“Sveta, well, are you ready for the big day?” Dima’s voice, full of unabashed boyish excitement, burst into the apartment’s monotone rhythm.
Sveta didn’t turn around. She kept running the searing iron along the sleeve of his shirt, smoothing the tiniest crease with methodical diligence. The air in the room was warm and smelled of ozone and clean cotton. Her movements were smooth, honed by years of practice.
“The big day for what, Dim? I’ve got a big day of laundry over there,” she nodded toward the wicker basket, from which a picturesque hill of untouched clothes rose.
He came closer, went around the ironing board, and stopped in front of her, shifting from foot to foot. At thirty-two he still had something of an impatient teenager who’s about to get a long-awaited gift. His eyes sparkled, and an anticipatory smile played on his face.
“What do you mean for what? The release is today! That game. The legendary edition, remember I told you? I’ve been waiting two years for it—two years, Sveta! This is an event!”
She finally set the iron on its stand, and its hiss fell silent for a moment. She looked at her husband. There was neither joy nor irritation in her gaze. Only a deep, almost maternal fatigue. She had seen that gleam in his eyes before: when a new phone model came out, when he got fired up about buying a drone, when he found “incredibly cool” sneakers online.
“I remember, Dima. You talked my ears off,” she picked up the next shirt. “And so what?”
“So what? We have to get it! Right now, before it’s gone. I’ve checked everything—we can place the order online. Just twenty thousand, and it’s ours!”
The word “twenty” made her hand with the iron freeze in midair. She slowly set it back on the stand, this time with a distinct thud. The quiet domestic ritual was broken. She straightened and looked him straight in the eyes; the former fatigue in her gaze vanished without a trace.
“Twenty thousand. That’s almost half of what we put aside this month for the car.”
He waved dismissively, as if she’d said something silly that was getting in the way of his grand plans.
“What car, Sveta, we’ve got time! This is a unique chance. You won’t find a set like this later for love or money—scalpers will have it for triple. It’s an investment! Besides, what’s twenty thousand against the total? A drop in the ocean.”
His logic was simple and lethally selfish. He saw only his goal, shining and beckoning. Everything else—their shared plans, agreements, budget—turned into annoying obstacles, the fine print at the bottom of the page.
“It’s not about the background, Dima. It’s about the fact that we agreed,” her voice was even, but there was steel in it. “Every spare kopeck goes into the common jar. You agreed yourself. Or have you already forgotten how last winter you were pushing my old Matiz through the snow because it wouldn’t start again? You yourself yelled you were sick of the embarrassment.”
He frowned; the memory clearly displeased him. But the desire to own the game was stronger than any memory of inconvenience.
“Well, that was then. This is different. Don’t lump everything together. That was winter, and now it’s summer. We’ve got time. And the game—here it is. You get it? It exists right now.”
He stepped closer; his tone grew softer, coaxing. He tried to take her hand, but she pulled it away.
“Sveta, don’t be so… so proper. It’s just a game. My little joy. I’m not asking you for the moon. Twenty thousand. We’ll make it back fast. I’ll pick up some side gigs, honestly.”
“Side gigs?” Sveta gave a bitter smile. She finally set the shirt aside and switched off the iron. The sound of steam fading inside the appliance became the only accompaniment to their conversation. “Dima, we’ve been through this. With the drone that’s lying up on the top shelf, and with the ‘incredibly important’ trading course you attended twice. Your side gigs end the moment you get what you want. And I’m the one who puts money into the jar. From my salary.”
Her words, calm and precise, hit him harder than any shouting. She wasn’t accusing; she was stating facts. And those facts were unbearable for him. His face shifted from pleading to sulky, and then to openly angry.
“You always ruin everything!” he flared up, his voice rising and ringing with irritation. “Can’t you just be happy for me? I’ve waited two years! Two! It matters to me! And you’re going on about your rags and gadgets!”
“They’re not ‘my gadgets,’ Dima, they’re our future car. Ours. Shared. Or do you already think taxi rides and buses are only my problem?”
The air in the room seemed to thicken. The light smell of ozone gave way to the heaviness of an oncoming fight. Dima stopped pretending to be an understanding, loving husband. The mask fell, revealing pure, unclouded self-regard.
“I don’t give a damn about your car!” he shouted, and that word “your” rang out like a shot. He deliberately separated himself from their shared future, their plans, turning everything into her personal, petty whim. “I’m tired of living by your schedule and your rules! Always scrimping, always saving! I want to live now!”
He went to the window and stared out demonstratively, showing that her arguments were empty noise to him. Then he turned back, a smirk on his face—the look of a man who’s found an irrefutable solution that demolishes all objections.
“And you know what? I don’t need your permission,” he said slowly, savoring each word. “I’ll just take the money myself. Your card’s in your wallet, I know the PIN. While you’re at work shuffling papers, I’ll buy the game for myself. And you won’t do a thing.”
He stood there, full of smug assurance. He had thrown down the gauntlet, crossed the line where dialogue ends and war begins. He didn’t just want the game. He wanted to prove that his desires mattered more than their common goals, more than her opinion, more than she herself.
Sveta was silent. She looked at him, then past him, at the TV stand. There, in the center of their living room, in a place of honor, stood his idol. A black, glossy console, surrounded by neatly stacked discs and two controllers on a charging dock. His personal altar, which she was not allowed to touch. A place of power. The place he fled to from reality, from responsibilities, from her.
All the blood drained from her face. Suddenly she felt absolute, crystalline calm. The decision came on its own—instant and irrevocable.
She took a step forward, and her voice sounded quiet but so distinct it seemed the windowpanes vibrated.
“Just try to take even a kopeck from my savings for your toys, Dima, and I’ll personally smash your console and throw your things out.”
For a second he was taken aback by such a direct, crude threat, but then he burst out laughing. A short, contemptuous chuckle.
“Oh really. I’m terrified. Your arms are too short for that, little Sveta,” he waved at her condescendingly. “Don’t make me laugh. Hysterics won’t help.”
He turned away, confident that the last word was his. He didn’t see her eyes. He didn’t see how the last spark of doubt went out in them, leaving only cold, hard resolve. He thought he’d won. He didn’t understand that he had just lost everything.
He laughed. That short, patronizing laugh hung in the air like acrid smoke. Dima was absolutely certain of his rightness and her powerlessness. He saw a woman driven to an empty, meaningless threat, and it only strengthened his sense of superiority. He had won. He turned away from her again, gazing out the window, as if giving her time to “cool off” and accept the inevitable.
Sveta said nothing more. Words were finished. They had run dry, crumbling into dust like old plaster. She looked at his back, at the confident line of his shoulders, at the way he smugly shook his head, savoring his imaginary victory. And there was no rage in her. Rage is a hot, turbulent emotion. What she felt was cold as ice. It was a decision.
Without a word she turned and left the living room. Her steps were neither fast nor slow. They were even, measured, as if she were walking along a clearly marked route. Dima heard her go and smirked to himself. Off to cry in the kitchen or call a friend to complain. Classic. He didn’t even turn around.
In the kitchen Sveta went neither to the kettle nor the water carafe. She silently pulled out the top drawer of the cabinet—the one where the knives, corkscrews, and other utensils were kept. Her fingers passed the handles of the cutlery, the vegetable peeler, the can opener. They stopped on the heavy, solid-metal handle of a meat tenderizing hammer. She took it. The smooth, cold metal lay pleasantly in her palm. Weighty, solid. A tool meant to make tough meat soft, to turn a whole thing into something else. She tightened her grip.
Hammer in hand, she returned to the living room. Her steps on the laminate sounded different now—firmer, heavier. Dima heard them and lazily turned, ready to see a tear-streaked face and hear a new round of pleading. But he saw her—calm, with dry eyes—and the hammer in her hand.
“Did you decide to make me a cutlet as a peace offering?” he grinned crookedly, still unable to believe the threat was real. His brain refused to connect the image of his compliant wife, ironing shirts, with this woman and the cold gleam of metal in her hand.
Sveta didn’t answer. She walked past him as if he were a piece of furniture. Her target was the TV stand. Her eyes were fixed on the black, glossy surface of the console—his sanctuary.
Dima stopped smiling. Something in her silence, in her purposeful movement, sent a chill down his spine.
“Hey, Sveta, what are you doing? Put it down. What are you thinking? Sveta!”
His voice wavered as she, without slowing, reached the stand and raised the hammer. The movement was not sharp, not hysterical. It was smooth and inexorable, like a pendulum’s swing.
The first blow landed dead center on the case.
A deafening, sickening crack rang out. The unmistakable sound of expensive plastic breaking. A web of ugly white fissures ran across the black gloss. One corner of the case snapped off and hit the floor with a dry clack.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Dima roared, springing to his feet.
But he was too late.
The second blow. Sveta delivered it with the same cold method. The hammer punched through the splintered casing, sinking into the body with a dull, squelching sound. Something inside crunched. The green power light on the panel flickered and went out for good.
A third blow. A fourth. She was smashing his world. She struck the motherboard, the cooling system, the hard drive where his saves were stored, his achievements, his two years of anticipation. Chunks of black plastic flew in all directions. The mangled insides lay exposed—green boards, copper tubes, snarled wires. His idol was turning into a heap of trash before his eyes.
She stopped when nothing was left of the console but a shapeless pile of fragments. Breathing hard, she looked at what she had done. Then she unclenched her fingers. The hammer clanged onto the laminate beside the remains of his dream.
Sveta slowly turned to the petrified Dima.
“There,” she said in an icy voice with not a drop of regret. “Now you don’t need the game or the console. Or me.”
Dima looked from her to the mangled heap of plastic and metal at her feet. His brain refused to accept the sight. It felt like a bad dream, like an absurd internet clip. But the smell of burnt plastic was real, and the cold in her eyes was terrifyingly real. He took a step forward, his hand reaching toward the wreckage as if he could gather it all up and put it back together.
“You… you… what have you done?” he muttered. It wasn’t a question but the moan of a wounded animal that has seen its den ransacked. “It’s… it’s…”
He couldn’t find the words. He stared at the split boards, the torn wires, the pitiful remains of what had been the center of his little universe. Two years of waiting, hundreds of trailers watched, dozens of hours spent on forums—now all of it lay as garbage on their laminate floor.
Sveta looked at him without any expression. Her calm was scarier than any scream. She stepped over the hammer and came almost close enough to touch him.
“I told you what would happen if you decided your toys mattered more. You didn’t believe me.” She paused, letting the words sink in. “You have half an hour to gather what’s left of your things. And leave.”
“Leave? Leave where? Are you out of your mind?!” he finally found his voice, ringing with a mix of rage and panic. “This is my apartment too! You can’t throw me out!”
“Feel free to check,” her voice was quiet, but left no room for argument. She turned to the shelving unit where, lined up like soldiers on parade, stood his treasures—dozens of games in plastic boxes. His collection. His pride.
Her hands moved without haste, methodically. She scooped up the first stack of cases. She didn’t care about titles, exclusivity, or value. To her it was just plastic junk. With an armful of boxes she headed to the balcony. Dima watched her back in horror, not understanding what she was going to do next.
She yanked the balcony door open. The May evening air burst into the room. She stepped out, and he heard the first dry click. Then a second. A third. She wasn’t throwing or smashing. She simply opened the cases and shook the discs out—down from the sixth floor. The rainbow circles, shimmering in the sunset light, glided and fell onto the asphalt in the yard. Then the empty boxes flew down as well, caught by the wind like colorful leaves.
“Stop! Quit it! That’s money!” he screamed, lunging toward her.
He reached the balcony door just as, having dumped the last batch, she came back inside. She stopped, and he froze, not daring to touch her. She took her phone from her jeans pocket.
“You’ve got twenty minutes left,” she said, glancing at the screen. Then she put the phone to her ear.
“Hello, lock replacement service?… Yes, hello. I need the cylinder in the front door changed urgently… Yes, as soon as possible. Can someone head out right now?… Excellent. Take down the address…”
Listening to her calm, businesslike tone, it finally dawned on him. This wasn’t an impulsive act. It wasn’t hysteria. It was a plan, carried out—cold, precise, and irrevocable. The realization hit him like a physical blow. His key would soon become a useless piece of metal. This apartment, where he had lived, slept, played, would no longer be his home.
He looked around as if in someone else’s place. His gaze darted from the wrecked console to the balcony where empty game booklets lay. Panic gave way to a primal instinct for self-preservation. He bolted into the bedroom, grabbed a backpack from the chair, and began frantically shoving things into it: laptop, chargers, a couple of T-shirts, jeans. He moved with humiliating haste, like a thief afraid of being caught any second.
When he came out into the hallway with the stuffed backpack over his shoulder, Sveta was already standing there, leaning against the wall. She silently watched him pull on his sneakers. He didn’t raise his eyes to her. There was nothing to say. All the words had been said; all bridges burned and blown to ash along with his games.
His hand closed on the door handle.
“You could’ve just not touched my money, Dima,” she said to his back.
He didn’t answer. He opened the door and stepped over the threshold. The door didn’t slam behind him. It closed with a soft, quiet click, cutting him off from his former life. Sveta remained standing in the hallway, listening to the receding sound of his footsteps on the stairs. The apartment was quiet. Only the wind stirred the empty booklets on the floor by the balcony door…