Burnout Blues (Part One)

There was no point of clarity. As if in deep murky waters, in stillness after a shipwreck, parts of his reality rose up to the surface.

Construction noise. It usually comes first.

Persistent growling of heavy machines, rhythmic hammering thuds, irksome shouts of workers. The reality was not kind to Yuri.

Pillow. Mattress. Stiff. Uncomfortable. Yuri started to feel his body. It never feels okay.

He tried to toss and turn, but even if he could find a way to relax, it would be only for a fleeting moment. Time would not stop to offer him a little respite

A piercing shriek. Metal on metal. Yuri had no idea, what they were building, but sounds like this made him certain that it was something… unnatural.

He opened his eyes slightly. Not because he wanted to. It’s just something that people do, when they wake up.

He immediately regretted it.

A single scorchingly white beam of light broke through thick curtains and cut his room in half. Unbearable. Searing. Sharp.

He shut his eyes.

Poking around his bed, he found his phone and wired headphones. He immediately put them on, turned on his back, and turned on the player app.

His ears filled with heavy guitars and strings and vocals of a sad rock ballad. He laid on his back and breathed for no less than five tracks.

“Woke up, but at what cost?” grumbled Yuri at last and crawled out of bed.

He stumbled towards the curtains, opening them slightly, only to close the window and mute the sounds from the outside. Now, it didn’t sound like someone was trying to hammer a building pile into Yuri’s head.

Opening the window at night was the only way to get some semblance of fresh air into his apartment. If he didn’t do it, he would not be able to sleep. The downside was that he had to wake up to… all this.

Yuri squinted and looked outside. One would assume that the view from his window would be something akin to hell on earth, but no — it was a normal city street. Construction on the other side of the road looked a lot less intimidating than sounded. A car traffic was not that heavy, and somewhat obscured by a thin line of trees. You could see tram rails (to think that before the construction he thought that trams were loud and distracting) and some passersby. It would be a peaceful view, if it wasn’t so bright.

Yuri closed the curtain, properly this time.

His room may be far from cool, but at least it was dark.

Darkness had one downside, though. As he was going towards his computer chair, Yuri three times almost slipped on clothes, paper and empty soda bottles, by happy chance not crushing into his pet cactus Gosha.

With some twitching of a mouse, his PC rose up from the slumber of a sleep mode. Lock screen said that it was Sunday, June 7, 12:05 PM. Getting past the lock screen (password: araara) Yuri found himself in a previously opened Concord Game Engine. Particularly, it was a certain pop-up window, which went as followed:

ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DELETE THE PROJECT?
(This action is irreversible)

Yuri stared at it blankly, as if seeing it for the first time. His thoughts were moving in slow motion, and his brain seemed incapable of processing such existentially loaded questions. He Alt-Tabbed out of the window.

Some minutes of mindlessly scrolling through Twitter feed later (consisting of anime girls and personal accounts of various game developers in equal proportion) he opened up his mail and found that the deadline for the work he was so persistently procrastinating was today at 19:00. A slight rush of anxiety was enough to get him moving.

The first thing he needed was coffee.

He walked to the kitchen, turned the electric kettle on, opened the kitchen cabinet.

He was out of coffee.

Or tea.

He opened the fridge.

Or soda. Or milk. To be perfectly honest, he was out of grains or vegetables or meat or fish. The only thing that stared at Yuri disapprovingly from the whiteness of the fridge was a single jar of peanut butter. It was opened once and left in the corner to spend days in abandonment. Perhaps, the time has finally come for it to shine. Alas! Yuri noticed a thin layer of mold on the butter, and with unwavering hand threw the jar in the trash bin.

He was putting the groceries off for a couple of weeks now. If was either too hot or too wet or too windy to go outside. But now was the time to do it. To be perfectly honest, Yuri was not hungry at all, and could easily wait until the evening to get out when the heat subsides a little. It would be wise to do so, considering the impending deadline. And that was the exact reason why Yuri enthusiastically went to his room for his backpack and a decently clean set of street clothes.

The backpack was found promptly, the t-shirt as well, but the last pair of good pants was lost to the large pile of clothes next to the washing machine. Yuri had to improvise, and the best he could find was a pair of shorts that he once bought on a vacation on a whim. These were definitely a “vacation” type of shorts — with a ridiculous pattern of a hippyesque red, blue and white, intended to be worn on a beach.

That was one solution to a problem he so happily created for himself. There was another problem, however, which would require no clever solution, but brave heart and iron will to overcome it.

The hot water supply was shut off. It had something to do with the centralized heat supply system. They turned it off every year for a couple of weeks. It was not a big deal for a shut-in like Yuri, but it became one when you had to take a proper shower to go outside. And still, he took the freshly boiled kettle and went into his bathroom.

The rush of cold water overwhelmed him. It pushed out the sound of construction, pushed out the excruciating heat. It pushed out all the thoughts. It ached in his bones and ringed in his head. He gasped for breath. It felt like a small death, and yet it was the first of the two times this day when felt alive.

After getting out of the shower, Yuri almost resembled a functional human being. He took his backpack, put his wet hair, that was getting rather long, in some sort of awkward side ponytail, and left his apartment.

The entrance halls and stairs of his house were dark, clad in monotone green of walls and railings, simultaneously reminiscent of a forest and a psychiatric ward. The air was stale.

Yuri walked down the stairs. Time started to slow down again. The rush of energy granted by the cold water began to wear off. At the entrance, Yuri paused before pushing the door. The metal was uncomfortably hot to the touch.

But the outside was even worse.

A heatwave punched Yuri in the gut and blew all air out of his lunges. Merciless light blinded him. Construction sounds rushed him like a pack of hungry dogs.

If someone asked Yuri to describe the outside in one word, it would undoubtedly be “hellish”.

The nearest proper store was a little more than a kilometer away. A fifteen-minute brisk walk under normal conditions, it would feel like a marathon now. But there was no going back. Yuri would rather suffer while doing something than suffer in idleness before the impending deadline.

He walked past the construction, a meager human figure passing in the presence of a gargantuan thousand-mouthed monster.

He trudged forward. The pavement could as well have been made out of hot sauce. It was hard. The sparse shadow of the trees and lamp posts did not offer any respite. The thoughts were slow and sore, as if sunburned. By the end, there were only a chuckle and a “why am I doing this to myself?”

The store looked like a fortress. To be precise, the old building, in the first floor of which the store was located, looked like a fortress. The store’s colorful logo and plastic panels on the walls on the other hand looked rather pitifully inconsequential.

On the inside it was plain, even sterile, a little bit too humid, but most importantly — cool.

Now, for the hard part. Yuri knew that he had to stock up on supplies for at least a week. The forecast was merciless — no break on the heat in the coming days. Getting out of the dark apartment again was not an option. At the same time he wanted to spend as little as possible. Yuri was not broke per se. He had some money, he was just chronically opposed to spending it.

Yuri grabbed a shopping cart, steeled himself, and walked between the shelves.

Everything after that was a blur.

Buckwheat? — Yes, definitely. 
Cupped noodles? — Way too expensive.
Milk. — Nice.
Eggs? — They became too pricey lately, but…
Butter. Flour. Oil. Backing powder. — He does not bake, but it seems only logical.
Potatoes. Tomatoes. Champignons? — Hell, why not.
Rice. Toilet paper. Lentils! Beet. — Beet? How do you even… Ah, who cares, it’s cheap.
Chicken wings? — Nah, better go for a full chicken, will make nice broth.
Cherry. Bananas. Kefir. Milk. — No, he already has milk. — Quark cheese. Curd bars. Some cookies? — If only a little. — Oatmeal. Toothpaste. Tea…

By the time Yuri got to the checkout, he was spent. The battle was over, it was long and brutal, and Yuri had no idea, who won.

On the way back, Yuri entertained himself with the thought of being just a beast of burden.

“I’m just a mule. A simple mule. Mules don’t complain. Mules are okay with heat. Or a camel. Or a donkey. Little Eeyore. Heehaw. Heehaw.”

This simple trick would’ve helped him to get home without trouble, if not for some unfortunate circumstances.

He was suddenly approached by two man. They seemed younger than him, and both were higher. They were wearing clean blue worker uniforms.

“Listen, man.” — said one of the two, addressing Yuri. — “Can you help us? Me and my brother here, we were working on the construction, but our recruiter screwed us over, and now we have no money to get home.”

Yuri felt a rising anxiety in his chest. He was not following what the man was saying. Right now it was a little too much.

“Wait, what do you mean? I don’t quite under-”

He was cut off by the other guy.

“Look, we have passports, and everything. You see, we’re from Anachelsk. See, Anachelsk, it’s all written here. We’ve no money, no roof, all we want is to get home”.

The second guy showed some documents into Yuri’s face. They were way too close, he could not focus his vision on the letters.

“We’re just need to buy some tickets, man. C’mon, be a brother.” — added the first one.

“So, you just need money?” — said Yuri, finally starting to grasp the situation.

“Yes, just lend us a bit of money. When we get home, we will send it all back. You can give us your phone number to stay in contact”.

“But I don’t have any cash on me.” — Yuri showed them the bags from the store he was carrying. — “I’ve spent it all. Eh… How about some bread?”

Yuri took a step back. They took a step forward.

“Oh, it’s okay. There’s a bank office nearby, it has ATMs. It’s just 5 minutes. We’ll walk you”. — said one of the guys and took the bag from Yuri’s hand. The other one took the second bag. Yuri had no strength in his grip. His legs were made of cotton. He had no choice but to follow the two.

“I’m just a mule. I just go where I’m told.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m just talking to myself.”

But he didn’t feel like a beast anymore. It felt more like being escorted to the gallows.

“I’m being mugged, am I?” — he thought to himself. It all was way too like a dream. He had no control, and he knew exactly what was going to happen next.

Well, he was wrong.