When It Feels Like Everything Is Over… | by Denis Bidukov | Nov, 2025

Russia, autumn 2006.

I was lying on my bed. The room was dark. Whether my eyes were open or closed — I couldn’t tell. Not long ago I had lost my sight. During the day, I could still see faint shapes, as if through a thick fog. But at night, my eyes made no difference — open or shut, it was the same.

I lay there, and despair began to take hold of me.
I was twenty. My parents were already retired. My life felt over. Just yesterday, it seemed, I had found a job that promised everything I’d dreamed of… and now I was trapped in meaningless existence, drowning in helplessness. Sometimes, I would bury my face into the pillow and cry — not loudly, just quietly, biting into the fabric to keep the sound inside.

And then, in one of those moments, I wanted to see again.
But not just wanted — needed it with a desperation I can’t put into words.
It wasn’t like wanting a new phone or a car. It was wanting life itself, with the intensity of someone about to die. I could feel that wish in every cell of my body, like light trying to break through my skin.

At some point, I must have fallen asleep — or rather, slipped into a void. After losing my sight, I often couldn’t tell if I was asleep or awake. The line between the two blurred completely.

Morning came. I got up, found my cigarettes and lighter by touch, and went to smoke — also by touch. Smoking when you’re nearly blind is its own kind of ritual. You don’t see the cigarette, nor the flame — only a faint glow. You wave the cigarette back and forth in front of the lighter until that tiny flash tells you: contact. You inhale, and the smoke tastes like habit and surrender.

Every morning, I promised myself I’d quit. Every morning, I didn’t.

But this time, something was different.
In the middle of that automatic motion, I suddenly saw the outline of the flame. And of the cigarette. At first, I thought it was a trick — some ghost of memory. But when I guided the lighter closer, I saw the flame touch the tip. I made a deep drag, and a shiver ran down my back.

The shapes were blurry, magnified ten times — but they were there.

I put out the cigarette — this time, not by touch, but because I could see the ashtray in front of me. Dark against the bright background. For the first time in months, I didn’t have to grope my way through the apartment. I could walk, guided not by my hands, but by that soft haze of light and color.

I went to my room, lay face down on the pillow — and cried again.
But this time, not from despair.
From joy.

And this is only the beginning…