Герман Садулаев - The Maya Pill

Semipyatnitsky’s impulse to sound the alarm subsided within a couple of minutes. He climbed back up the steps onto the embankment and took a fresh look at the city around him.

Neon advertisements gleamed on the walls of the surrounding buildings, and the shop windows emitted blinding light; weirdly shaped metal conveyances sped along on the streets with pompous-looking passengers inside, while people strutted by on the sidewalks flaunting their designer clothing. Everyone looked happy. Or almost. At least they knew what had to be done to achieve the happiness they desired. And were highly motivated to take the next step on that path.

Maximus felt sad and relieved at the same time. There was nothing he could do. The pills had already permeated the city’s air and the people’s blood long before Peter’s visit. A couple dozen kilograms more or less wouldn’t make any difference. People would stay the same. They wouldn’t be willing to return to a life without the narcotic. It made no sense to try and fight it.

There was only one thing left to do: go home and go to bed. Dream dreams. If no more dreams of Khazaria came, then there would be others; Maximus could be sure of that.

So this really is the end.

Our story is over.

But the reader will note that the book doesn’t end here; there are a few more pages. What else is there to tell?

Sometimes an author and his readers find it hard to part with characters they’ve come to know and love. And I’ve gotten quite attached to Maximus. What about you?

I’d be curious to know what happened after Semipyatnitsky left the office. Besides which, it looks like my contract stipulates a higher word count. Seriously now, only the exterior, visible part of the story has ended. The most important thing still lies ahead. So let us turn the page…

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick…

The little metal alarm clock ticked in the silence of the dark room.

Just tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick… Normally when authors describe clocks ticking, they write “ticktock.” But my clock said tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick… on and on without end, with no “tock” to be heard.

I lay on my bed on top of the covers, and stared blankly into the nowhere of the ceiling. My insomnia was back.

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick…

I hate the sound of clocks ticking in the middle of the night. It keeps me up. My ears snag on the rhythm, noting each tick, anticipating the next.

Every tick is in the right place, each pause measured out precisely, not a single one rushing ahead, not a single one falling behind. But my ear keeps on mistrustfully monitoring the intervals, sound and silence, and the mechanism keeps on ticking.

I needed to get up and silence the damn clock. I could smother it in a pile of laundry or move it out into the kitchen, or I could simply remove the battery and let it fall silent forever. That’s what I usually do. Or used to.

One night I was alone in my apartment, which was, I guess, my home, or would have been if I’d been myself at the time, tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock, but the noise was deafening. I collected all the clocks in the apartment (there were three) and disabled them. And fell asleep.

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick…

I used to have a home, there used to be people around. But now I’m alone. Alone. Home alone, alone, no home.

The clock might very well have made a different noise if it had been bigger—say, the size of my cupboard. Ticktock, tick-tick-tick. Alone at home, at home alone… better alone.

I remembered one of my old jobs, the one before the last, when I—or it might have been someone else—used to be sent on various trips around the country. Pack, unpack, pack, unpack, planes, buses, trains. From plane to bus to train and back again, unpack, pack, unpack, pack.

Life. No, life isn’t some kind of show. It’s not a game. And not a dream, either. Life is a business trip. Only your company ID has gone missing, and you can’t remember what you’re there for. You’re in some strange place, trying to get something done, but you’re not sure what exactly they sent you to do. And so you’re waiting for the management to contact you. While also being afraid they will. And even more afraid they won’t.

Even without all the baggage, it’s not exactly a vacation. And you’re dragging around all your things, bags and suitcases full. It’s easier to travel light, but before you know it, you’ve accumulated even more stuff—wife, kids, relatives, friends.

So you kill time, looking for things to do in the evening. You get used to the place, you can find your way around now, and soon you’ve even forgotten who you are and who sent you and where you’re actually from.

And only then do they contact you and tell you it’s time to go home.

So it’s better to be alone.

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick…

The resolve to try to change something in your life dwindles with every passing year. I used to be able to stop the flow of time. Now I was simply lying around without getting up; I took no action against the clock—it wouldn’t make any difference; I wasn’t going to fall asleep anyway.

I’d been given the clock at the annual reception that the St. Petersburg branch of one of the maritime shipping companies organized every year for its partners. OOCL. The acronym—the company’s logo—was engraved on the top. The clock was shaped like one of those navigation instruments, maybe some kind of chronometer, I don’t know; I’ve never been on one of those big ships. All I know is that the toilet is called the head, the kitchen the galley. That much I know for sure. Though I have no idea where I learned it. Or, more to the point, why.

OOCL is a Chinese company. People had come from their headquarters to serve as hosts for the reception: short Asians wearing European suits and very conservative, embossed neckties. The senior executive gave a brief presentation enumerating the company’s achievements over the past year, notably a forty percent increase in container shipments to Russia. Yes, their business was thriving. How could it not, with the yearly increase in imports from Southeast Asia? Russia imports everything: food, clothing, technology; the only growth here is in new shopping centers. Nothing is being assembled here these days except for criminal cases; nothing being invented except new ways to fleece the population.

But what difference did that make to me, naked little creature that I was, lying there in a dark apartment unable to sleep, listening: tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick…

At the reception I was introduced to a little man with a pockmarked face that resembled the surface of the moon; must be smallpox, or maybe some other pox, since European medicine eradicated that long ago. I seem to recall the man’s name was Nick, and he worked in one of the Chinese company’s European offices. I exchanged a few words with him in English, and his Russian colleagues hurriedly, with obvious relief, abandoned him to my care for the rest of the evening.

Nick told me about his office in England, which was located, of course, not in London—it’s too crowded and noisy there—but in some little town out in the country. Nick told me about his wife and two little kids, about his dog Lassie and his Toyota. Nick invited me to go to a bar with him after the reception, some place that had music, German beer, and beautiful Russian girls. His eyes gleamed in the darkness like two swamp lights, but I politely declined.

At the reception I ate a whole kilo of salmon and drank four bottles of light white Italian wine. In the process of entertaining Nick, I managed to make a few additional useful acquaintances, told them how thrilled I was with the hotel, complimented the hosts, shook hands with the directors, made eyes at the female managers, and smiled gallantly at the older women who ran companies that did business with or competed with Cold Plus.