The day got doggone from the very start. At breakfast, after she put sugar in her tea cup and lifted the bowl to shove it up onto the shelf, it suddenly slipped from her fingers and leaped to the floor drawing the white mare’s tail of grit all over the kitchen, loose and wide…

Clutch the broom, Maya, here’s a job for you, bitch!

The only consolation was it was a day-off. That batty floozy, the mistress of that salon-bookstore loony bin, told Maya yesterday not to come next day.

That slut’s kooky in her head, beyond repair. Changing three times a day.

Hoopskirt in the morning or else in the Elizabeth Virgin Whore style from the Tudor dynasty, unless, of course, not in a mini-bikini.

Do all women at that age bust their nuts so wholly? The only sane thing about her that she's made Maya learn to read and write.

At first it was knotty hard – oh! that fucking "Golden Key"! but then it gradually began to move on and somehow turned even interesting what that bitch Malvina, the puppet show prima pussy, dyed her hair with, eh? Not laundry blue, for sure.

Then she wanted to cook a soup. No, yeah, no go. There’s just a spoonful of dry pasta shells in cellophane, on the shelf.

Some familiar ring, eh? Why to leave there that scant pinch? When you see it’s just a nip left then dump all of it in the pot on the stove with everything else to finish it off. But no! Wrapping back in cellophane and storing on the shelf.

Sometimes it’s hard for Maya to understand her herself.

So nothing doing and she decided to go out to the supermarket.

Moreover on that TV they sow their stupid oats all day long – how could Ukrainians be so fascists and not even spare their own civilian population…

Well, not right away, of course, it takes time before you decide on which rags to put on after all…

. . . . .

At the supermarket of her former kinda colleagues there stayed only Nastya, the cashier.

Because of her obesity she’s too lazy for looking for a decenter job…

And that mudak in the line behind with his gaze riveted to Maya’s bottom as if it's his first time throughout his miserable life to see a woman’s ass.

Though yes, her ass is the coolest one in both this and the next hemispheres. Not fat yet round. Exactly what is lacking them those bitches in the podium that wiggle their skinny pelvic bone back and forth like empty scales.

Well, were you the only of the kind, then okay, fine. But not battalions of cloned Masha-Dasha in different rags and wigs of any hue on the march – left-right! left-right!

The dressage training, an Olympic sport.

And when already coming back home, the left spike broke off clean, as she was nearing her tower-block entrance.

Some damn well out of luck day and no doubt! With one foot you’re normal while keeping your right one on tiptoe as if sneaking up… Some lame duck with her sack of bad luck…

And then the elevator was not coming down for half an hour. Some bastards rape-holding its door in the upper floors.

Finally arrived, a couple with a baby came out.

The little baby’s such a cutie, the eyes so round, lips open in a small “o”. O, sweetie!

Maya got out on her seventh floor, opened the door, and still in the hallway she realized that something was not quite there.

She kicked her ruined heels off and looked from the corridor into the room.

Yep! So it is, some bum in a blue pea jacket is snoring on the couch by the balcony door.

Happy-New-Year-and-heat-your-ass-in-sauna!

It’s not that Maya freaked out completely. Nopes. She knew a trick or two from the bouncers at the bar “You’ll Get It”, some hard stuff so that kicking the guy in his balls was a kids' game, in comparison.

Yet just in case, she quietly went to the kitchen after the meat hammer.

How ever could that bum get in?

"Hey you! Reveille!"

He jumped up, batting his eyes and rubbed his lips with the heel of his palm.

"How d’you intrude? What’s your want?"

"Maya…"

Her eyes contacted his stare.

"Nobodya ... And ... the beard ... where?"

The hammer slipped out the clutch and tapped at the floor, slightly…

"Actually, I’m Inokenty."

"What are you talking about? Inokenty the Who? The First? Second? Third?"

"The third… UF-3."

"Yeah. Unparalleled Fool. Can be seen in the dark too."

"Wait! Where so too many Inokenties from? Your exes’ count?"

"Too many or under many is for me to size up... The employer at the bookshop got me hooked on reading. When there are no clients, I leaf through everything. Lately The Sacred Puppet Show it was by the French blogger named Taxil.

O, Lord! They did jump bones in their shows! Did indeed! Even with their daughters...

You rarely come across the like porn even at X-sites.

Inokenty The Third’s the coolest of them Popes. It’s him to train all the princes and emperors in Europe kissing his shoe."

"A faggot or what?"

"The tribute of respect! You, fool! And no yo-yoing here! Where’s the beard?"

"Well… hum... see… Esma undid me in the morning… then UF-2 told about Athos, and he himself worse than a skinhead… it all got me somehow… and there’s a barber shop, well, I just went in… er... only they didn’t have change from a piastre…

"A tough case... seems like not just the beard was lost."

"Worried sick about that beard? Why so keen on it?"

"Having even the nerve to ask! Ha! Why am I keen? Yeah? Why? Got lost for so long and God only knows where. Then rolls in with his mug shining! Where have you been?"

"On the Island."

"Boy, o boy! A fucking bucket of steam! Which one? Vasilyevsky Island? Or Honshu?"

"Come on… Chris got killed. When you told me meet him."

"How d’you mean killed?"

"Two shots. A slob of Don’s."

"But you?"

"The bastard hit from behind my back. I didn’t see nix. Nothing at all."

"You not hurt, Nobodya?"

"It’s Inokenty. I’m Inokenty! Too hard to remember?"

"Again? The Third? Or you’ll share the last name too after all?"

"There’s nothing to share. I know nothing."

He got up on his feet and in few steps reached the glass door to the balcony, leaned his forehead on the transparent hardness. Keeping her eyes on him, Maya downed onto the couch.

"Look, if you're on the run, speak openly."

Still with his back to her, the still silhouette against the backdrop of the dim light of the waning day answered:

"Told you already, I know nothing... Sorry for Chris. He plays was writing."

"Good, at least?"

"As if I’ve read… Don came up. Blah-blah-blah. Went away. In a moment – bang! bang! above my head."

He started pacing the room from the balcony door up to that to the hallway and back, his freshly shaven chin sunk in the cup of his left palm, the blank gaze straggling along the floor under his feet.

Then, to shed off the gloomy recollections, he asked:

"And what’s your last name?"

"Waringova."

He stood as if rooted to the spot, smack bang in the middle of the room:

‘WARRING MAYA?!.’

"Yeah. Close enough."

"Fu... eff me..." his voice trailed off and he picked pacing up. After a couple of to-and-fros the question was readied:

"And what did you need Chris for?"

"There's a delay by me, and he knows folks anyplace."

"What do you mean delay?"

"What a fool you are, Nobodya."

"I’m Inokenty."

"Makes no difference. You both are fools… Come on here, damn you!."

* * *