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Three. Between Breaths

27.01

My head spun as though someone inside it were slowly rocking the world from side to side. I couldn’t remember exactly how yesterday had passed. Only fragments remained: pages melting into one endless story; tea that had long since gone cold in its cup; and silence growing thicker and thicker until it began to make a sound of its own. Yesterday I spent the entire day reading. Only toward evening did I force myself to stand, go downstairs to the kitchen, and make some tea. By the time I returned to my study, I could barely feel either exhaustion or hunger anymore—only a strange emptiness with no bottom. I was wearing a gray sweater, oversized and slightly stretched, with nothing but plain underwear beneath it. My hair had escaped from its careless bun again, loose strands falling across my face, but I didn’t even bother brushing them away. I hadn’t taken my medication in more than two weeks. With every passing day, the world seemed to lose a little more of its sharpness. Sometimes I thought I heard footsteps where there were none. Other times, it felt as though the silence itself was watching me too closely. Controlling myself my own thoughts was becoming nearly impossible. They no longer asked for permission. They simply came.

I sat in the armchair with a cup of tea in my hands, staring out the window. Beyond the glass, the night had spilled across the sky like black ink, and the stars shone with unnatural brilliance, as if someone had deliberately turned up their light. I don’t remember the moment I fell asleep. Only the slow descent into darkness, the cup still warm between my hands. My eyes were fixed on the sky. On the constellation Cygnus, known in old books as the Cross of Heaven. Its shape had always seemed strangely perfect to me, almost comforting—as though someone had drawn a line of light through chaos itself and, for just a moment, forced it into silence. They say it symbolizes the soul’s passage through darkness toward something that resembles light. But that night, even that sounded like a cruel joke. I fell asleep looking straight at it. And then came the dream… I am standing in front of a mirror. An ordinary one. Old. Slightly coated with dust. The room is dimly lit, making the reflection appear even more unfamiliar. It stares back at me with empty eyes, copying every movement with perfect—almost unnatural—precision. I raise my hand. It raises its hand. I furrow my brow. It does the same. But something is wrong. At first I can’t tell what it is, and that uncertainty slowly spreads through me like thick, sticky fear. I take a step backward. The reflection doesn’t move.

“What the…”

My voice tears through the silence, echoing off the walls. But the thing inside the mirror says nothing. Instead, its lips slowly curl into a bitter, unnatural smile. And in that instant, I know.

It isn’t me.

The skin of the reflection begins to crack like old paint peeling from a wall. Flakes slide away one by one, revealing something cold beneath.

Metal.

Lifeless.

Its eyes remain exactly where they are, but they no longer look human. They are empty.

Doll-like.

Without depth. Then it begins to change. The face in the mirror melts into another.

Esther appears first.

Her dark, wavy hair, falling just below her shoulders, looks unnaturally heavy, as though it isn’t growing from her head but simply hanging there on its own. Her skin is pale, almost lifeless, the kind that light doesn’t touch but merely slips past. But the worst part is her eyes.

Brown.

A warm amber shade that should have been comforting. Now, there is no warmth left in them.

Only an impossibly long, motionless stare, as though she isn’t looking at me but straight through me. Every trace of softness is gone. What remains is only attentiveness—cold and unnatural, like something learning how to be human. The beauty mark on her left cheek seems too distinct. As though it had been painted on. Then her face begins to break apart.

Esther fractures like a poorly assembled reflection, and beneath her, another presence slowly emerges.

Mother.

She has no face.

Only emptiness where one should have been.

And yet I know it’s her.

Her perfume reaches me first—a light, slightly sweet fragrance. But now something about it is wrong. As though the scent had been mixed with something stale, something old, something that should never have lingered in the air for so long. It doesn’t simply appear. It fills the room. It drowns out everything else. Then comes her voice. Too even. Without a single breath between the words, as though it isn’t spoken at all but replayed. It doesn’t come from the mirror. It comes from everywhere at once.

Her hands appear last. Long, delicate fingers that were once familiar now move with terrifying precision. They aren’t searching for me. They already know exactly where I am. Slowly, they press against the glass from the other side.

Mother’s image begins to fracture as well.

I see Esther.

A few seconds later, Mother appears again.

And then it begins to change.

The face in the mirror flows from one into another.

Esther.

Mother.

Something else.

Esther again.

Mother again.

The faces keep changing, as though someone is turning the pages of a book.

But every one of them is me, taken apart and rearranged into borrowed faces.

Mother’s silhouette lingers longer than the others.

Her hand slowly reaches toward the glass.

I step backward, fumbling for the door.

My fingers slide across the cold surface, but the handle refuses to move.

I pull harder.

Again.

Pointless.

Meanwhile, the reflection tilts its head to one side, watching me with quiet curiosity.

Almost with tenderness.

Its fingertips touch the glass.

At that exact moment, I feel the touch against my own skin.

A shiver races down my spine, sharp and cold like an electric current.

“Are you certain you’re the one out there…

…and I’m the one trapped in here?”

The voice doesn’t belong to the room.

It rises from somewhere far below, like the echo of an empty well with no bottom.

I wake up gasping for air.

The darkness in the room feels unnaturally dense.

I sit perfectly still, staring at the window, where my own reflection is only barely visible.

And the first thought that comes to me is so quiet it doesn’t even feel like mine.

What if I really am going to die?

28.01

…

29.01

…

30.01

…

31.01

My head hurts so much…

…

Hunger.

Hun…ger.

My heart was beating far too hard.

Br…ea…

It feels like she hasn’t eaten in a very long time.

One…

Two…

Three…

A crash. Blackness.

02.02

Am I alive?..

03.02

A few days ago, I fainted. Probably from exhaustion. Or maybe because, lately, I had been existing far more than I had been living. I remember only the strange feeling that came just before everything disappeared. At first, the world drifted away. As though someone had suddenly stretched a thin, translucent veil between me and reality. The sounds grew muffled. My heartbeat became unbearably loud. Then my body turned hollow, as if someone had pulled every bone from inside me and left behind nothing but an empty shell. The air no longer filled my lungs the way it should. Dark spots swam across my vision. And then, within a second, everything was gone. As though someone had simply switched off the light. After that… I started eating.

Too much.

As if my body had decided to take revenge for all those days when I had forgotten it even existed. I ate everything I could find. Not because I was hungry. Simply because I couldn’t stop. I finished the last of the cookies. Opened cans of food. Cooked porridge. Made sandwiches. Found chocolate I had forgotten I even had.

Within just a few days, it felt as though I had emptied half the refrigerator. And even then… I kept opening it.

Again.

And again.

AND AGAIN.

But the hunger never really went away. Only now, it wasn’t my stomach that was hungry. It was something deeper. Something inside me trying to fill an emptiness with anything it could find. As though the answer to every question that kept me awake at night might somehow be hiding there.

One day, I pulled a container from the back of the refrigerator. Whatever had been inside should have been thrown away long ago. I stared at it for a few seconds, fully aware that the food had spoiled. Yet I didn’t put it back. I started eating it greedily. Without a fork. Without a spoon. With my hands. As if it were the last meal I would ever have. It smelled revolting. I kept eating until nausea rolled through me. Even after I started gagging, I couldn’t make myself stop. What frightened me wasn’t that I had eaten it. What frightened me was how little I seemed to care. Later, I sat staring at the wall.

An hour passed. Then I found myself back in the kitchen, searching for something else to eat. As though I were trying to fill a vast hole inside myself. But it never filled. It only grew deeper.

The next few days blurred together into one long stretch of gray.

Coffee.

Cigarettes.

Coffee.

More cigarettes.

Sometimes books in between.

I’d wake up, pour myself an Americano, and step out onto the porch. The freezing air bit at my cheeks and fingertips. The wind slipped mercilessly beneath my cardigan, creeping under my clothes so effortlessly that it felt as though nothing was protecting me at all. I stood there with a cigarette between my fingers, staring into the distance. At the trees. At the empty road. At everything. And at nothing. Smoke drifted slowly upward, dissolving into the cold morning air. Sometimes I thought it looked alive. As though it gathered itself into familiar silhouettes that vanished the moment I blinked. I began looking over my shoulder more often. Listening more carefully. The house creaked at night. The wind tapped branches against the windows. The floorboards whispered beneath their own weight in empty rooms. Ordinary things. And yet, sometimes it felt as though someone was watching me. Only from the corner of my eye. Only for a second. Just long enough for my heart to miss a beat. I spent hours in my study, hidden among the bookshelves. Turning page after page until the letters blurred before my eyes. Because books were safe. In books, every ghost was eventually given an explanation. Unlike mine.

I hate myself for this.

I HATE IT.

I hate it.

IHATEITIHATEITIHATEITIHATEIT

I hate it.

I HATE IT.

TIETAHI.

I hate it.

NOT.

ME.

I HTAE IT.

ihateitihateitihateitihateit

tietahi

I HATE IT.

ihateitihateitihateit

~~I HATE ESTHER.~~

I HATE MYSELF.

I hate myself.

I HATE IT.

IHATEITIHATEITIHATEIT

Ihateit

IHTAEIT

IHTEAIT

IHATEIT

I HATE IT.

TIETAHI.

I hate it.

I HATE IT.

TIETAHI.

I HATE IT.

I HATE ESTHER.

I HATE MYSELF.

I HATE IT.

I hate it.

I HATE IT.

TIETAHI.

I HATE IT.

IHTAEIT.

IHATEIT.

…

I hate myself…

I slowly made my way downstairs. The kitchen greeted me with chaos. There were cups on the table.

So many cups.

Some still held a thin layer of dark coffee at the bottom, long abandoned. Brown stains had dried along the porcelain, surrounded by cookie wrappers, crumpled napkins, and spoons I had somehow never carried back to the sink. I couldn’t even remember leaving them there. It felt as though the house had begun to age faster than I had. When I opened the porch door, I stopped. Cigarette butts lay scattered beside the steps. Dozens of them. One after another, they had piled up into a tiny graveyard of habits I could never seem to leave behind. The wind pushed dust and brittle leaves between them, gathering them into the corners. I stared at them and suddenly realized I couldn’t remember a single cigarette. They had all blurred together into one long, gray stretch of time. I went back inside. The air was heavy. Stale. The windows had remained shut for so long that the scent of coffee, old paper, tobacco, and dust had fused into something else. Something thick. Something sleepy. Every breath felt slightly heavier than the last. I walked past the living room. Past the mirror I didn’t even look at. The house was quiet. So quiet that I could hear the clock ticking from the other end of the hallway. For some reason, that only made me feel lonelier. It was as though the world kept moving somewhere beyond the windows. And I had been left here. With the dust.

The coffee cups.

The empty rooms.

Myself.

07.02

I took a pill.

09.02

Everything… is better?

The cigarettes burned away much more slowly.

The coffee in my mug seemed warmer.

The books looked brighter.

Sleep felt kinder.

I feel…calmer?

For the first time in what feels like forever, anxiety isn’t the one controlling me. Real, vivid emotions rise with every breath I take.

10.02

The porch shimmered with the rain that had fallen earlier, like a strip of film beneath a projector’s light. The street was empty—as though the world had given me a little more time. The silence wasn’t frightening. It was comforting. As if someone had cut out a small piece of the night just for me and sealed it inside a glass jar. An old song was playing in the kitchen. No words. Only the gentle sound of a piano accompanied by a violin. A melody with a soul of its own. A mug of sweet coffee rested in my hand. Not out of habit. For the feeling.

“I love the silence,” I heard myself say. The words carried no meaning. Only warm thoughts.

I have a poem.

Solitude as a Means of Survival

She loved coffee.

Bitter. Strong. Nearly cold.

But she loved solitude even more. It became her refuge the moment the world taught her one simple truth:

No one would ever need her as much as she needed herself. Once, she had been too alive.

Too loud. Too full of restless energy, dreams, and words.

But as the years passed, her life grew quiet, closed off like a room suspended in half-light, where only books, the scent of coffee, and the endless noise of her own thoughts remained. She was happy there.

Long ago, she had learned to find comfort in her own silence. She loved books.

She loved the forest, where the wind spoke more softly than people ever could. She loved coffee warming her hands on cold mornings.

And she loved the rare kind of peace that had slowly begun slipping through her fingers. Living in a world that demanded constant presence was exhausting.

Constant replies. Constant conversations.

Constant reminders to be there.

There were simply too many people.

Too many voices. Too much noise. All she wanted was silence.

She knew herself too well. She knew the source of every storm inside her.

She understood why people exhausted her. She wasn’t searching for herself.

She was searching for a place where her soul could finally exhale without saying a word.

Although… Perhaps she had already found it.

Somewhere between the pages of old books, the scent of coffee, and solitary walks through the woods. And perhaps solitude was the only thing that had never betrayed her.

All my life, I had been hyperactive. As a child, people called it energy.

As I grew older, it became a problem. Whenever I disappeared into my thoughts, I felt better.

But people never liked that. They hated that I stopped listening.

That I vanished in the middle of conversations without ever leaving the room.

She loved coffee. She loved solitude.

She loved the peace that had abandoned her long ago. What she could never understand was why people expected constant closeness.

Why every relationship seemed to demand endless attention instead of simple understanding. There were too many people.

Far too many. She had grown used to living this way while everyone else mistook her silence for arrogance, or a desperate attempt to stand out.

She no longer cared. She understood herself.

She knew where her mind wandered. She knew why she felt the way she did.

She knew where her pain came from. She wasn’t trying to find herself.

She was trying to find a better way to live. Until one event destroyed all of that.

She loved being alone. Reading somewhere deep in the forest, where there were fewer people.

She loved coffee—not because it kept her awake for a few extra hours, but because it brought her a quiet kind of happiness. People always said coffee was bad for you.

That it raised your blood pressure. Liars.

Coffee had never really affected her. It was like cigarettes.

At first, they made you feel sick. Eventually, your body forgot how to protest.

It seemed…

as though the world had finally agreed to wait.

11.02

I woke up before my alarm.

Morning light barely filtered through the curtains, leaving pale streaks across the ceiling. For a few seconds, I simply lay there, watching them. My head felt strangely light. As though someone had finally opened a window in a room where the air hadn’t changed in years. I turned toward the clock.

08:14.

On mornings like this, it usually took me several minutes just to convince myself to sit up. But today, my body obeyed without resistance. The floor was cold. I winced and reached for the cardigan draped over the back of the chair. My curls had completely lost their shape during the night, springing in every direction. The kitchen was chilly. After setting the kettle on to boil, I opened the porch door. The freezing air struck my face at once. Winter wasn’t ready to let go just yet. I lit a cigarette and leaned my shoulder against the wooden post. Somewhere in the distance, a crow cawed. The street was almost empty. The first drag burned my throat. I closed my eyes.

The wind stirred my hair. The wooden steps creaked softly beneath my feet. For the first time in a very long while, I wasn’t thinking about the past. Or the future. Only that a cup of coffee would feel exactly right. When the kettle began to whistle, I went back inside. The Americano came out strong. With the mug cradled in my hands, I stood by the kitchen window, watching the sun slowly rise above the rooftops of the neighboring houses. The world felt wonderfully ordinary.

Sometimes, I don’t need very much. Just for the morning to remain… a morning. The shower finally washed away the last traces of sleep. I stood beneath the warm water longer than I’d intended, letting it run over my shoulders and down my back. Steam slowly filled the bathroom, settling over the mirror in a thin veil. At some point, my reflection disappeared completely. Back in the bedroom, I opened the wardrobe. My gaze drifted over a few shirts, sweaters, and cardigans. Eventually, I settled on a pair of loose dark trousers and a light, chunky-knit sweater. As always, the sleeves swallowed half my hands. My curls were drying on their own after the shower. A few stubborn strands had already begun to fall across my face. I didn’t brush them away. Let them. They’re better that way.

The scent of morning coffee still lingered in the kitchen. While the bread toasted, I stood by the window, looking out over the yard. The old lamp by the gate was still glowing. Its yellow light looked strangely unnecessary in the daylight. Breakfast was simple. Toast. Fried eggs. And another cup of coffee. I ate slowly, flipping through an old book I’d left on the table a few days earlier. My fingers kept pausing over certain sentences. Some lines I read twice. Others three times.

Simply because I liked them. After breakfast, I carried my mug to the sink and finally decided to open the windows. Cold air rushed into the house at once. A freezing draft swept through the hallway, making me pull my cardigan tighter around myself. But the stale smell of old tobacco and trapped air slowly began to disappear. The rooms seemed to exhale, filling themselves with fresh air. Especially the study. That’s where I spent most of the day. The sun wandered slowly across the floor while I sat in the armchair by the window, a book resting in my hands. The detective novel turned out to be unexpectedly brilliant. The author had hidden tiny clues in almost every chapter. I even grabbed a notebook and began writing down my theories. Who was lying.

Who was most likely the murderer. An hour later, the page was covered with arrows, names, and hastily scribbled notes. It made me laugh. It looked as though I were conducting the investigation myself. Around two in the afternoon, the sunlight grew warmer. I picked up a psychology book I’d been putting off for weeks. Then another. And another. At some point, there were four open books spread across the desk at once. A perfectly normal situation for me. I sat with my legs tucked onto the armchair beside me, sipping green tea while filling the margins with notes. Every now and then my thoughts drifted somewhere else.

When they did, I simply looked out the window. Thinking about nothing in particular. Maybe that’s what peace feels like. Simply being able to sit by a window without wanting to escape your own mind. Toward evening, I lit the fireplace. The flames slowly consumed the logs, filling the living room with the quiet crackle of burning wood. I brought a kettle from the kitchen. A large mug of green tea. A blanket. And my book. In the end, I stayed there for almost two hours. Outside, darkness gradually settled over the world. The shadows inside the room stretched longer. The fire reflected softly in the window. The house felt warm. The way it had many years ago. When she used to sit here beside me. For the first time in a very long while, I didn’t want to run from the silence. It no longer suffocated me. It simply stayed beside me. Like an old friend I’d forgotten for far too long.

12.02

10:12

Today feels strangely similar to yesterday. So much so that I had to check the date on my phone. I woke up at almost exactly the same time. Made coffee again. Stepped onto the porch with a cigarette again. Even the weather seemed unwilling to invent anything new. The sky was wrapped in gray clouds. The wind still whistled through the gaps in the old fence. After my shower, I spent a long time brushing my hair while sitting on the edge of the bed. Then I caught myself realizing I’d been brushing it for several minutes after it was already perfectly untangled. Lately, I keep freezing like that. As though my brain forgets, for a moment, that it’s supposed to keep going. There was a pastry left from yesterday in the kitchen. I ate it with my coffee and even opened a window. The house smelled of wood, paper, and something warm. I went upstairs to the study. For a few minutes, the sun slipped through the clouds and landed directly on the bookshelves. The dust floating through the light looked like tiny flecks of gold. Eventually, I picked up the psychology book. Then the detective novel. Some time later, I realized I was curled up in the armchair with my legs tucked beneath me, a green mug of tea warming my hands… and I felt good. Simply… good. That feeling has become rare lately. Around two o’clock, I even cooked myself a proper lunch. At least it was actual food instead of coffee and cigarettes. While the grain simmered on the stove, I put on an old jazz record and started cleaning the kitchen. I gathered the cups. Took out the trash. I was honestly surprised by my own productivity. For a few minutes, it felt as though I was taking my life back. That evening, I sat by the fireplace. The flames flickered in the window’s reflection. My tea had long since gone cold. The book rested open across my lap. I wasn’t reading. I was simply watching the fire. Moments like these make the house feel alive. The old floorboards creak softly. The pipes groan somewhere deep inside the walls. Sometimes the wind brushes gently against the house. Together, it all sounds like breathing. Anywhere else would have felt far lonelier. Before going to bed, I stepped onto the porch one last time. The stars looked especially bright. I like the way cold air fills my lungs. I liked not thinking about anything. As I’m writing this now, the clock is approaching eleven at night. A mug of green tea sits on the table. The last logs are dying in the fireplace. Everything feels right. Almost suspiciously right. As though life has decided to give me a brief moment to rest… before reminding me it’s still there.

13.02

I woke to the sound of my alarm.

07:30.

For a few seconds, I lay perfectly still, trying to remember what day it was. I couldn’t. I turned off the alarm and spent another minute staring at the ceiling. The crack above the window was still there. The shadows of the branches outside fell in exactly the same place. Even the folds in the blanket looked familiar. As though I’d already lived this morning before. Yesterday’s mug was waiting for me in the kitchen. The one from the day before was still there too. I washed them absentmindedly, barely thinking about it. Then I set the coffee pot on the stove and waited. The coffee came to a boil. I stepped onto the porch. Lit a cigarette. Looked at the trees. Went back inside. Everything happened so automatically that sometimes it felt as though I were watching someone else. As though someone had pressed play on an old videotape that kept replaying the same scene over and over again. After breakfast, I picked up a book. An hour later, I realized I’d read the same paragraph three times. I looked out the window. At the bookshelf. At the clock. Back to the window. Time moved strangely slowly. Around noon, I put on an old film. Human voices filled the room, but somehow they never reached me. I sat by the fireplace, turning a lighter over in my hands, when I realized I couldn’t remember what the previous film had been about. Or the one before that. Or the one I’d watched a few days earlier. They had all blurred together into one long strip of gray. Toward evening, I picked up my book again. Made another cup of tea. Stepped outside for another cigarette. The sky was beautiful. Maybe even breathtaking. I just couldn’t feel it anymore. It occurred to me that if someone removed today and replaced it with any other day from the past month… I probably wouldn’t notice the difference. I finished my cigarette and stared at the filter between my fingers for a long time. Then I dropped it beside all the others.

15.02

I don’t know what to do with myself anymore… Every day is the same. Books. Cigarettes. Coffee. Films. It feels less like living and more like being trapped in Groundhog Day.Everything repeats itself. Exactly the same. I can’t bring myself to go for a walk. It feels as though everyone is looking at me. But staying inside isn’t any easier. The house is suffocating me. The cigarettes seem to burn faster than I can think. Inside my own thoughts, I feel as though I’m slowly disappearing. Yesterday, I noticed something strange in the bathroom.At first, I didn’t pay much attention. I was standing in front of the mirror after my shower, drying my hair with a towel. My eyes drifted across my shoulder… Then my collarbones. Then my stomach. Moles. So many of them. I’d always known they were there. A few on my arms. A few on my back. One near my ribs that I can remember having since childhood. But yesterday, it suddenly felt as though there were more. I sat down on the edge of the bathtub and started counting them. One. Three. Fifteen. Twenty. Just on my torso. The longer I looked, the more I found. Maybe they’d always been there. Maybe I’d simply never looked closely enough. But for some reason, that thought wasn’t comforting. Then I remembered an article I’d read a long time ago. It said that moles can change throughout your life. They can appear because of sun exposure, hormones, age, or simply genetics. Most of them are completely harmless. But it also said that changes are worth paying attention to. That sometimes new moles are a reason to see a doctor. After remembering that, I couldn’t stop thinking about them. I stared at them as though they’d appeared overnight. As though my body had been quietly changing without asking my permission. People used to frighten me. Now my own reflection is beginning to. Sometimes it feels as though I’m slowly fading away. As though every day another tiny piece of me breaks off… and I don’t even notice. All that’s left is the shell. The habits. The same rooms. The same thoughts. Sometimes I catch myself staring at my own hands for several minutes. Just staring. As though I’m checking whether they still belong to me. More and more often, it feels as though there’s no place for me in this world. As though everyone else has already found their direction… while I somehow got lost between the pages of my own life and can no longer find the way out. Maybe that’s why I’ve been looking into mirrors so often lately. Just to make sure… that I still exist. It feels as though there is no place for me in this world.

Solitude as a Means of Survival

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