Chapter One begins with the faint buzz of the refrigerator and my own reflection in the black glass of my unplugged laptop. The sky outside is marmalade, streaked with purple. It is the hour when the world’s ambitions slow to a crawl and the streetlights flicker into being. I sit, cross-legged, on my battered gray couch, the phone balanced on my knee, its surface already smudged with nervous fingerprints.
I have opened a blank note, set it to record my voice. The cursor blinks: a tiny, impatient heartbeat. For a long moment, I do nothing except listen to the neighborhood sounds—the distant whine of a scooter, the low murmur of a television through the apartment wall, and the rustle of wind-blown leaves outside my window. My heart pounds as if I’m about to step on stage.
Sancho, who is really named Vytas, but will forever be Sancho to me, is in the kitchen, rattling pans. He hums a folk song I only half-remember, something about a river and the moon and a drunk fisherman, and the melody wraps around me. I want to capture this moment—the warm ordinariness of it, the permission to simply be—before courage deserts me.
I press record. My voice comes out thin and tentative at first, almost a question. "Is this thing on? Of course it is. It always is."
The words tumble out, halting, then gathering speed. I talk about the tin-foil crown, about the absurdity of crowns and titles in the kingdom of the internet. I talk about performance, about masks, about the longing for authenticity when the only thing people see are the carefully cropped corners of my life. I hear myself say, "Maybe this is my quest—not to defeat trolls or slay dragons, but to find a way of being true and visible at the same time. To let the world see me, not the avatar."
I pause, listening to my own breath. Can anyone hear longing in a voice memo? The question hovers, unspoken.
Through the open kitchen door, I catch Vytas watching me. He stands with a wooden spoon in hand, soup bubbling behind him, his brow furrowed in concern—or is that encouragement? The scent of dill and potato drifts through the air, grounding me. He gestures: eat, then talk. I shake my head, mouth a silent, later.
My phone vibrates with a notification: a comment on my last post. A familiar name. A little flutter—Dulcinea's specter, the reader who sees me. For a moment, the parallel universes of my life threaten to collapse: the tangible kitchen, the digital agora, my own voice caught between.
Outside, a siren wails, and I feel the world’s chaos pressing against the thin glass of my window. I could close the note, erase the recording, return to the safety of performed indifference. Or I could keep going, speak the words I have never dared to post, and let them exist, unedited, unadorned.
As if on cue, the power flickers. The screen dims, then brightens. The recording is still running—my words hang in the air, waiting, exposed.
A knock comes at the door. Three sharp raps that do not belong to any neighbor I know. Vytas freezes, spoon hovering mid-stir. The spoon clatters to the counter. My heart leaps in my chest.
Everything is poised on the brink: the recording, the soup, the words I have not yet said, and the unknown visitor at my door.
I stand, the phone still warm in my hand, as the world outside my apartment waits to spill in.