Small Fry begins with Nevyraz­i­mov hunched over his desk, try­ing to com­pose a sim­ple East­er greet­ing while the room offers him noth­ing but the sound of foot­steps and the scut­tling of a cock­roach. The qui­et around him is not peace but a kind of dull weight press­ing against his spir­it. He knows that beyond the walls, the world is full of light, church bells, and peo­ple in motion, all caught up in the warmth of cel­e­bra­tion. His pen moves slow­ly, as though even his thoughts are stuck in the same dull loop as his dai­ly life. Each word he writes car­ries the hes­i­ta­tion of some­one who feels dis­con­nect­ed from joy. He is a man aware of the spring beyond the glass, but trapped in win­ter with­in.

The chimes in the dis­tance remind him of what he’s miss­ing, and they bring more pain than com­fort. East­er should be a time of renew­al, yet for Nevyraz­i­mov, it high­lights every­thing unful­filled. He thinks back to choic­es he’s made, to missed chances and paths nev­er tak­en, and he blames both him­self and the sys­tem. The pover­ty of his envi­ron­ment reflects his own men­tal landscape—dry, sparse, and full of long­ing. Even the pres­ence of Para­mon, the porter, offers lit­tle reprieve. A shared word or moment with him only reminds Nevyraz­i­mov how rare human con­nec­tion has become in his life. Though he smiles briefly, the weight of his cir­cum­stances returns almost imme­di­ate­ly.

His con­tem­pla­tion drifts into uncom­fort­able ter­ri­to­ry as he imag­ines how some­one like him might steal or betray to break free. But these aren’t real plans—they’re more like symp­toms of despair, flick­er­ing in the shad­ows of his rou­tine thoughts. He does not act on them, but their pres­ence shows just how suf­fo­cat­ing his sur­round­ings have become. The lone­li­ness is not loud, but it’s con­stant. There’s no escape, not because he’s phys­i­cal­ly trapped, but because every direc­tion seems equal­ly bleak. His sta­tion in life feels fixed like a piece of fur­ni­ture in that office—unnoticed, unchanged, and slow­ly fad­ing.

Even the small­est joys, such as the qui­et rhythm of bells or the scent of spring air, can­not touch him for long. They tease him with what oth­ers have and he doesn’t. His envi­ron­ment has taught him to expect lit­tle, and even dreams come with guilt. Yet, beneath the weari­ness, there is a flick­er of recog­ni­tion that he once had dif­fer­ent hopes. The man he once was—curious, ambi­tious, maybe even kind—still lingers some­where deep inside, but is muf­fled by the dai­ly grind and the invis­i­bil­i­ty that comes with being “small fry.” In these moments, his pain is not loud but deeply human.

It becomes clear that Nevyraz­i­mov is not bit­ter because he lacks wealth, but because he lacks mean­ing. His labor feels use­less, his opin­ions unheard, and his pres­ence unno­ticed. What cuts deep­est is not hunger or cold, but the cer­tain­ty that he could dis­ap­pear and noth­ing in the world would change. This sense of insignif­i­cance is what slow­ly carves away his spir­it. He doesn’t crave fame or fortune—he sim­ply wants to mat­ter to some­one, to be seen as more than a cog in the machine. But in his world, even that feels like too much to ask.

By the end of the day, noth­ing changes. Nevyraz­i­mov folds the let­ter with care and pre­pares to leave the office, know­ing that his moment of hope has already slipped away. Out­side, the world remains beau­ti­ful and alive, but he walks through it as though under a cloud. The office will still be there tomor­row, wait­ing like a cage. “Small Fry” is not just a sto­ry about pover­ty; it’s a sto­ry about invis­i­bil­i­ty, and about how the absence of pur­pose can dull even the bright­est spir­it. The tragedy is not in what Nevyraz­i­mov does—but in all he can­not bring him­self to do.