In Vladimir Medvedev’s short prose, the absurd, the otherworldly, and the real intertwine so seamlessly that it isn’t always clear where one ends and the other begins. Grief, despair, exhausting pain, and then—unexpectedly—an awakened sense of duty push the characters toward unusual actions. They encounter нечисть, use magical artifacts, and discover within themselves superhuman abilities, yet they remain ordinary people: frightened, bewildered, not always flawlessly decent, or those guided by higher ideas in the name of establishing a world order. And it turns out that no magic can defeat ordinary human flaws. Besides, spirits and devils are not entirely alien to something human, either.