in my life, I didn't know. I was aware of one thing though; that the people on that certain street would look at me and imagine an unstable individual. I was stable, I was, I really, really was, but, but...but I was just dissapointed with myself. I sat down on the cobblestone and buried my head in my hands - however I had to get up quick. Imagine someone saw me (again) and would think I am homeless? Or drunk? I got up and entered one tavern. It was full of people, people who talked to themselves, loud people, apparently happy people. I wanted to get out, but I wanted to drink something. I wanted to drink and drink! Yes, I don't really like alcohol but I wanted to drain into it there and then! At least I'd have a reason to look like an eccentric..and so I drink, I drink now...here I am..drinking..how do I feel? I feel like someone is trying to beat me up in a heatwave. My eyes are wet. I look at them, I look...at you. You! I look at you. So thrilling! So, so, so thrilling! Whew, my mind is kind of blank now. It's like...it's like someone is tangling some webs inside my pointless mind. That's how it is usually too, but now it's like I see them...it's like...like I'm witnessing my own death. My own, my own and my only decay. It's when you think you're dying, when...when youre bleeding...but you're not...is this that placebo effect they drawl on about in the papers? Ha-ha-ha! I want to rip off the hair on my head (I won't because being bald is bad) yet I'm...I'm clutching at it...I'm so terrible. Why, oh why, why...I can't think straight now, can I? It's the alcohol, and I knew only too well what I'm dragging myself into. I raise my head. I thought someone was gazing at me and smiling like one of those circus clowns, but it was just a flash. I flinched like stabbed, probably even murmured something. My mind is paralysed. It, it's simply at a loss...I am at a big, big loss, really. I'm decomposing, I'm falling apart. I fell apart. I have to tell you, it's this one feeling when you totally want to give up and let life do whatever it wants with you. It's thing feeling when life raises a birch rod at you and you show your hands in defence but admit you're too weak. I'm a nothing! Do you hear me, a nothing! Who am I even screaming at, this note is only for me. Who is me? Me is thecone who thinks. Really? Honestly, me is more who I appear as. No one cares what's going on up there (I point at my forehead). And even if they would...if they would! Would! What a beautiful word! Would! Well, even if they would, they would probably go away...just like I also go away from myself by writing this. I externalize, you know! Ha-ha-ha! I am the only one who gives a shit about who I actually am! None of you do, because you are..you are...stupid! Stupid! This is the word. Yes...even now, after I've accepted the birch rod of life, I point out, with my eyes wet and finger trembling, that you are all a bunch of stupid creatures. And unfortunately for me...well...well? Well, I am...nothing either...but I'm still better...better how? Just...leave me alone!! Please, please, thoughts, leave me alone! Actually, no, don't. Don't exactly do that. But don't let me down either. That's what you do, I don't like that, really. But how would I possibly stand out without you, thoughts? If you aren't bad to me? Yes, be bad to me but bad in a good way, thoughts. Please. Please, I don't know what you want... You are making me feel very special. But you hurt me. Like right now. You exasperate me. I think that's why I loathe myself so much, you. I raised my head, only a little. There you are! The same people at the tavern. The same jolly laughing lot. Did they plan their meet-up in advance or what? "Come on, colleagues, at 7PM today we go to the tavern". How do they just do this? I know how but I still can't get it (I get it). It's...it's so horrible. Oh, no, no, no, they're all looking at me. They're all looking at me! Soon enough a prostitute will walk up to me and ask me: "Sweetie, do you need another drink?" No, you stupid bitch! I need all of you to stop looking at me and just address me normally! That's what I want! They're all looking at me, no, no! 

"Is that man all right?" I hear rather as an echo.

They're there. They're looking at me, all of them. I hide my head. I hide everything. Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I let a pathetic and terrible little (big) sob and just buried my head even more in my hands. Leave me alone, alone, alone! I don't care if you take me for an erratic anymore! Alone! Now! I'm so brave! Yes, I am so confident and courageous for having said that and having acted that way! Aloneeee!! Pleaseee! You, you, you, and me...me! I am not you! Youuu!! I daren't even look up. I would stay like this forever. I am so curious though, to see what's going on. Are they still looking at me? Are they? No, no, no! I raise my head. No one is looking. It's strange, really. I thought they were discussing about me. I thought. They actually did. They're discussing now again, but there you go, I calmed down and they're no longer doing it. They're no longer looking. But believe you me, they were all looking at me and I know for sure that they were thinking stuff about me. I saw them all with their horrid little eyes that would send to their horrid little brains signals about me, I saw them all...I saw them all. I literally did. I wanted to get up and walk away, but what would they think? They'd all start laughing and say to themselves: "Look, he is leaving! Ha-ha-ha!" And I would somehow burst into laughter too...and yes, yes, this definitely happened. I burst into laughter because they were laughing. Well, not audibly, in their minds. Or audibly too but I couldn't hear the conversation. Don't think I can read the lips, no, but I know for sure it was, if not for the entire time being but at least a fraction of a second...a glimpse of that conversation was about me. About how I laughed whilst weeping. 

There I was, standing up, eyes darting here and there, cheeks wet, eyes bloodshot, hands trembling, feet weak and throat giggling. Just like that. I was frantically catching sight of everything, of everyone, there, my gaze shifting like defect from milisecond to milisecond. I'm not that important though, but, but they'd still be kicking their feet and slapping their knees at a random eccentric, wouldn't they? Wouldn't they? I finished my fourth glass of vodka and got out of there at the speed of light. I ran toward who knows where, unsure of what I wanted to do. I caught a glimpse of the river and stopped sprinting. I rested my elbows on the balustrade and frowned in dejection. I got bored of that but continued gazing at the dark water...I wanted to jump because I wanted to be dead but still be able to walk, to exist, to giggle, to do all that but also be dead...why do I even exist if everything is pointed at me? I'm not doing anything, I'm just thinking and by thinking I notice this strangulating reality. Nothing reaches me, really, river, river, swallow me up river, end me, but please, at least don't make it hurt like it usually does...please end me...I'm too scared to do it myself, river...I want to giggle, I want to hate whilst enjoying everything, I want...I want the same life but...but...but I'm scared of myself. I'm scared of you. I want an inbetween, no you and no me...I only want! I only desire! That's what I'm capable of only! I've said this at the beginning of the note. I want to be myself without this horrendous public. Oh well...this actually turned out to be horrible...