Chapter 1
— Here you go, your boarding pass. Have a pleasant flight.
— Thank you.
With one hand, I try to grab the ticket, while with the other I struggle to pull my suitcase off the conveyor belt. It's incredibly clumsy, but somehow I manage. I turn around and head toward the airport shops. The wheels of my suitcase roll dully across the floor. Around me: the murmur of voices, flight announcements, the smell of coffee, and a cloud of mixed perfumes blending with passengers' sweat, cigarette-soaked clothes, and conditioned air. There isn't much time left before boarding, but I still want to stop by a perfume store.
The chances of finding the right fragrance are incredibly slim. As I search for the shop, my thoughts spiral into reflection. I still can't fully believe that very soon I'll be on vacation in Italy. In Rome.
Usually, I travel to Turkey with my friends, and our vacations rarely extend beyond the hotel grounds, bartender Ahmed, and the all-inclusive buffet. We laugh, take pictures, gossip by the pool, and, God willing, return home without any resort flings. I have nothing against that kind of holiday. There's comfort in its simplicity and predictability. But for the first time, I want something different. I want depth. History. Cobblestone streets. Museums.
Ever since childhood, I'd been obsessed with Ancient Greece and Rome, with their myths and gods. I read those stories until the pages nearly fell apart, and every encyclopedia I owned was about them. Back then, those places felt as unreachable as Atlantis. Because in the mind of a post-Soviet child, the idea that the world was vast and varied simply didn't fit. In books and fairy tales, life could look like that. But reality seemed destined to remain gray apartment blocks, pull-up bars in the courtyard, and summers at your grandmother's village house, not seas on the other side of the world.
Lately, though, my tastes have been changing in almost everything. Not long ago, I completely changed my wardrobe and style, throwing away all my oversized shapeless clothes and buying dresses for the first time. I wanted to feel feminine. Not to the point of wearing floral sundresses, but tailored silhouettes and fitted clothes that accentuate the body? Yes.
My taste in music changed too. Rock no longer gave me the same adrenaline or emotions. In people, I began to appreciate silence instead of noise. I don't know why. I jokingly blame it on the fact that my frontal lobe finally finished developing at twenty-eight.
The same thing is happening with perfume. I'm looking for something unusual. Something impossible to describe to a sales consultant without an awkward pause and an embarrassed glance. I even rehearse the phrase in my head beforehand and realize how insane it sounds.
I want... ecclesiastical lust.
Yes, exactly that.
Even the phrase itself makes me laugh a little. I don't know whether such a fragrance even exists in perfumery, but I'm obsessed with it. No, I never dreamed it. I never smelled it on someone else. It doesn't remind me of an ex. The urge to find it feels more like PMS cravings, when suddenly you desperately want ice cream, and then halfway through you realize what you really want is to eat it with smoked meat. And until you do exactly that, until you eat so much you can barely stand up afterward, the craving won't let you go.
It smells like incense, warm amber, tobacco smoke, expensive leather, wax, fire, and whiskey. It's the scent of half-darkness, candles, silence. Something both holy and sinful at once. Forbidden, yet noble.
I realize I probably won't be able to explain this to a salesperson without blushing. But the thought that somewhere out there such a bottle exists refuses to leave me alone.
So the plan is to search for it in Rome. To find at least something close. Or maybe even create it myself. I read an article about a small perfume house where, under the guidance of a master perfumer, you can create your own fragrance. They use expensive raw materials, natural essences, rare ingredients. Judging by the reviews, the perfumes turn out incredibly long-lasting, deep, with beautiful projection and sillage. The experience costs a fortune, of course. But then again, so does this whole trip.
I grew up in an ordinary family. My father died several years ago. A blood clot broke loose while he was at work. Everything happened suddenly and far too quickly. My mother works as a librarian. She's quiet and patient. During that difficult period, I think books were the only thing that saved her. At first, she disappeared entirely into fictional worlds, detached from reality, resurfacing only to eat or shower. Eventually, it became easier for her, and she returned to work.
I helped her financially and around the house, but I tried not to overwhelm her with advice or questions. I simply watched carefully in case things became truly bad and she slipped into depression. My parents always taught me to observe the world, people, words, and gestures, so, as people like to say nowadays, my emotional intelligence was well developed. I understood that everyone survives grief differently. Some bury themselves in work, others in books. Some need a month, others a year. The important thing is not to make it worse.
As for me, I chose a completely different path. I'm a game developer, a profession many people still consider "unfeminine." People are surprised when they find out what I do. Apparently, they expect some guy in glasses, not a woman. Another stereotype for the collection.
But I love it. And when my father died, I threw myself into work completely. Code calms my mind. You simply know the algorithms and follow them. Still, even with my profession and a decent salary, I had to save for this vacation for almost a year. I put money aside methodically, reconsidered expenses, denied myself impulsive purchases. I made spreadsheets, calculated budgets, constantly comparing things in my head: a new laptop or plane tickets, another handbag or one extra day in Italy.
Sometimes I think I'm far too rational for a woman dreaming of "ecclesiastical lust" bottled as perfume. But maybe that contrast is exactly what makes me who I am.
I slowly walk along the glowing shelves. I find a sales assistant and try to explain the perfume's main notes so I at least have something to guide my search. She hands me one bottle, then another, then a third. I spray fragrances onto blotters, sometimes directly onto my wrist. I inhale, wrinkle my nose, close my eyes, give the scent time to unfold. I try to catch even the faintest trace of that fragrance. But once again, it isn't right. The duty-free search yields nothing.
Everything is either too sweet or too light. Too understandable. One smells like a vanilla candle, another like a flower garden, the third like an office chair. None of them have depth, none possess that inner darkness that draws me in.
I've already grown used to searching for something that may not even exist. It's almost like chasing the ghost of your own imagination. An image born somewhere inside your head, never meant to leave it. But that doesn't stop me.
A voice over the speakers announces boarding. I glance up at the departure board, check my gate number, and feel a wave of excitement rise inside me. Boarding is already underway, and somehow that fills me with even more happiness than the shop windows themselves.
A faint vibration of anticipation stirs in my chest. My heartbeat stays calm and steady, without fear. Flying has never scared me, not even the first time. I remember that flight: my friends nervously gripping the armrests while I stared out the window and felt an odd sense of peace.
The sky has always felt like home to me. A place of silence and balance. Up there, everything seems more honest. As if there are fewer layers of noise between you and heaven. Only clouds, altitude, and the feeling of being closer to something greater. To God. To myself.
Or maybe my soul simply knows I'll die some other way. The thought sounds grim, but black humor was always a stable constant in my family. My personality was built on it from childhood: laughing where others couldn't, speaking lightly about difficult things, hiding pain behind a crooked smile.
Honestly, I'm a rather complicated and peculiar person. Sometimes I feel like a puzzle made from incompatible pieces. Despite my overwhelming empathy, I remain more of an introvert, internally drawn toward solitude. I feel other people's emotions too sharply, sometimes even more strongly than I'd like. But at the same time, I desperately need space where nobody else exists.
I learned how to adapt socially. I have friends, coworkers, acquaintances. I maintain conversations, can be cheerful, engaged, supportive. I know how to listen, ask questions, laugh at the right moment.
But truthfully, I burn out quickly. Once a week is the maximum amount of socializing I can handle. After that, I need recovery time. Endless girl talk, discussions about relationships, dresses, drama, it all drains my internal battery. I sit there smiling and nodding while inside I can feel my charge dropping rapidly. That doesn't mean I'm fake with my friends or pretending emotions. In moments like that, I simply resemble a man who genuinely does not care which of the million dresses you chose to buy and why.
After gatherings like that, I return home feeling as if I've been taken apart piece by piece. I take off my shoes, turn off the lights, sit on the floor against the wall, and simply exist in silence. I need that silence the same way others need conversation.
And maybe that's why I'm flying alone. Because sometimes the best way to discover who you are is to be left alone with an unfamiliar city and your own silence.
Ever since childhood, I preferred male company. It's easier to breathe around them. I spent most of my time with my father and his friends: fishing at dawn when the water looked like dark glass, hunting trips, the smell of bonfire smoke soaked into clothes, gasoline and motor oil, simple conversations without unnecessary drama. Everything there was straightforward. If there were jokes, they were brief. If there was support, it came without extra words.
Around them, I felt calm. I could sit silently staring into the fire and nobody found it strange. I could ask serious questions and receive direct answers. My father simply allowed me to be myself. He never said my questions were too mature for a child. On the contrary, he explained everything patiently while I listened. To him, I was his girl. Maybe not like everyone else, but still his.
That internal wiring never disappeared in adulthood. Alongside my comfort with male straightforwardness came my own hobbies: a shooting range membership and the gym. I love the sensation of weight in my hands, the recoil after a shot, the focus when your entire attention narrows to a single point. At the gym, I love feeling my body become stronger, my muscles responding to strain.
And honestly, I still struggle to think of myself as an adult. Technically, I am one: work, bills, responsibility for projects, budgeting. But internally, it feels as though I got stuck somewhere around twenty-two.
Sometimes I catch myself thinking exactly the way I did back then. With the same idealism. The same belief that everything can still be changed. Inside, I'm still that same girl, except now I have a bank card, a work email, and people expecting decisions from me.
My father's sudden death shattered something fundamental inside me. I still remember that day in detail: my trembling fingers, the muffled sounds, the strange sensation that reality had stepped half a pace away. I don't think I'll ever fully come to terms with losing him. I'm learning to live with it, but I can't truly accept it.
I was daddy's girl. And there was nothing childish about it. He was my soul and my protection. With him, I felt invincible.
My mother and I have a warm, sincere relationship. We can talk about anything. But my father... he carried masculinity and tenderness so naturally that it felt like the norm. He could be strict and gentle at the same time. He could fix a car and then carefully braid my hair afterward.
He possessed an almost unreal sense of responsibility for us. I can't remember a single time he ever said, "I don't know," or "I can't handle this." Even when things were difficult, he acted as though everything was under control. And beside him, the world genuinely felt stable. As though the foundation beneath our feet could never crack.
When he died, it was the first time I realized the ground might not be as solid as it seemed.
The flight passes almost unnoticed. I stare out the window, listening to the hum of the engines, drifting through my thoughts. And suddenly I realize the plane is already landing.
I walk down the stairs onto the runway in Rome. The evening sky is painted deep blue, almost velvet. The air feels warm, dense, slightly humid.
I want to throw my things into the hotel room and immediately go outside, as though the city might disappear if I delay even an hour.
I catch a taxi outside the airport, give the driver the hotel address, and we set off. The car melts smoothly into traffic. Through the window, I see the outskirts, the city center is about half an hour from the airport. Fields of cypress and stone pines. Finally, we enter the city itself. Rome's outskirts remind me of Antalya: relatively modern buildings, but with the atmosphere of a coastal city. The center, though, feels even more majestic than in photographs online. Lights reflect in the windows, building facades glow under soft illumination, signs shimmer in the dark. The city radiates both grandeur and steel.
After quickly dropping my suitcase in the room, I immediately head for the shower. The trip wasn't long, but the old taxi had no air conditioning, and I'd managed to sweat quite a bit. Hot water runs down my shoulders, washing away the road, the exhaustion, the nervousness. I stand beneath the stream unable to believe I'm really here. That this isn't just a city from schoolbooks. It exists.
Getting ready and doing my makeup takes nearly an hour. I carefully choose my outfit, dry my hair, line my eyes with precision. I want to match this city instead of disappearing among countless tourists.
By then, night has fully fallen over Rome. But I have no intention of canceling the walk I waited so long for. I've dreamed about this for too long.
I step outside and decide to find a small restaurant where I can eat and have a drink. I rarely drink alcohol, but right now I feel like I need to relax.
After enjoying a short walk and taking countless photos for memory's sake, I stumble upon a small cozy café near the old Campo de' Fiori market. Most importantly for Rome, there are no aggressive hosts trying to lure tourists inside. That alone gives me hope I've found somewhere genuinely good.
The terrace is packed despite the late hour. A waiter immediately offers me a seat inside at the bar, explaining that everything is full, but promising they'll move me once a table opens up. In the meantime, I can have a drink and order food.
My stomach growls in agreement, and I follow him inside, settling onto a bar stool.
I order an Aperol Spritz and carbonara, enjoying the moment without even noticing they never move me to another table. Instead, I order another cocktail. Then another. The pasta, by the way, is incredible.
I don't notice myself finishing the third drink and asking for a fourth. The alcohol spreads warmly through my body, dissolving the lingering tension from the journey. My shoulders relax. My thoughts slow down.
At some point, my vision starts to blur slightly. The lights grow brighter. The sounds more muffled.
I'm not sick. No. I probably just drank too much after traveling and exhaustion. I try to calm myself, taking slow breaths and focusing on them.
But almost immediately after that thought, an odd and sudden wave of sleep crashes over me. My body relaxes unnaturally fast, as though someone flipped a switch.
My arms grow heavy. My fingers stop obeying me. My head slowly drops onto the bar counter.
I still try to hold onto consciousness, to focus on the sounds around me, catch fragments of voices, music, footsteps. But the world turns viscous, thick as honey.
And in the next second, I realize I no longer control my body.
