Here is the short story that I wrote many years ago while working as a volunteer on the crisis hotline for people with suicidal tendencies and their relatives. …

Did you happen to lose one day? — Today I remembered a long gone day. The memory was incredibly clear; it had everything: the colours of a rather rainy September dawn, the smell of the french fries hanging over the street, the morning people with absent faces rushing to nowhere, and even the trash can with wet garbage…

The Magic, the Science and the End of the World — Jack Vance’s series about a dying Earth can be viewed in many ways. I have seen, for example, both extremely negative reviews (mostly from modern fantasy fans, for whom the scale of the fictional world map and the number of rivets on the hero’s helmet are more important than the…

Next door — … And there is silence — endless, absolute, as if a dirty grey mass of clouds descended on the frozen city and blocked the ears, even the familiar from childhood clanking and the rustling of cars barely penetrate through this veil of silence. It is cold; the frost makes the…

It’s always upon us — I remember it clearly: I was looking for something that day. I walked back and forth, looked in the trash cans, and turned over the stones. I couldn’t find it, so I wandered around again. I couldn’t quite figure out what I was looking for, but I was pretty sure…

Can you pass it? — Sometimes bad luck can turn into something bigger, and you just can’t do anything about it. The day was going all wrong since morning. Although it was at least two weeks before the start of the Red Rains season, the drones at the sixth weather station had, as usual, missed…

Finding yourself in an aquarium is not as scary as finding out why — The last haze of oblivion suddenly evaporated like dew in the bright sun, and Jon sat up abruptly, looking around. The surrounding terrain was utterly unfamiliar. Soft, thick, low grass, interspersed here and there with small bushes of bright, juicy flowers. On the edges of the clearing were tall palms…