Synopsis
Victor is out at sea. He is in his cabin when another crew member tells him there is a phone call for him, presumably from his wife. Through the noise he hears, “Nika is dead.” Still, he screams into the receiver, “I can’t hear what you’re saying!”
Victor gets off the ship and travels to his home city.
When the doctor finishes talking, Victor turns away and listlessly looks out the window. Everything suddenly zooms in on him.
Outside of the hospital, Victor waits for a bus but it doesn’t arrive. He starts walking towards home in the freezing wind and soon sees a bus on the side of the road. The driver is asleep at the wheel. Another bus is standing at the next bus stop where a woman is sleeping. The entire city is asleep: people lie in snow-covered streets, in shops and restaurants... Some mumble or toss around in their sleep, others just lie motionless, but none can be woken up.
Victor goes home to his apartment. He changes his clothes, waters the plants and does the usual household chores as if nothing happened and Nika is on her way home from work. But she never arrives. Victor goes to bed and tries to get to sleep. He remembers the song Nika sang at a karaoke place the night before he left to go to sea: it was a sad song with a chorus that kept repeating. When they got home that night she was sick in the bathroom, and acting cold with him. Now, the apartment was quiet. Unbearably quiet.
Victor leaves the apartment, drags a sleeping family out of their car and drives back to the pier where his ship is moored. Everyone on board is asleep as well. Victor watches them breathe in their sleep.
Suddenly he senses movement and goes looking for the source. The only other person who is awake is the ship’s mechanic Dmitry. Victor remembers how on that last night on shore he was jealously watching Nika and Dmitry dance together. Now Nika was dead and Dmitry was the only person awake in this world.
Victor watches Dmitry furtively, following him to the engine room. He creeps up to him and hits him hard on the head again and again until, completely exhausted, he slumps to the floor beside the lifeless body.
Standing before the judge, Victor cannot explain why he committed the murder. The prosecutor claims that the reason was jealousy; the attorney insists that Victor acted in a state of temporary insanity because he could not resign himself to the loss of his wife. Victor sits there as if in a slumber, not reacting to any questions or accusations. He doesn’t even hear the judge announce his sentence. Victor sees himself walking alone across an ice-locked sea, disappearing into the distance, leaving behind nothing but emptiness.