THE DEPRESSION
The alarm clock chimed its gentle melody. Not too loud, not too insistent. It began soft and quiet, gradually swelling, but Nikita always stirred at the first three notes, reaching out just in time to silence it. She loved this sleek new Android. A wonderful little invention that held everything she needed: internet, clock, calculator, camera, and maps.
She still called it Andrey; the name she had given it with affectionate irony. Before Andrey there had been her old black Nokia, the one that flipped open. That faithful brick had lasted eight years, replaced not because it failed, but because her mother and brother could no longer bear seeing her carry that antique. For New Year they had presented her with this glossy replacement. Nikita had always taken meticulous care of her devices; that was why the Nokia had endured so long. Andrey, she suspected, would outlast any man who had ever been in her life.
She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling with dull, exhausted eyes. She didn’t want to get up. She hadn’t wanted to yesterday, or the day before, or the week before that. She hated her job. She hated the studies that had led her there. Though she knew there were worse ways to earn a living, logistics felt like a particular kind of hell for a soul as restless and complex as hers.
It was mental torture, a daily erosion of her nerves. She lived in a constant state of anger and conflict, her brain cells seemingly withering under the strain. She had come to understand she was a nobody — someone others could casually wipe their feet on. Her status meant nothing. She was everyone’s bitch: the accountancy department, the managers, production, and especially sales. Yet what she despised most were her colleagues. Her loathing usually settled on the sales team, though it could shift quickly depending on which department had caused the latest disaster at Cabron International.
After only nine months, Nikita barely recognised herself. Life had become a burden she dragged from weekend to weekend. Even her days off brought little relief; she used them merely to recover from the verbal abuse and soul-crushing demotivation of the working week. On Saturdays she taught violin for three hours. It was the only time she felt like herself — warm, patient, alive — rather than the raging, foul-mouthed, nervous wreck she became at Cabron. She loved teaching. Her pupils adored her. But three hours a week wasn’t enough to live on.
If life had gone differently, she would have followed her true path. She belonged in the arts, in music and theatre, where her full potential could breathe. But somewhere along the way she had lost her grip and made the wrong choices.
It had begun in secondary school. During a What After School? fair, she had picked up a flyer for Stage Arts — a course combining theatre, music, and visual art. Her mother had always encouraged her creativity; music school had been a given. The future had seemed obvious. Until her mathematics teacher asked the class about their plans and openly mocked her choice. He pretended never to have heard of Stage Arts, then sneered that it was hardly a serious option — there was no future in it.
That dull, grey mentality had surrounded her all her life. Dreaming was discouraged. Individuality was crushed with humiliation and mockery. Children were conditioned to believe the only respectable path was a steady, uncreative job with a decent salary, preferably in something commercial and soulless.
Nikita had a strong personality, but even she eventually buckled. She abandoned her dreams and chose languages instead, thinking she might become a translator. That idea was dismissed, too — it paid poorly. After school, her language studies faltered, and after several false starts she drifted into logistics.
No one dreamed of a career in logistics. People ended up there because circumstances left them no better choice. In Nikita’s case, it was the pressure of age. At twenty-three, she was made to feel she had already fallen behind. Society — acquaintances, teachers, so-called friends, useless boyfriends — constantly reminded her that she should have a degree and a proper job by now. The shame of not being ambitious enough had been hammered into her. So, she forced herself through a bachelor’s degree in a subject that repelled her, surrounded by unfriendly young men who treated her like an inconvenience in group projects.
The humiliation didn’t end with graduation. Job interviews were ordeals. Recruiters loved to call them challenges, but they mostly tested her breaking point. She soon realised she was rarely invited because of her six European languages or her personality. She was there to fulfil quotas for the recruitment agencies.
She was an eccentric young woman who wore long colourful dresses, high heels, and dark lipstick — an over-the-top feminine presence who didn’t belong in logistics. Women at least tried to conceal their hostility. Men rarely bothered. During interviews they would question her very existence, hiding mockery behind fake astonishment: Why aren’t you doing something artistic?
Each time, she would blush with suppressed frustration, fighting the urge to snap that she had bills to pay, a household to run, animals to feed, and a desire to live without depending on anyone. She needed money, and unfortunately the arts didn’t provide it without the right connections and degree. She would never have sent her CV to them otherwise.
A soft voice drifted through the door.
“Nikita, darling… time to wake up.”
