Good offer

Chapter 1. Timothy Zhuk's Worthless World

Translated from Russian

​I quit my previous job two months ago for one simple reason… or rather, for one of two reasons: either my colleagues were idiots, or I was the idiot. And while I try to figure out whose lack of abilities made it impossible for me to continue working as a PR manager at one of Europe’s international travel agencies, I’ve taken a job at a shopping center near my home.

“If you knew how hard it was to give birth to you, I wouldn’t let you mop floors at night” my mother shouted into the phone as I methodically wiped the tiled floor of a Portuguese shopping center.

“What beautiful tiles, these blue birds in the design either jump over each other or engage in obscene actions that the Portuguese don’t give a damn about,” I thought as my mother continued yelling into the phone.

“Come back immediately,” she continued, “Uncle Dima has a spot at the factory. The money’s good, and the work is like shooting fish in a barrel.”

“Shooting whom?” I asked, suddenly shifting my thoughts from the tiles to the phone conversation. “Actually, tell me later, I have to go now. Mom, I’ll call you back. Beijinhos. Chão.”

I could still hear the familiar and beloved woman desperately shouting into the phone, but I really needed to get home, and the tiles with the birds were still half-dirty.

After wiping down fifty-seven bird-covered tiles, I finally escaped to freedom, marking the end of my workday in the notebook. The local security guard quietly smoked on a bench near the main entrance. We exchanged silent handshakes, and I headed to the house across the street, anticipating how my exhausted body would collapse onto the bed, dissolving into it for a while.

“Amigo,” the guard called out, “can you throw these newspapers in the trash?”

“Sure,” I replied, reaching out for the stack of newspapers, mentally debating whether I’d take them home or walk to the trash can three hundred meters away.

“Where did he get these newspapers?” I could have said, but didn’t, because my knowledge of Portuguese was too limited to discuss anything profound, let alone why the guard was sitting with a stack of newspapers at the entrance, waiting for me to leave.

The desire to lie down as soon as possible won this uneven battle, and the stack of newspapers with the notable title “Work for All” went to my apartment on the fifth floor of an old Portuguese building.

“Boom,” something crashed to the floor and shattered as soon as I opened the door to the apartment.

“Katya?” I shouted loudly.

“Tim,” a female voice called out from the kitchen, “don’t be scared, I’m filming a video.”

I took a deep breath and rolled my eyes. When did I learn to roll my eyes? I knew perfectly well who taught me, but “when?”

The kitchen was on the way to the bedroom, which meant that the path to the bed wasn’t as simple as I thought ten minutes ago. I sighed again, put on a smile of a happy husband, and walked straight ahead.

Wait. What is this?

“Katya, why are there so many shards in the kitchen?” I asked, looking at the tile floor covered with tiny glass pieces.

“I told you, I’m filming a video,” she said, her once-beautiful eyes now staring at me from the depths of the kitchen. “I’m pretending that the glass fell accidentally because I’m so clumsy. It’s funny, right? Please don’t interfere. Because of you, I’ll have to break another glass now.”

“Katya,” I said loudly, holding back the anger that suddenly flared up inside, “You bought glasses just to break them. Fine, that I can understand because of my profession, but I don’t understand why you’re buying glasses when one of us has a meager salary and the other has none at all.”

“First, Tim, blogging is a job,” she began, “And second, I begged you not to quit your job. But it’s your own fault you left; you could have just done what they asked, and there would have been no problems.”

“First, Katya, your husband’s name is Timothy, not Tim, and second, kittens and unicorns should not be in the ad campaign for premium cars,” I snapped.

“See, it’s all your stubbornness, Tim. Just admit that you were wrong.”

And here I go sighing again; that’s the third time in five minutes. I just need to admit that I married a fool and let her keep breaking glasses as long as she doesn’t break my brain.

I calmly stepped over the shards that had flown into the hallway and headed to the bedroom, feeling empty. At moments like this, everything in my head shuts down, and I enter energy-saving mode. My doctor calls it depression, but my psychologist calls it that same energy-saving mode and advises me to stay in bed if I really want to. I like that psychologist, but I can’t afford him anymore, so in especially desperate moments, I just remember our conversations.