CHAPTER 2. A LOST CONNECTION

April 2, 2024.

Today, in the depths of an ordinary local Serbian restaurant, "Faceless Cupid," the twenty-seven-year-old Czech, Antonin Vlček, a moment before the scene described, held a fresh copy of an unremarkable Serbian newspaper, "Ispolin," open in his hands opposite his gentle blue eyes. With a special, almost inhuman, gaze, he was studying the following lines, calmly printed by the respective publisher: "...On this day, exactly sixty years ago, the spacecraft 'Venera ZMV-1,' which later managed to reach the limits of Venus, though contact with it was lost, was launched from the Kazakh settlement of Tyuratam...". No, in that moment, Antonin Vlček was not looking at the aforementioned lines; in that moment, he was looking inward, into the depths of his very self—his glazed gaze, fixed on a single, solitary point, indicated that this man was either insane or was currently submerged in that very state which borders on insanity, just as love borders on infatuation, and which is often called genius by those who are capable of seeing: silently to those around him, but extraordinarily loud to himself, Antonin Vlček at this very hour was endlessly repeating only one question in his mind—is it possible to make a stranger fall in love with you with the help of formally expressed and specific objects, the results of your own creativity? He could find the answer to this problem only through an empirical path: all other paths are phantoms, chimeras, fantasies. In an instant, he left the aforementioned state, yet still intoxicated by its wondrous outlines, taste, and aroma, Antonin Vlček hastily opened the Instagram app on his phone and, with particular meticulousness, began to study videos of Tuscan landscapes and Roman streets, which were extraordinarily pleasant for a truly sensitive soul—he, a twenty-seven-year-old writer, would be there, he would definitely be there, but first, he had to achieve a certain success: a great deal of work had already been done, but even more work lay ahead. The Tuscan landscapes and Roman streets enticed his heart and soul, but now it was time to get down to business—to find the one with whose help he would find the answer to the question we mentioned earlier. And so, after a certain amount of time, Antonin Vlček's gaze suddenly fell into the nets of the astonishing charm of a truly sensual woman—this was evidenced by her gaze, her facial expression, her smile, the captured, and therefore forever bound, movement, as well as the location, light, time, and angle, which, in turn, were integral elements of an extraordinarily attractive photograph. Having entered the halls of her personal profile page, Antonin Vlček, who was very much carried away by his own undertaking, was able to a significant extent to grasp the true nature of this stranger, truly exceptional in her femininity—at 30 years old, she looked no more than 25: the correct features of her pure face in every manifestation testified to a subtle and lively mind, and the gentle figure of a willow-like physique personified the highest degree of feminine charm—before Antonin Vlček’s eyes at this very hour was by no means a passionate rose or a lush dahlia, which was what was captured in the essence of the photograph, but a simple field flower of the most delicate properties and qualities, whose life energy and strength were characterized by the peak culmination of a lively summer, when the surrounding malachite tones of the greenery allowed it to be the same as Robert Burns was among the countless procession of Scottish poets, who were outwardly alike in their pretentiousness but no less great because of it. She stood out among most women who, in one form or another and at one time or another, had appeared before Antonin Vlček's gaze, just as Piazza San Pietro stands out among other squares of a true, and therefore old, Europe. However, despite the fact that she was in those years that characterize the flourishing of true feminine—specifically feminine, not girlish—beauty, Inna Vukić's posts on the social network Instagram did not have the number of positive reactions that would allow for a corresponding assertion about the popularity of a particular person: most of those who looked at her simple, and therefore highest of its kind, femininity were unable to perceive, based only on a moment wilfully captured in the form of a photograph, which contained gestures, a look, and other breathtaking human movements, the very unique facets and fibers of her truly alive soul. Having positively evaluated each of her photos in the appropriate manner, Antonin Vlček immediately subscribed to her account, after which, once again immersing himself in its confines, he began, with a feeling of infatuation that was growing with every moment, to meticulously study everything that he had, it seemed, already completely studied a short time ago: the simple elegance of her clothing, her extraordinary beauty—all of this could not help but attract the truly sensitive soul of Antonin Vlček, all of this could not help but drive him mad. And is it not true that a woman can only be truly attractive when her clothing has the least impact on a man's imagination and gaze, and therefore acts on them not as an irritating factor, but as a natural and harmonious characteristic? Nothing is as capable of highlighting all of a woman's merits and charms as simplicity in her clothing tastes, and, most importantly, the actual implementation of those tastes—when a woman is dressed with simple elegance, a man pays attention not to her dress, necklace, or bracelets, for at that moment he is looking at the woman herself, her emotions, her manners, and the results of her behavior: in those moments, he is looking at her thoughts, her feelings, her mind, and her soul. Thus, without even realizing it, Antonin Vlček suddenly understood that a certain, truly, at first, sweet flame had been born in his soul—these were the first sparks of the all-consuming flame of infatuation: if they are not tamed in time or transformed into a beneficial form, then, of course, it is capable of destroying everything around it, and consequently itself, thereby, later, leaving behind only emptiness—Antonin Vlček was not a stranger to emptiness, for in his time he had been able to deeply learn the great nature of unremarkable rejections of reciprocity from a considerable number of representatives of the Eve's gender.