He woke up a little late that morning.
The air in the room was heavy, carrying the silence only winter knows. He looked out the window.
Grey.
The sun—when had he last seen it? Three months ago, perhaps. Or longer.
For an Italian, the climate was the hardest thing to bear in this country, where he had now lived for five years. It oppressed him—this cold, colourless land. The land of grey and snow.
In this country, there were many things he did not like.
For example, the crows. He saw them now, scattered like black stains across the snow beneath the skeletal trees. They moved clumsily, with a bouncing gait, their dark feathers glinting sinisterly in the pale light, their harsh cries raking the still air. He despised them. Vile, graceless animals, symbols of something sinister.
Evil, he thought.
Evil had been a steady, growing presence in his life since 2020.
He had lived surrounded by feelings of oppression, distrust, and surrealism. These feelings had driven him into regions of the mind he had never before dared to explore—regions where his consciousness ascended to heights he had neither imagined nor sought. But such ascents, he realized, had their cost.
Now, he felt tired. He was tired of thinking. Tired of searching for the truth. Tired of the unrelenting demands he had placed upon his own mind.
But why?
The question hovered, unresolved, until he turned it inward. For a few seconds, he let himself think.
And he knew why.
He didn’t know who he was anymore. Yes, that was it. The truth of it struck him.
In this furious search for truth, he had lost himself. The pursuit had consumed him, eclipsing everything else, until truth had grown more important than himself.
He had severed his connection to himself—lost all sense of attachment to the person he once was.
Any sense of self-love had disappeared.
Mindaugas had written to him in the middle of the night. When he woke, Matteo saw the message:
See you tomorrow at 10. At Huracán. Let’s talk about the project.
Mindaugas belonged to a type common to this austere homeland—shaped, perhaps dictated, by the gelid weather and grey skies.
He had long black hair and handlebar moustaches.
He was a man of plans—plans that were, no doubt, half-formed, prone to confusion, yet resolutely clung to. And still, beneath his resoluteness lay a restlessness, a hunger for something he could neither name nor define.
This was the Lithuanian paradox: a surface calm that belied the ceaseless turbulence within.
When Matteo stepped outside, the snow was falling.
He took a deep, experimental breath of the morning air. It was fresh—sharp and strong. It filled his lungs, exploding powerfully inside.
The coffee shop was situated in the Panorama shopping mall—on the first floor, which, in Lithuania’s curious reckoning, was the second. Its interior design was plain to the point of severity: a long black counter stretched from the elevator to the right, carving a narrow path between itself and a partition wall that enclosed the tables within.
Against the central wall, two sofas, upholstered in what appeared to be aged leather, exuded a weary, lived-in air. The tables and chairs, uniformly black, stood in tidy rows. To the left, a glass balustrade overlooked the floor below, offering a glimpse of other shops and passersby.
The place, with its grey-green walls and cold gleam of metallic countertops, seemed designed less to invite than to withstand.
And yet, Matteo liked it here. The austerity and surreal anonymity sharpened his focus. He found it conducive to work, to creativity, to hours well spent alone among nameless people.
He reached the coffee shop a few minutes before the appointed time, sat at his usual spot, and let his gaze wander. He imagined the snow continuing to fall beyond the enormous upper skylight visible from his table, now.
Mindaugas arrived.
More than a Lithuanian, he looked like someone straight out of a Western movie, with his long black hair and a handlebar moustache that seemed to belong to another era.
He wore a Russian ushanka, the kind that covered his ears. But he certainly wasn't the type to love Russia. He had absorbed all the anti-Russian sentiment that was common here.
When I first spoke to him, he said plainly, "I speak Spanish and Russian. I had to learn Russian at school, but it’s a useless language—good for nothing."
Like most Lithuanians, he was firmly pro-Ukrainian and openly Russophobic.
There were some, though, who thought it made no sense to hate every Russian living here.
Being Russian didn’t mean you were worse than the Ukrainians who had recently arrived.
Many people were angry because the Ukrainians were treated too well. A Ukrainian car parked illegally might be left alone, while a Lithuanian car in the same spot would get fined immediately.
It was the kind of thing that chafed many people in Vilnius.
Grey.
The sun—when had he last seen it? Three months ago, perhaps. Or longer.
For an Italian, the climate was the hardest thing to bear in this country, where he had now lived for five years. It oppressed him—this cold, colourless land. The land of grey and snow.
In this country, there were many things he did not like.
For example, the crows. He saw them now, scattered like black stains across the snow beneath the skeletal trees. They moved clumsily, with a bouncing gait, their dark feathers glinting sinisterly in the pale light, their harsh cries raking the still air. He despised them. Vile, graceless animals, symbols of something sinister.
Evil, he thought.
Evil had been a steady, growing presence in his life since 2020.
He had lived surrounded by feelings of oppression, distrust, and surrealism. These feelings had driven him into regions of the mind he had never before dared to explore—regions where his consciousness ascended to heights he had neither imagined nor sought. But such ascents, he realized, had their cost.
Now, he felt tired. He was tired of thinking. Tired of searching for the truth. Tired of the unrelenting demands he had placed upon his own mind.
But why?
The question hovered, unresolved, until he turned it inward. For a few seconds, he let himself think.
And he knew why.
He didn’t know who he was anymore. Yes, that was it. The truth of it struck him.
In this furious search for truth, he had lost himself. The pursuit had consumed him, eclipsing everything else, until truth had grown more important than himself.
He had severed his connection to himself—lost all sense of attachment to the person he once was.
Any sense of self-love had disappeared.
Mindaugas had written to him in the middle of the night. When he woke, Matteo saw the message:
See you tomorrow at 10. At Huracán. Let’s talk about the project.
Mindaugas belonged to a type common to this austere homeland—shaped, perhaps dictated, by the gelid weather and grey skies.
He had long black hair and handlebar moustaches.
He was a man of plans—plans that were, no doubt, half-formed, prone to confusion, yet resolutely clung to. And still, beneath his resoluteness lay a restlessness, a hunger for something he could neither name nor define.
This was the Lithuanian paradox: a surface calm that belied the ceaseless turbulence within.
When Matteo stepped outside, the snow was falling.
He took a deep, experimental breath of the morning air. It was fresh—sharp and strong. It filled his lungs, exploding powerfully inside.
The coffee shop was situated in the Panorama shopping mall—on the first floor, which, in Lithuania’s curious reckoning, was the second. Its interior design was plain to the point of severity: a long black counter stretched from the elevator to the right, carving a narrow path between itself and a partition wall that enclosed the tables within.
Against the central wall, two sofas, upholstered in what appeared to be aged leather, exuded a weary, lived-in air. The tables and chairs, uniformly black, stood in tidy rows. To the left, a glass balustrade overlooked the floor below, offering a glimpse of other shops and passersby.
The place, with its grey-green walls and cold gleam of metallic countertops, seemed designed less to invite than to withstand.
And yet, Matteo liked it here. The austerity and surreal anonymity sharpened his focus. He found it conducive to work, to creativity, to hours well spent alone among nameless people.
He reached the coffee shop a few minutes before the appointed time, sat at his usual spot, and let his gaze wander. He imagined the snow continuing to fall beyond the enormous upper skylight visible from his table, now.
Mindaugas arrived.
More than a Lithuanian, he looked like someone straight out of a Western movie, with his long black hair and a handlebar moustache that seemed to belong to another era.
He wore a Russian ushanka, the kind that covered his ears. But he certainly wasn't the type to love Russia. He had absorbed all the anti-Russian sentiment that was common here.
When I first spoke to him, he said plainly, "I speak Spanish and Russian. I had to learn Russian at school, but it’s a useless language—good for nothing."
Like most Lithuanians, he was firmly pro-Ukrainian and openly Russophobic.
There were some, though, who thought it made no sense to hate every Russian living here.
Being Russian didn’t mean you were worse than the Ukrainians who had recently arrived.
Many people were angry because the Ukrainians were treated too well. A Ukrainian car parked illegally might be left alone, while a Lithuanian car in the same spot would get fined immediately.
It was the kind of thing that chafed many people in Vilnius.
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