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The sunlight streaks through the curtains, half pulled together in the early hours of the morning by a man suffering from sleep deprivation and an overestimation of his own abilities. At least he had managed to untie his boots before he climbed into bed. God forbid he awaken and find that, in his exhaustion-ridden state, he had left them on, bringing not only discomfort but also dirt into bed with him.
It was always quiet here, he supposed. Maybe, if he sat still enough and thought, he could imagine the sounds of Eva downstairs. She liked quiet mornings, preferring to walk around gently and perch herself atop the piano, lithe fingers turning pages of books as her guest slumbered upstairs. Sometimes, if it was an especially bright morning, a small melody could be heard as she hummed to herself. Even if you couldn't hear her, it was reassuring to know she was around. Well... she had been around. It was a shame the quiet was no longer a sign of consideration, but rather a signal of loss.
The only sound, save for the light rustling of sheets, was the clock. The gentle ticking reminded Daniil of a metronome or a heartbeat, both keeping time for performers. When he had first moved in, Daniil expected to hate the clock and its incessant ticks. Now, he found it grounding, a way to pace himself and his breaths if need be. (He would never admit to anyone how common the latter had become in the last few days)
Sighing, he pushed himself up onto his forearms, looking more out the window. Cloudy, as usual for the Town-on-Gorkhon. Daniil estimated the sun had shined unobscured once or twice since his first arrival on the shaking train. The first time was the thirteenth day; the day after the Polyhedron had tipped into nonexistence, allowing for the sun's rays to penetrate the Bridge Square. Despite a feeling of levity, the warmth was little consolation against the pains rooted into the town. A good omen, he had wondered, or an apology from the Heavens?
Was there a difference?
He had to get up and do something, he decided. If I stay here all day and do nothing, I will have wasted a day another deserved. So, he pushed the rough blanket back from his person, ignoring the way the fabric made him recoil slightly. Looking down, Daniil exhaled a sigh of relief at seeing that he had not fallen asleep in his typical outfit. The wrinkles would have been horrendous to try to smooth away.
First, he needed a drink and a cold splash of water on his face. Walking to the bathroom felt like it took simultaneously no time at all and the entirety of a lifetime. Had his mornings always felt so... disorienting? Was it residual sleep making his steps heavy? Or was it the acute side effects of unrelenting stress for more than a week? He probably should know as a student of medicine. But that was his day job, and he had yet to face today yet. There were more important things to do first.
Begrudgingly, he finally decided to look up from the sink, where his eyes had traced the bottom of the basin in slow ellipses. Might as well assess the damage, yes? The sight reflected to him was upsetting, but admittedly not completely unexpected. His eyes seemed to droop downwards in a facsimile of grief, circles like bruises surrounding them. His eyebrows, always quite unruly, had apparently decided to stage a revolt during his slumber and were all out of sorts. The expression was one of a man exhausted with his job, his experiences, and his life. It was miserable to look at.
Once, when Artemy had asked him about why he dressed, as the townsfolk had said, "like a proper Capital dandy," he had smiled half-heartedly. It was about aesthetics, he had said. All about the presentation of self and the presence one could exude. There was power in commanding recognition without having said a word. The menkhu had shrugged and nodded his head, as if he understood the sentiment but not the mentality. Daniil had joked about how the Steppe seemed to have established his presence already - no outfitting necessary. Artemy had smiled and chuckled at that, wrinkling the corners of his eyes with joy.
Cold water rushed over the slope of his nose, cheeks, forehead and back into the basin. His bangs, regrettably, had not been spared and now were dripping slightly into his peripheral vision. Eva and Artemy would have laughed at him now, yes. But not out of cruelty. Their hearts were too gentle for that. His heart, however, was beating rapidly at feeling as though he had forgotten something. Realization felt like a stone in the bottom of his stomach.
He hadn't washed his hands before touching his face.
Maybe it was a remnant of the Plague or an outstanding habit from medical school, but Daniil loathed to touch his face or person without first being sure his hands were clean. When his worn leather gloves were on, it was a less persistent pulse at the back of his mind. It was a barrier from which he could wipe away water or blood or other things onto a towel or apron. The gloves never allowed the offending substance to directly touch his palms when a sink was not within reach. It had made it easier to walk around without a constant nagging at the front of his thoughts.
The clock chimed nine times. It would be another two hours before he was expected to meet with the Haruspex at his home. Daniil sighed heavily. At least he would have time to wash his hands and try again. If he didn't... well, he always assumed those days could bring nothing but misfortune.
Getting dressed had always been an ordeal. Had it started when his parents first tried to dress him in pleated skirts of horrendous fabrics? Or was it when a bow hung unevenly and he had stared at it until he was dragged away from the mirror? It had taken a few "episodes," as his parents liked to call them, but they started to understand some of the boundaries.
The fabric had to be pleasant to touch and evenly hemmed. Rolled sleeves or pant legs had to have the same amount of folds to be rolled up symmetrically. Collars needed to sit evenly.
Daniil had only added to the list since leaving home to study. His style of dress was somewhat of armor for him against the outside world. It was a way to be looked at in a way he liked, rather than despised. It allowed him to maintain an air of professionalism. It gave him the confidence to introduce himself as "Dankovsky, thank you kindly." It was a form of control and safety. But his brain, unfortunately, found ways to poke at the gaps in this armor.
His cravat had to be tied in a certain way so that the ends laid flat without being too uneven. The pin had to be even and sit right below the knot. His vest was always buttoned from top to bottom. His jacket, the last thing before leaving the house.
Once, Artemy had come early in the morning with words about the panacea. Daniil had been retying and repinning his cravat for ten minutes when Eva let him in. Frozen for a second, the Bachelor had been worried that his colleague would be cruel about the situation. How does it take a man with your kind of degree near a quarter of an hour to lay a cravat?
Instead, the folk doctor had sat patiently at the desk, giving little attention to Daniil's fingers twisting the fabric again and again ad infinitum. Artemy made eye contact in the mirror and had kindly began to discuss his new findings. Not a single word was uttered about how Daniil's shoulders seemed to tense when he inspected the knot before smoothing his vest. The Haruspex had sat, a mountain of a man crammed in a small desk chair, and spoken in that familiar soft tone of voice that eased the tension between the shoulder blades.
When both men had decided it was time to depart for the hospital that day, Artemy had kindly offered opened doors to Daniil. If the taller man saw eyes crinkle at the outer corners in a hidden smile, he graciously said nothing.
"There is something debilitating about knowing yourself completely," Daniil had said.
He had been asked, following several sips of twyrine, how he thought about people and their identities. The Haruspex had discussed experiences of being "too Capital for the Steppe, and too Steppe for the Capital." Like silt and water, the menkhu had said. No matter how much they swirl together, they are impossible to keep from separating.
Peter had offered the idea of creation as the most visible form of self identification. One's masterpieces, supposedly, would display to all the unwavering and undying ideas of their creator. Andrey, unsurprisingly, agreed to some extent but added that determination is identification.
"Of course," Andrey had said. "When you're from a place like the Capital, everyone else decides who you are first. Changing their minds is a completely different beast altogether."
Daniil had swallowed hard at that. It was true in his experience. Deciding to become his own person, himself... that had been insufferable. Sometimes, he still wondered if his neighbors in the city looked at him and saw Dankovskaya instead. Those were the days he tied the cravat extra tight and creased his clothing. It was the closest thing he could get to trying to mold himself like a potter with clay.
His excessive business was an excuse, he supposed, not to look at himself too closely in the mirror; to see where lines met and slopes curved and the intersections of self reflection and self destruction. The vest, the cravat, the jacket, were all ways to keep him from crawling out of his skin when his brain was cruel. Is it really destruction of the self if it creates a new being?
Artemy had found him once, panicking in the Theatre Hospital. A seam between the fingers of his gloves had come undone while he was attending to a patient. There hadn't been enough clean water for Daniil to justify using a bottle on his hands. The healer had found the Bachelor staring at his hands near the onstage cabinet, murmuring to himself.
According to the Haruspex, he had heard little beyond Daniil's mumble of unkind words towards himself and the world. That had been enough for the menkhu to open a bottle on his hip and pour a little over stiff fingers. He had said it was like watching ice thaw away, revealing the typical condescending attitude and pretension Daniil projected to strangers, immediately withdrawing into himself after realizing who had helped him.
Daniil knew he would never perform surgery on himself unless it was a dire circumstance. It simply wasn't safe, he recited. Colleagues would be able to see more clearly, cut more precisely, carve rather than hack. Even so, there was something so tempting in taking fate into his own hands alongside a scalpel. But no, he was not to make himself into an abomination of flesh and bone. Although, depending on the day, he already was.
Kindness, he seemed to know, was rarely afforded to men in this cruel world. Not to mention those men of his - status? Was that the right word? Condition, maybe. It- it debilitated him, certainly, and it was far from temporary. Existence was made up of edges just subtly too sharp, like new book pages, uncreased and sterile white. People like Burakh, like Eva, he knew, were like an old favorite novel. They were nothing but soft signatures of pages, aged and loved, and damaged but nonetheless favored. You knew they were reliable, made to last, persevere. At least Artemy was the latter two.
Waking suddenly disoriented him. Daniil felt only a moment of panic before the sight of a familiar view out the window soothed his hammering heart. His candle was still a pillar chasing away the dark. The ink he had been writing with now smudged across the page in his efforts to stay awake. At least the ink wasn’t visible on black leather, creased and softened with time and care. Nonetheless, they still had to be cleansed of the stain before the thought consumed him. He undid the cravat that had only taken ten minutes this time, and unbuttoned the front of his vest, hoping that he would be unable to focus on his body if he changed into his nightclothes with enough haste. Maybe the exhaustion induced fuzz at the edges of his vision would help. Undoing the stays was the worst part, especially when he was tired. The candle had almost burned completely to the base of the wick. He probably resembled the Capital’s idea of a spirit, pale skin and white nightclothes fluorescing in the moonlight. How ironic - the famed thanatologist turned to spectre of the deceased. But he was not the one haunting the Stillwater.
Daniil does not fall asleep easily, lain down under uncomfortable blankets with not nearly enough weight to anchor him in his body. Sleep was nothing but a time for the physical body to rest, trapping the conscious within a vulnerable, unguarded form. It was an inconvenience at best, and a hindrance of progress at worst. He is reminded of a long-gone colleague, whose words remain hilariously relevant to his life.
"I’ll sleep when I’m dead."
Dankovsky had said it once at the Hospital when asked about his shaking hands and tired eyes. He remembers that Artemy didn’t find it all that funny, lips turned down in a mimicry of concern. Stakh had snorted a little bit under his breath at the comment, nudging the other doctor without lifting his eyes from the charts he’s updating. Eyebrows drawn together, eyes unreadable - Burakh’s face left the words sour in Daniil’s mouth. The Hospital had been very quiet for the rest of the day. The banter that would usually fill the air had disappeared, the menkhu and doctor each intimately involved in solitary activities. Stakh seemed to have enjoyed the silence. The other healers, decidedly, did not.
Dankovsky had excused himself quickly when the clock chimed seven times, apologizing under his breath and tightening his cravat. His bag, usually packed methodically and routinely, had been hastily assembled in his instinctual urge to go. He needed to leave, he decided. He wasn’t quite sure if he meant the building, the town, or this life. Any would suffice, Daniil mused, as they all had the same end result: Dankovsky would be gone, and so would the unpleasantness he seemed to create in his wake. He was unable to fall asleep that night, wet eyes trained on the darkened ceiling.
The sunlight streaks through the curtains, half pulled together. His gloves are drying near the window where he left them. His shirt and stays left haphazardly near his few other pieces of clothing. It was all so familiar, calm, purgatorial quiet.
Another day, another life. Medice, cura te ipsum.