The young and damn talented restaurant musician Mikhail Kazantsev has no chance of becoming human. Drinking, partying and easy money lead him to one end. On a not so wonderful day for himself, he enters into a strange agreement. And suddenly it flooded. True, businessmen in the 90s were buried in batches. Mikhail can no longer play A minor on the fifth fret. The left hand was crushed into pieces. But our hero complies with the terms of the agreement and again gets away with it. It turns out he's not the only one who knows the secret. Who are these forces that put a spoke in a person’s wheels and prevent him from surviving, how Kazantsev and other characters in this collection of stories defeated them, you will find out by opening the book.