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Anna stood by the stove, stirring julienne in individual clay pots and silently running through the evening’s plan. Family games She’d need to take the pots out in ten minutes; the salads were already done; the meat in the oven would finish right as the guests arrived. Same as always. The perfect family dinner for […]

  Anna Sergeevna always arrived at work fifteen minutes early. Not out of zeal or a desire to impress—simply because it felt right. While other employees were hastily finishing their coffees in the hallway, she was already sorting the mail, preparing documents for signature, and checking the director’s meeting schedule.   Her workstation—a small desk […]

  Karina lingered by the mirror, straightening the collar of her blazer. The latest project had brought her not only a solid fee, but new clients as well. The design studio was thriving, and her name had already become a recognizable brand in professional circles. Her phone buzzed again—another request to redesign a major company’s […]

  — Sveta, did you put onion in the cutlets again? I told you, it gives me heartburn. Angela’s voice, lazy and drawling, seeped into the kitchen from the couch in the living room, which had become her personal lair over the past three months. Without turning around, Svetlana brought the heavy knife down on […]

  I ran my finger over the cold steel of the keys in my pocket. Two brand-new, gleaming keys to an apartment Mark will never set foot in. Family games “Should I hang another shelf above the dresser, what do you think?” he asked without looking up from his laptop. “For my awards. They’re bringing […]

  The gate’s creak sliced through the frosty air. Not the usual kind—the one when her husband comes back from the apiary—but a different one: hurried and guilty. Anna set aside her knitting and looked out the window. No one. Only snow, lazily swirling in the lamplight. “Vanya, can you check?” she called deeper into […]

Evening began with silence. The kind of weary, viscous silence that makes you think if you stuck a needle into it, it would ring like a taut string. I stood at the stove, stirring the soup. Just a simple chicken soup our four-year-old daughter, Sonya, loved. Outside, the colors of the autumn day were slowly […]

Everything started with little things. So subtle, almost “family-like.” “Lena, sunshine, could you help me?” — Galina Petrovna always called at the most inconvenient moment, as if she could sense when I had just sat down after work. “My utility bill came, and my pension won’t stretch to the end of the month. You know […]