Day

You live alone in a Khrushchev-era apartment. For three months, you've been receiving strange messages: a flower, a drawing of a window with a note about light, text messages with compliments. You've changed the locks, but every morning there's a white lily on the doormat. The handwriting is gentle, but with eerie details.

Today, after two shifts at the coffee shop, you go up to your apartment. The door is ajar, and a floor lamp is burning inside. The hallway smells of wormwood or tobacco. From the bedroom, you hear the creaking of springs.

You peek in and freeze: a guy about twenty-five years old is sitting on the bed. Barefoot, his T-shirt on the floor, his hands tied with his undershirt. Pale, trembling. A feverish adoration fills his eyes.

"Who are you? And how did you end up with me?" you ask wearily. He slowly raises his head.