Prologue

So much has shifted in my vision over these past few weeks as I’ve been exploring certain things about the world, history, and human relationships. It’s as if I used to look at the world through a prism that turned everything upside down and distorted it. Now, I’ve taken it away from my eyes. I’ve taken an honest look at things that happened to me a long time ago—things I should have let go of ages ago, yet they still hold me in a death grip somewhere deep in my soul.
Right now, I have very little strength to do anything—to take photos, to draw, to write. I mean, I have no strength at all, so I don’t know how this will go. Nevertheless, at this very moment, some small sparks of energy are appearing, and I will start writing right now.
For now, I will be publishing private posts. Everyone who is still a "fan" of the project I’m about to discuss—I have removed them from my friends and blocked them. (I feel ashamed even to write or say the name, so I’ll try not to be harsh; perhaps I won’t even mention the project's name in this post for now). Our paths have diverged. I simply caught myself thinking that I couldn’t write candidly about this project as long as I knew they would read it. It’s hard for me to detach myself and stop seeing things through the paradigm of their vision.
Maybe what I write will be very boring or repulsive, but I still feel the need to describe it all, so it doesn't eventually vanish into oblivion along with me. Fine, let it even be out of order. But I will describe it honestly—the way I see it, not the way it's convenient for others.
I am starting, though not from the beginning. And perhaps this will be my last post on the subject. In fact, I don’t even know if I’ll publish it. I’ll write it, sure, but whether I’ll find the courage to hit that "Publish" button—even for friends—I don’t know yet. I think I’ll make it a private post for now, and as I talk to people, if anyone is interested, I might open it up then.
I, too, was cruel on this project. There was an elderly "actor"—or rather, an old man from a nursing home who was brought in to play the aging lead character. One day, he complained about me to Asya, the assistant director. Asya came to the Institute (the massive set where we lived in Soviet clothes, surrounded by Soviet objects). Before that, he had demanded I call her because I had become "unbearable" and he wanted to quit the project.
I was in my fourth month there. I was at my breaking point. I remember snapping at this old man, shouting at him, being rude. I perceived him as an energy vampire. Perhaps old people are just like that—it’s difficult with them. But the real "chief vampire" of this project was lurking somewhere else.
Asya arrived at the house-set where we lived. They talked in the living room while I stayed in my room. That evening, another assistant, Inna, summoned me to the "Office" (the modern space where people wore contemporary clothes—the headquarters for directors and crews, the threshold you had to pass to reach the outside world, or rather, freedom).
Coldly and harshly, she told me that the project was being extended (for another two weeks or a month, but to me, it felt like an eternity). She informed me that my new duty was to read aloud to the old man three times a day—he was blind and bored, and it became clear that this was the condition they used to bribe him into staying.
Everything in my soul went cold. I had no strength left, not even a thought of resisting. I went back to the apartment where I worked as a maid, reached into the sideboard, and found several bottles of hard liquor. I don’t remember exactly what I grabbed that night—vodka or cognac—but I drank the entire bottle. It was my form of protest against the cruelty I encountered there. Instead of rebelling or running away, I chose to punish myself, to sabotage my own health.
Why? Because I was going against my own heart, which had been screaming at me: "Run home! You are losing yourself here!" What exactly I was losing myself for... I’ll write about that some other time. It requires a level of self-scrutiny that is, oh, so uncomfortable.