Matryoshka

I don't know exactly when I arrived here.

I had been wandering for many years, feeling as if I didn't belong anywhere,

But then I discovered my beloved Russia...

From the moment I breathed its air so cold, I felt a connection I hadn't felt in a long, long time.

The scenery so desolate...It was like being home again.

Especially the months where the weather was more extreme.

When all the vegetation was dying and you could barely hear the sound of animals.

It all felt so...right.

This was where I was meant to be. Away from everything and everyone.

I tried living in St. Petersburg and Moscow, but big cities have never been my thing.

Everything was too... chaotic, I've always preferred solitude, away from civilization. I need to be alone in order to be... me.

So I opted for a small town that doesn't even appear on the maps.

I won't even mention its name to keep its anonymity.

The people who live there like their privacy. It takes a certain kind of personality to live in a place like that. The neighbors barely even shake their heads when they see you.

A place where no one cares what you do or who you are.

The perfect place for me.

I thought I would spend the rest of my days there, until I was forced to leave my home.

After decades of living there, walking its streets, adopting its customs, I was banished.

You could practically say that I was already Russian, if not by birth, then by right.

But that was not enough.

Not the night a group of men in uniforms knocked on my door and began to interrogate me about who I was and where I came from.

It was no lie when I told them that I barely remembered, I wanted to show them that I had been living in Russia longer than anyone else. But for them it was not enough, they gave me only 24 hours to leave the country and never come back. I knew better than anyone that these were not meaningless threats. I had to flee, but... Where to?

This place was all I knew.

Although I moved like a Russian, talked like a Russian and dressed like a Russian, deep down I knew I was not.

I had only a couple of hours to pack all my belongings into a small suitcase,

I couldn't take everything with me of course, but I didn't plan to leave that ..... Matryoshka

An object I had bought in an old antique market.

From the moment I saw it, it was...love at first sight.

It was hand painted, and made of the best linden wood. The face drawn on that object was beautiful, of a beauty and perfection that I could only aspire to.

But it was not its beauty that captivated me, but the mysteriousness of its forms.

Inside it there were 5 replicas that were decreasing in size.

Hiding one inside the other until reaching the smallest but the strongest of them all.

Since I saw that object I could identify with it, it was a reminder of who I really was. That was why I decided to take it with me wherever the world was going to take me.

Languages had never been a problem for me, so I had many options.

Then I came to the United States of America. I walked and walked, through arid areas, through frozen forests, through cities and towns, until I arrived in a small town in the south of that country.

I was determined to start a new life, although the place was not as isolated as I would have liked. But still, I had to try.

I tried to go unnoticed, to blend in with society, to be just one more.

To be able to pass for someone ordinary, but the many years in Russia had permeated my personality, the way I dressed and spoke.

People questioned my accent right away, some didn't even ask where I was from, they simply confirmed that I came from Russia. Almost like an accusation.

At first I was shocked, how could they have found out?

I had to do something to be less... me.

I looked at myself in the reflection of a shop window in the street and I could see how different I was from the rest, somehow...I stood out and that was something I could not afford.

Unfortunately Russia had permeated my essence, and I soon discovered that this was something that bothered others.

There were people who, just by the simple fact of hearing me speak, would turn away from me.

I didn't understand why, but it only took me reading a couple of books and watching a few movies to discover that Russians were considered the “enemy” by the rest of the world.

So, like a Matryoshka I started to create layers and layers that hid my true self, layers that kept me safe...little by little I started to change the way I dressed, and even the way I spoke. It wasn't easy, but I couldn't let others be able to identify me so easily.

Then I set out on my journey again.

I walked and walked,

I took trains and buses, to another place that was more discreet, that felt more like home.

And... I found it.

A place where the nights were longer than the days.

And where the cold kept people sheltered.

But one day, someone knocked on my door.

It was a woman who lived in the neighborhood, carrying a basket and welcoming me.

I saw her hair, her eyes, her skin...she was so average.

Very soon I knew the type of human being she was, A person in search of connection. Why are most people like that? I enjoyed the solitude, I reveled in it. But this woman was not going to let me.

She would show up at my house at all hours, under stupid pretexts, wanting to form a friendship that didn't really exist but it was one afternoon when she knocked on my door that I was compelled to offer her a cup of tea. It took her only a thousandth of a second to notice the Matryoshka that was placed on a shelf in the background.

The only object that linked me to my past. I could see her gaze change. She began to ask me where I had bought it, and then inquired about my origins.

I tried to evade his question, but I could see in his eyes that she had figured me out.

She knew I came from that place so despised by the rest of the world.

Or maybe she had figured out something else...No no, it couldn't be.

She immediately invented a pretext to leave my house as if she wasn't wanted to breathe the same air as me.

But before leaving she took my beloved matryoshka in her hands and contemptuously smashed it on the floor. I could see it on the floor in pieces, each of its layers shredded, a wooden jigsaw puzzle on the floor, I could barely make sense of what was once my most precious object. An eye on one side, a mouth on the other, but soon I could see the smallest of the Matryoshka intact. She was on the floor staring back at me, it was as if the rest of the layers had protected her from mortal harm.

The woman, totally out of her mind turned to me and said, “GO BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM.”,

I simply did not react.

A few days passed and just when I thought everything had calmed down, I was startled by the sound of shattering glass. It was a stone with a note tied to it that read, “YOU DON'T BELONG HERE.”

At first I assumed it was from that woman, but it soon became very clear to me that the answer would not be so simple, apparently she had taken it upon herself to tell all the neighbors of my connection to Russia.

I began to feel hostile looks the few times I left my house. People thought they knew everything about me.

One night, looking up at the stars, I reflected.

Maybe it was time to go back to where I came from.

Maybe that woman was right and I didn't belong here and never could.

It didn't matter if I changed the way I dressed, the way I spoke.

No matter how many layers I created to this Matryoshka, my true inner self would always surface.

Unless...there was another possibility.

I decided to visit that woman one last time.

I knocked on her door.

Her face reflected surprise, we were so different.

I simply walked up to her and gave her a big hug.

A big hug. I could feel her confusion, at first she didn't know how to react, but when she tried to...it was too late.

She soon realized that, just as she had predicted, we were not the same.We were not from the same.... world.

I could feel how my body opened in two and one of my tentacles began to absorb her and make its way through her layers, breaking each one of them, even the most fragile part inside her, then little by little I was nourishing myself with all of them, absorbing her organs, breaking her bones, crushing her muscles, I was emptying her little by little, until the only thing that remained of her was her outer layer...her skin.

And once her skin was empty, I was able to dress myself in it.

And although this skin didn't feel any better, it would not raise any suspicion and I could stay in this planet without worrying about arousing suspicion.