About the book: 1994 / There are people who are unlucky in everything from birth until death. Such a person walks late at night through the whole city, because I was one second late for the last bus. Just for one second. And he was late because he forgot matches while visiting and was about to return for them, but he was ashamed to disturb him again, and in the meantime the bus... Such people never have money for a taxi, but our lazy, arrogant night taxi drivers always slow down next to the cash-strapped loser and ask : “Spoor, aren’t you going to Okhta?” And he goes exactly to Okhta, but he answers: “No, to Petrogradskaya.” “Okay,” the driver says here. “Sit down, I’ll give you a ride.” “Thank you, I want to go for a walk,” mutters the loser. “In such rain? Are you out of your mind?!” And so the loser wanders all alone through the night streets in the rain and still wants to understand what the root of his bad luck is, and he wants to smoke more and more, but he has no matches. And so he waits for an oncoming passerby to ask for the light. Finally the oncoming person appears. The light of a cigarette is visible from a distance. The loser takes out a cigarette, untwists it and is already anticipating the smoke in his throat. And suddenly he sees that a passerby throws a cigarette straight into a puddle. “Nothing,” the loser thinks. “He has matches.” But the fact of the matter is that the passerby does not have any matches. Actually, he takes out a box, takes a long time to pull out match after match, but all of them, down to the very last one, turn out to be burnt. And the rain is getting heavier. And it ends with a passer-by suddenly yelling: “Damn! I got wet because of you, like... like... Take a box and go to...” And the loser mechanically takes the empty box and goes to…