The shutters on the windows are bent. The strings used for rolling them
up and down have long since been torn, placing the apartment in a constant
state of shade with stripes of light passing through the crooked panels.
Walls of the room are decorated with stray nails, upon which some pictures
maybe once hung, pencil marks and streaks of loose paint from careless
cleaning of brushes. There is a matress with dirty rags for sheets and a
single miserable pillow.
The floor is littered with various items of clothing and empty tubes of
acrylics. A rat chewed yoga mat curls up by the entry door, covering up
a pocket shortwave radio and a DSL router stripped of plastics. Half a
dozen cat 5 cables of varying length, all with plastic locks on the
connectors snapped off, snake around.
On the kitchen counter forms a moldy ring in a dried puddle of spilled
arabica next to a pile of peeled cucumber skin. The kettle is covered in
greasy stains and the last glass bottle of virgin oil lies on the floor
beneath.
Pavol Cheblik sits in the muck of it all by a wooden desk with various
login information penned and scratched into its surface. Three empty soda
cans and a dirty French press lie about next to his fingers sliding across
a thrifted PS/2 keyboard. The flickering screen begins printing characters
into a blank window:
