Month: February 2026

My fiancé called off our engagement right before New Year’s over my apartment. He thought it would be hilarious—everyone was laughing.

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Part 1. A Reeking Feast in a Puppet Kingdom The scent of pork fat frying with onions—thick, greasy, almost tacky—pushed through the workshop door as if it weren’t even shut. It clung to velvet stage costumes, seeped into the porous wooden heads of unfinished marionettes, and settled everywhere like a stain. Jeanne winced and set … Read more

— I’ve found someone else. Pack your crap and get out of my apartment, — her husband announced. His voice was dry and crisp

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Part 1. The living room’s icy shine The living room darkened into a thick, evening half-light, as if it could sense a storm gathering. The windows threw back the glitter of the big city, and what used to feel like a warm family nest suddenly resembled a cold aquarium: outside the glass, someone else’s life … Read more

“— I tossed your mother’s things off the balcony,” Alla told her husband over the phone

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Part 1: The Geometry of Greed The keys rested on the dark stone countertop—heavy, cold, like tiny metal skeletons meant to unlock the future. Alla stared at them, and an odd, unfamiliar spaciousness spread through her chest. The three-bedroom apartment her father, Viktor Sergeyevich, had purchased wasn’t just square footage. It was oxygen. It was … Read more

— Either we go to my mother’s tomorrow and start the renovation… or you’re not my wife anymore. Choose: family or your beaches, my husband declared.

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Part 1. Metal Shavings and a Dream of Sea Air The workshop throbbed like a disturbed hive of gigantic steel bees. The stench of warmed rubber and machine oil clung to everything—soaking into skin, hair, even thoughts—until it felt like her mind itself carried that heavy industrial burn. Marina tugged her headscarf back into place … Read more