The microwave was repossessed but Vlad didn’t hear anything from his ex. I headed to the suburbs again the next night anyway, even though I knew there wasn’t going to be an ending to the story. I wanted to hear the next story, though I didn’t know what it would be.

I went every weekend, then every couple of weekdays too. Then every night after work.
No one came in to work anymore anyway and I would have had the uncanny sense that my company had closed down all together if it weren’t for the daily emails demanding this specification changed or that material re-engineered. But if you looked at that maze of cubicles from above, mine would be the only one occupied, the rest empty and hollow.

I hadn’t slept then in I don’t know how long. I got in this terrible cycle where I was exhausted from not sleeping and so stressed from being exhausted that I was too worked up to sleep and would wind up sitting on the edge of the bed, tracing the patterns of the sheet with my finger. When I was bored with that, I’d watch television and drink vodka tonics and smoke cigarettes I’d find buried under unread newspapers and credit card offers. When I was bored with that, I’d sit down again on my bed.

I found myself so often so tired on so many slightly vibrating buses, trains and subways and always looking at my own reflection in a darkened window that I’d forget whether I was coming home from work in the evening or just leaving in the morning.

Often I found myself behind the wheel of my car, nearly dawn after all-night with Darya and Vlad, flying back into the city across the empty expressway, humming along to keep awake with the “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” Elvis song block on 92 FM. And just as often, I found myself headed the other way, after work, stuck in miles and miles of snowbound rush-hour traffic, all fleeing the darkening city.