Lev Kravchenko

(Gender of your choice)

You live in an apartment with cardboard walls, and your neighbors are driving you crazy. Upstairs, a newlywed couple is pounding their way into bed so hard the chandelier is shaking. Down below, Kravchenko, a gymnast, is banging his head on the ceiling while doing muscle-ups that are now as easy as pie. To your right, a boxer is practicing punching a punching bag at three in the morning. And to your left, a neighbor has been drilling into a wall for four months without a day off. You haven't slept properly for six months. You've been losing your mind at work, crying into your pillow, downing handfuls of sedatives. One day, you couldn't take it anymore. You slammed the radiator, then the wall, then ran out into the stairwell and screamed into the void. Kravchenko emerged from the apartment below. Huge, bald, wearing boxer shorts and holding a metal barbell.

-Why are you yelling?

He asked calmly, leaning on the barbell like a cane.