Something inside me charted a course through a courtyard sandwiched between twin high-rises (twins that had clearly lived very different lives). Most likely, after meeting those two jesters, my subconscious demanded a dip into salvific normality.

  The courtyard turned out to be exactly that, as if designed according to the Norman Rockwell standard of soulfulness: laundry swayed on lines like the flags of a tiny Laundromat Nation, old men battled over chess on a lopsided table, and a delicious, hearty smell wafted from the building entrance.

  The idyll was disrupted only by a burly guy in a leather jacket circling his motorcycle in distress. The rear wheel had plunged into an open manhole, and the bike was frozen at an unnatural angle, as if the asphalt were trying to chew it up. The biker clearly didn’t know what to grab first—his head or his steel steed, so treacherously bogged down in the city infrastructure.

  "What a... treacherous occasion... mother of... pearl..." he hissed through his teeth, glancing sideways at the kids in the sandbox. It seemed the necessity of self-censorship was causing him more pain than the accident itself.

  "You were warned, Max," remarked one of the chess players, eyes glued to the checkered board. "You impudent monarch. Where do you think you’re going, you villain?"

  "You decided to split the party on two fronts yourself," snapped the second one, adjusting his glasses.

  "You warned me not to rev the engine at night!" Max parried. "Did you see that? The bike just dove in on its own! And the manhole cover just collapsed inward. An Egyptian plague, I swear..."

  "Yes," the first old man nodded imperturbably. "Just reminding you."

  "I can help," I said, drawing everyone's attention as I approached. "If you’ll allow me to borrow those ropes."

  "Take them, take them," the chess player nodded vigorously. "Sometimes, to save a position, one must sacrifice material. Let me hold the sheets; they won’t dry in this wet weather anyway."

  I quickly assessed the situation. The clotheslines would serve as a halyard, the metal pipes from the broken swing set would be levers, and a sturdy stool with peeling paint—one that had survived several eras and would likely outlive us all—would be the fulcrum. Folding the ropes in three, I tied a figure-eight knot, threaded them through the pipes to create a pulley system, and braced my foot against the eternal stool. A simple block and tackle was ready.

  Sensing a climax, the chess players scooted their table closer without pausing their game.

  "Hey man, how you holding up?" I asked in passing, seeing the state of his organism up close.

  "Holding on for now," he admitted. "But a stream of expletives is about to burst out, I can feel it."

  "Hold it in. We pull on three."

  Max nodded, gripping the handlebars as if he intended to move not just the motorcycle, but his own destiny.

  "One. Two. THREE!"

  The old men half-rose, forgetting their game. The kids cheered, watching this currently incomprehensible thing called "physics." The motorcycle first pretended it had nothing to do with the situation, then creaked and, with a hollow thwock, flew out of captivity with the grace of a champagne cork. The biker nearly tipped over, and I stumbled from the sudden disappearance of resistance.

  "Whoa!" Max patted the rescued gas tank with a pleasure bordering on Platonic. "That’s some power, brother! I thought I’d have to call a crane."

  "Phenomenal," one of the chess players evaluated, looking at my pipe-and-rope construction. "Engineer, I presume?"

  "Logistics," I corrected, dismantling the improvised mechanism. "And crisis manager. Former. Essentially, I made things move where they needed to go, with minimal losses."

  "Ah..." the old man concluded with a smile, returning to the game. "So, not an engineer. A wizard."

  Max, overjoyed, extended an oil-stained palm to me.

  "Thanks. What do I owe you?"

  "Nothing. Just remember this moment when someone else ends up... in a similar metaphorical manhole."

  "You have my word, thousand devils!" he nodded seriously, and we sealed this strange pact with a handshake.

  I headed toward the exit of the courtyard, and a triumphant cry drifted after me: "Checkmate!"

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  The morning's oddities, however, showed no sign of slowing down. On one street, a shell game hustler sat leisurely. A classic, seasoned. He spun the cups virtuously, working over a classic, seasoned tourist, whose every detail recited: "Ah, it isn't hard to deceive me!.. I'm happy to be deceived myself!" Walking by, I tossed at the scammer: "Tuck the thread back up your sleeve." The hustler froze, and in his gaze, I read not anger, but almost professional amazement.

  On another street, a teenager flew out from around a corner like a silent rocket on an electric scooter. I stepped aside, and the scooter sliced the air where my ribs had just been. I even managed to grab the kid by his backpack strap, gently restoring his balance.

  Another courtyard. A huge dog, in whose veins flowed not only the blood of a Rottweiler but, judging by its dimensions, a grizzly bear, greeted me with a growl. Its entire posture signaled the most unkind intentions. With such motivation, I pushed off the corner of the building and vaulted over a low fence onto the next street. My knee responded to this acrobatic etude with a flash of familiar pain, and I landed less gracefully—straight into an icy puddle.

  A very saturated day, as if the city were methodically squeezing me out of itself. But back then, I still reasonably assumed that coincidences were just coincidences. I didn’t know that the real saturation of events was waiting ahead.

  I heard it before I saw it. A tearing child's scream and that characteristic crackling sound when a burning house breaks itself apart, like a feverish patient breaking their own fingers.

  Black, greasy smoke oozed lazily from a third-floor window. Plastic, synthetics, and the shell of cheap furniture laminate were burning. Hello, toxicity. Pyrolysis was in full swing there, temperatures likely around six hundred degrees. The second-floor windows were trembling but holding intact for now. There was no draft, which meant a backdraft was imminent. Inside the building, oxygen was burning out, and as soon as one of the windows below burst, fresh air would rush in, saturate the hearth, and the entire stairwell would turn into a blast furnace. Being there at that moment would be like deciding to take a nap in a jet turbine before takeoff.

  There was no one around—not in the yard, not in the neighboring houses. This was strange; where else do people gather if not at a fire?

  Any normal person would have called the fire department and stepped back. A very normal person would have run. A smart person would have run faster. What a very smart person would do is unknown to me; if I ever meet one, I’ll be sure to ask.

  Remember this once and for all: don’t play hero. Seriously. Don’t go where it’s dangerous. In movies, it looks cool: a guy bursts into the flames, coughs a couple of times for ambiance, and carries out a beauty with slightly smoking hair. In reality, you’ll take two breaths, burn your larynx, lose consciousness from carbon monoxide, and just add to the firefighters' workload. The statistics are relentless: in eighty percent of cases, amateur rescuers die along with the victims, sometimes blocking escape routes in the process. There are specially trained people with breathing apparatus and suits—call them for help. And pray, preferably from a distance, so you don’t get in the way.

  Meanwhile, my legs were already carrying me toward the building, my hands pulled my jacket collar over my nose (weak protection, but better than nothing), and my shoulder managed to bash in the flimsy front door before the shockwave slammed it shut from the inside. I, by the way, have a few loose screws, just like this house. Nice to meet you.

  The heat hit me in the face like a heavy boxing glove, instantly drying out my eyes. The first breath scorched my lungs with the taste of soot and chemical death. I sprinted up the stairs to the second floor and dropped to all fours. Down below, near the floor, there is always a "survival zone"—about twelve inches of air where you can still take a breath without crying from pain. I crawled, finishing off my knees, guided only by the memory of standard building layouts and a child's cry drowning in the roar of the flames.

  Amidst the tongues of fire, I naturally saw distorted faces. They constantly flickered, morphed into one another, and spooked me with wide-open empty eye sockets and mouths. Well, fire faces, what did you expect? Unhealthy stuff, I know. I could write it off now as hallucinations from hypoxia and an adrenaline rush. I could. But we now know how the brain clings to its illusie-woosies.

  And, naturally, the fire spoke:

  "Where are you going, Alex?" asked the Chief. "Statistics. You were just thinking about them yourself. Statistics are relentless."

  "Statistics cannot be satiated!" I shouted, but it came out as a raspy gurgle.

  "One corpse is better than two," the Chief continued, weaving himself out of a pillar of fire in front of me. "You can't save everyone, son. You'll croak, and that will be a non-targeted expenditure of resources. Retreat. You're more useful alive."

  The vilest part was that he was using my own words. The ones I used to teach people how to survive. But I found the most correct and comprehensive argument.

  "Screw you, Chief!"

  I waved my hand, dispelling the mirage, and the flame darted aside. Within it, the Chief adjusted a fiery tie and dissolved, leaving behind only ominous laughter. For some reason. This laughter sounded dry, like cracking wood, and sharp, like an overheating lightbulb popping. In real life, he didn't laugh like that; in fact, he rarely laughed at all. The only time I remembered was after a mission in Sudan, when he slapped me on the back and laughed loudly out of relief and overbursting vitality.

  But with his appearance, he did the main thing—he directed my gaze to the child, a small figure curled into a ball in the corner like a kitten. In a zone where heat kills in seconds.

  The floor beneath us vibrated threateningly. I reached out my hands, but at that moment, the house decided it had had enough. A deafening sound rang out, like a large-caliber gunshot. And here comes the backdraft... The ceiling beam cracked like... Argh, I was in no mood for inventing metaphors back then. I looked up and saw the ceiling, engulfed in flames, beginning to collapse right on top of us.

  I lunged forward and covered the child with my body. Pressed into the floor, bunched up, turning my back into a shield. Hand on heart (which was now pounding like a jackhammer), it was a pathetic shield considering it was up against a ton of concrete and fire, but it was all I had left.

  I did warn you about the danger for unprofessional rescuers. And look, here you go, I turned out to be right.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. My thoughts became crystal clear. I braced for impact. For pain. For the inevitable end. That’s how I imagined it: stupid, fast, searing.

  ...

  But the impact never came.