The finger of thirty-one-year-old Inna hovered over her tablet screen as she studied the page of a fashionable restaurant. The room was quiet except for the indistinct murmur of the television. Beside her, her husband, thirty-three-year-old Kirill, lazily scrolled through the news on his phone. Their fifth wedding anniversary—their first major milestone—was exactly a week […]
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The first notification came on Thursday at around three in the afternoon, while I was standing by the printer waiting for a report. A home goods store had charged 3,280 rubles to our family card. I opened the banking app without thinking. Payday was still a week away, and on Saturday we had to pay […]
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On Saturday, I arrived at the dacha an hour earlier than planned and found a woman I didn’t know in the yard. She was standing by the shed, taking pictures of the roof and asking Sergei whether the metal shelving would stay after the sale. I remember thinking: What sale? A man of about fifty […]
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On Monday, around half past nine, Andrei brought the accountant a payment order for a supplier and placed it on her desk. “Lyudmila Petrovna, this one has to go through today. They won’t release the truck until we pay.” The accountant read the first line, turned the page over for some reason, then set it […]
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The appointment had already been given to another client, and the salon had kept my five-thousand-ruble deposit. At home, my husband called his mother’s actions “saving money.” I decided I would no longer discuss the cost of my hair with either of them. I arrived at the studio ten minutes before my appointment. The confirmation […]
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