Lyon
At the Part-Dieu train station, Vlad steps off the TGV with his bag. Céleste stands near the exit barrier in a grey coat, her hands in her pockets. She looks at him without moving as he walks toward her.
Célestea breath that is almost a laugh, taking him in You actually came.
VladHey, how are you?
Célestea warm, slightly surprised look Good, better now. her eyes moving to him You look tired from the train.
VladYeah, I have traveled all the way from Romania to France.
Célestea small smile It is a long way to come. turning slightly toward the exit Are you hungry?
VladOf course I am hungry.
Célestealready walking Good, I know a place near the Rhône, not far from here.
Vladwalking alongside her You know it is not like a cross-country trip where I go from Bucharest to Botoșani to visit my grandmother. I have literally crossed half of Europe by train, or rather, many trains.
Célesteglancing at him as they walk How many connections?
VladIf I remember right, five connections. Took IRC, then IR, then EN, then IC, then TER.
CélesteThe TER part means you were already in France for a while before you got here.
VladYeah, and I still passed through Geneva, except that this time I did not get off the train.
Célestea small stillness How did it look from the window?
VladFamiliar, boring, but at the same time I remembered when we both got off the train for the first time.
Célestequietly, still walking I thought about that too, when I knew you were passing through.
VladIf I sent pics, then yeah...
Célestea slight smile You sent one, just the lake.
VladThe air around here is much cooler than in Bucharest. When I got to the Northern Station, it was really hot.
Célesteglancing around at the stone facades and the river showing between the buildings Lyon breathes more than Bucharest from what you described, more stone, more green, more water.
VladI am used to living in a city full of concrete and little greenery. Even the parks themselves are very hot.
CélesteThe Rhône keeps the air moving, you will feel it when we get closer.
VladI thought that if we would visit Bucharest together, then you would feel the intense heat and darkness while eating at quartier restaurants. Almost every day, when I was in high school, I ate cooked food and covered schnitzel from a kebab restaurant, and I was shaking hands with one of the cooks who called me a friend.
Célestea soft look I like that image, you and the cook, every day. looking forward I would come to Bucharest, you know.
VladReally? Like, you have been convinced from one sentence?
Célestea small laugh From more than one sentence, I have been listening to you talk about it for weeks.
VladThe bus arrives close to my house every thirty to forty minutes, so I take it early to not be late and still have time to eat, but not always.
Célesteher eyes on the street ahead Every thirty minutes and still sometimes late sounds like most of my mornings here too.
VladLike, aren't the buses here in Lyon more frequent?
Célestea slight tilt of her head Depends on the line, the metro is every four minutes but some bus lines are not much better than yours.
VladIn Ilfov, if you live in a commuter town, you don't get frequent buses because there is not much investment, although there should have been more.
Célesteglancing at him The periphery always waits longest for the investment that was supposed to come.
VladWhere do you live, at the center or periphery?
Célestea gesture ahead Presqu'île, close to the center. a pause I am lucky and I know it.
VladOh, I remember. I am not so lucky unfortunately.
Célestequietly Which part of Bucharest?
VladBucharest South, around Măgurele.
Célestegenuinely curious Is that where you grew up, or where you ended up?
VladThat is where I grew up, and I never left.
Célestea small nod, taking it in So you know every bus, every shortcut, every cook who calls you a friend.
VladNot necessarily, people in Măgurele are usually very closed, and at kebab, I have talked largely to one cook.
Célestelooking forward One cook who called you a friend, then.
VladThere is not much of a sense of community for me in Măgurele or Bucharest.
Célestewalking beside him Lyon has that too, or the absence of it. a pause A city can be full of people and still not feel like yours.
VladSome tourists came into my city with the expectation that it was going to be a picturesque city, but no, it's a gray, replaced city.
Célestequietly Replaced how?
VladInitially, there were Parisian-style buildings and before the Parliament was built, there was a whole quartier at the center of the city, Uranus. Unfortunately, Uranus got destroyed and the vast majority of the Parisian buildings got replaced, and those that remain are at immediate risk of collapse should an earthquake happen.
Célesteslowly So the city you grew up in is already a city built on top of another city that was erased.
VladYeah, the city I grew up in was built on top of a city that was erased, and now, the private layer appeared. Bucharest is a layered city where you only happen to live in.
Célesteglancing at him My city is layered too, Romans built under the Gauls, Gauls under the silk merchants, silk merchants under us. The difference is we are allowed to be proud of the layers.
VladAnd then if you look at Poznań's geography, you can observe complexes in the periphery being separated by large roads. The same thing happens in Bucharest. It is a city of peripheries.
Célesteafter a moment It sounds like a city people live in despite the city, not because of it.
Vladcontinues to walk with her in a long silence, quietly observing the repeated grid patterns
Célestewalking beside him in the quiet Does it feel like home anyway?
VladSometimes yes, sometimes no, because walking through it feels like a mess, there is nothing interesting, and I know only one park, Drumul Taberei, where I have been with my former close friend.
Célesteher voice careful The one you overwhelmed.
VladYeah, and it is also the park where I have been with my current friend.
Célestea small look So the park has two different people in it now.
VladI have not been to any other park, to be honest.
Célesteglancing at him Just that one, always?
VladYeah, because I don't have the time to evaluate other parks.
Célestequietly Or maybe it became the park because the people were there, not the other way around.
VladMaybe, it was the only park associated with a memory of people.
Célesteher eyes on the river appearing ahead People make places, and then the places keep the people.
VladSometimes it makes them go away. Like, the wide streets between the edges of the park when you get off the bus are horrible.
* * *
They cross a narrow street and the Rhône opens up ahead of them, wide and moving under the afternoon light. The quay stretches along the water, old facades leaning gently over the bank. They both slow down.
Célestelooking at the water Wide streets are designed for cars, not for the people who have to cross them.
VladI have actually studied those types of streets, they are called stroads except that they are not that wide, but still, you have to stand in a concrete island.
Célestecurious What is a stroad?
VladA combination between a street, a road and sometimes a highway, without proper separation. In Bucharest it is called a boulevard, and a boulevard does not have width limits. The boulevard in Unirii is more than six lanes wide, and Magheru is seven lanes wide or more. Buildings are usually crumbling when directly in front of a boulevard.
Célestetaking it in slowly So the building shakes from the traffic and the person crossing has nowhere to stand. a pause We have some of that near the périphérique but not at the center, here it is mostly narrow.
VladMagheru is hypercentral. The widest boulevards are usually at the center of the city, and when juxtaposed between old buildings, they look very ugly, like you don't know if the place is historic or not. And then I forgot to mention that it was not necessarily Unirii, but Romană. Unirii is a wide four-lane boulevard that leads to even wider boulevards. The city center is a large intersection, so I am not really sure if it's Unirii or Romană.
Célesteher eyes on the river So the center is not a square or a place, it is just where the wide roads cross each other.
VladYes, it is not a square. And the center-most square is actually a large parking lot placed in the middle of the intersection, it's called "Piața Constituției", but I would drop the "Piața" part and just say "Traffic Complex". And then "Piața Danny Huwe" is not really a square, but a traffic complex, the same situation.
Célestea short pause A square that is a parking lot, named after a constitution. quietly The naming is optimistic.
VladIt is not optimistic, it is just weird and random. A square can be defined as any kind of large space, even when it's an intersection.
Célesteglancing at him I want to see it one day, just to understand how it actually feels to stand in it.
VladI know, you already said that.
Célestea small smile I meant it both times.
Vladpointing to a bench Let's sit on that bench by the side.
Célestetaking his arm and pulling him toward it Come then.
They sit on the bench facing the Rhône and she leans slightly into him.
VladWe have talked about so many practical things but not much about love or deeper personal things for that matter.
Célestequietly We have been deflecting it since Part-Dieu.
VladYeah, and I don't know what we should talk about, like that moment where we were sitting on the train was really heartwarming.
Célesteafter a moment Which moment exactly?
VladThe moment where we just left Geneva leaning onto each other.
Célestea pause, her shoulder against his I remember the platform sliding away and not wanting to look back at it.
VladThere are so many obscure topics we can talk about, like the Somerton Man, but I don't know how to talk about friendship and love without connecting to anything else.
Célesteafter a moment Maybe that is how you talk about it, you connect it to everything else and eventually you arrive at it.
VladYou have been a really important person in my life, even from afar, and at the same time we are still young and stupid.
Célesteher eyes still on the water We could both still be emotionally sixteen and just hiding it better than we were a year ago.
VladWhen I was sixteen, I was talking to university students sometimes, so there is not much of a difference.
Célestea quiet laugh That explains a lot about you, actually.
VladHow is that so?
Célestethinking for a moment You learned early to talk to people older than you, so the ideas came first and the feelings had to catch up later.
VladWell, I couldn't have talked to people of the same age as me because my mind was much more mature, so I had to talk to older people.
Célesteafter a pause And now you are talking to me, and I still do not know if I am ahead of you or behind you.
VladMaybe we are both on the same level.
Célestequietly Maybe.
VladMy classmaster once offered the class for a vacation in France, and of course I refused it because I didn't want to spend the weekend in a new place by the cold sea, but if it was about you, I would have accepted it.
Célestea small stillness Where was it?
VladIt was in Marseille.
Célestea short, quiet laugh Marseille. a pause I lived there for a year and a half.
VladI know, with your former love.
Célesteher eyes staying on the water Yes.
VladAnd then my geography teacher repeatedly referenced the Bay of Fundy due to its high tides. I could have visited it in place of Marseille, but I don't have reasons to spend vacations outside my country.
Célesteglancing at him You had a reason to come here.
VladThis time yes, I had a reason to come here.
Célesteturning and pulling him into her, arms around him It was me.
VladYeah...
Célesteholding the hug, quiet
Vladalso holding the hug, and then breaking the silence What was the worst thing you ever did?
Célestepulling back just enough to look at him, surprised by the question I stayed with someone long after I knew it was making us both worse.
VladI know that already, something else.
Célestea longer pause, her eyes dropping I let a close friend believe I was fine when I was not, for almost a year, because I did not want her to see me struggling.
VladWhat was happening in the time you were not fine?
Célesteafter a moment The year after Marseille, I was back in my mother's apartment, studying for a master's I was not sure I wanted anymore.
VladWhat master's?
Célestequietly Linguistics, discourse analysis. a pause I still wanted the field, just not the reasons I had started it with.
VladWith what reasons did you start?
Célesteher hands in her lap To understand how people talk around the things they cannot say directly. a short pause Which in retrospect was quite personal.
VladAnd now...
Célestea small exhale Now I think I understand it well enough and I am not sure the understanding helped.
VladWhat do you mean?
Célesteher eyes on the river You can recognize every deflection, every softening, every way someone builds distance with words, and still do all of it yourself anyway.
VladWell, I have to say that is perfectly normal, like realistically you wouldn't all be like Céline.
Célestea wry look Céline deflects too, she just does it with more words and better timing.
VladShe sounds really philosophical and thoughtful, more than us.
Célesteafter a pause You are thoughtful, just without the softening layer she puts around everything. We are both thoughtful, the packaging is different.
VladThere are a lot of what ifs and could this have been significant and so on...
Célesteafter a moment Céline tells him she used to fantasize about being a different person if they had met in December. The whole film is the question of whether one night changed everything or nothing.
VladWe figured out that yeah, being together might have changed everything, and we chose to share our numbers and I chose to send pics from the conference.
Célestequietly So we already answered the question they spent the whole film avoiding.
VladObviously we are overturning the premise of the film, and regarding the word overturning...
Célesteglancing at him What about it?
VladWhat do you think about the overturning of Roe versus Wade?
Célestea short exhale I think removing a right people had for fifty years and calling it returning power to the states is a very careful way of not saying what it actually does to people.
Vlad...which is to introduce massive health risks and violating the recommendations of the World Health Organization, which is to keep abortion open.
Célesteher eyes forward And the countries with the strictest restrictions consistently have the worst maternal mortality.
VladI think we still have forgotten to eat despite having said so after getting off the train.
Célestestanding up from the bench We are quite good at that. glancing down at him Come on.
Vladalso standing up Yeah, let's go.
Célestealready walking toward the quay There is a bouchon two streets up.
* * *
They walk side by side, their pace even slower than before.
Célesteher eyes ahead Did you tell anyone about Geneva?
VladOnly told my current close friend that I visited Geneva and met someone interesting.
Célestequietly Someone interesting. a pause Seems like a careful word you have chosen.
VladYes, because I usually keep things close when convenient and open when convenient.
Célestelooking forward So I was convenient enough to be kept close.
VladYeah, I have developed an attachment for you I would rather reveal later to other people in full.
Célestea small exhale I told my mother I was picking someone up from Part-Dieu today. a pause I did not say much more than that.
VladSo, we are in the same situation.
Célestea slight smile, still walking Convenient and close, both of us.
VladThe first day was so exciting, but things have tempered since then and we have often found ourselves in silences when messaging each other.
Célesteafter a moment The silences were not bad ones, for me at least. quietly They felt more like pauses than distance.
VladMe too, you are not so bad as many other distant people I have met.
Célestea soft laugh I will take that.
VladYou said about one thing in particular and then I said something about you...
Célesteglancing at him You would go quiet after something real and then come back the next day with a topic about something completely different.
VladThat is what I did with everyone when there was nothing left to talk, I just started something new, but not always.
CélesteI just noticed and did not mind, I do the same thing when something lands really close and did not know what to say further.
VladWe are getting closer, and I have never been in a bouchon. I haven't even heard about it, except that they were offering hearty meals.
Célesteher eyes on the sign ahead You are about to have something you cannot get anywhere outside Lyon, and hearty is an understatement.
VladLike, how rich the meals are?
CélesteOffal, bone marrow, quenelles, things cooked slowly in butter.
VladI usually don't like surprises, but yeah, let's not ruin this moment.
Célestea small smile Then I will say nothing more until you taste it.
They eventually reach the bouchon. The sign above the door is small with a handwritten menu displayed on the window.
The Bouchon
The bouchon is narrow and warm, a row of wooden tables along each wall. A woman behind the counter nods at Céleste without needing to be told.
Célestepulling out the chair across from her Sit, they will bring the menu but you should trust me on the order.
Vladsitting on the chair in front of her Yeah, sure, like I don't know about this place
Célestea small smile, opening the menu That is the point.
VladAnd neither do I know about the entirety of my city, like I have largely been in Sector 4 and Sector 5 and limited parts of the center, primarily because there is no specific city center, but there is an old town.
Célestelooking at the menu Which old town survived the boulevards?
VladThe one around the National Bank.
CélesteGrisbanque.
VladYeah, it's around the Universitate station if I remember, but it's behind the new buildings.
Célestesetting the menu down Hidden behind the thing that replaced it, as usual.
VladWe came here to Lyon but we are talking about my city, so...
Célestea slight laugh You make Bucharest sound more interesting than you think you do.
VladIt is not interesting at all, it's an ordinary city. I made a comment about osiedles and sídlištěs, remember?
Célesteher eyes on him You said they were sometimes charming. You cannot call a city ordinary and then defend its housing blocks at the same time.
VladIn the sense that they were lived-in spaces. I have gone through those spaces every day.
Célestequietly Lived-in is not ordinary.
VladMaybe, for me it can be both.
Célestea small nod Yeah, maybe both are true at the same time, you just need enough distance to see which one wins.
VladOne of the primary concerns is not necessarily how those buildings look like, but if I can use the bus to reach anywhere.
Célestea glance at him For me it is both, the bus and what I see from the window while riding it.
The woman from the counter arrives with a small notepad. Céleste orders without looking at the menu, two or three things, a carafe of something. The woman leaves without writing anything down.
Célestesettling back You will eat quenelles and a salade lyonnaise.
VladGood...
Célestea pause You were not going to ask what a quenelle is.
VladWell, this time I would rather be surprised than know everything.
Célestea small smile Good.
* * *
Later, after a few minutes, the food arrives without announcement, set down by the same woman. The quenelles sit in a shallow pool of sauce, the salade lyonnaise with a poached egg on top. Céleste picks up her fork.
Célestewatching him look at the plate Go ahead.
Vladstarting to pick up his fork and eat Okay...
Célestewatching him take the first bite, then What is the thing you are most afraid of becoming?
VladI don't know, maybe becoming someone really stupid after losing all my knowledge or dying.
Célesteher fork down for a moment Why is losing the knowledge worse than losing anything else?
VladBecause I have spent so much time learning things and watching videos that I do not want to lose all that knowledge.
Célestequietly What would be left if you lost it?
VladNothing besides my body would be left.
Célestelooking at him That is a very lonely way to think about yourself.
VladIt is more like a reductive way to think about myself. I think myself as someone defined by their knowledge first.
Célesteafter a moment And the people who stayed, the cook, your current friend, me. Where do we fit in that definition?
VladYou don't fit into any part of that definition, only I fit into that definition. Each of us has a separate definition on what are they and what they prioritize.
CélesteI know. I was asking where we fit for you, not in some general definition.
VladYou are an important person for me first, someone I would keep. I have never considered setting up permanent limits for others.
Célesteher eyes on her plate, then back up So the knowledge is what you are, and we are what you have.
VladYeah, I ended up having this dry worldview because everyone around me was dry and then until I was five, I couldn't speak, so I haven't actually learned how to naturally socialize, only now I am learning.
CélesteYou couldn't speak until five?
VladYes, I had a developmental issue where I couldn't have communicated in any way when I was little. And I think that significantly changed my way of thinking, as I couldn't have developed social thinking sufficiently early to be fluent to the point where it became seamless.
CélesteAnd you taught yourself the rest from videos and older people.
VladFrom older people only later in my life. First, it was parents who taught me before I got into school, but since it was enough, I watched videos, took some IT courses and still watch videos to this day.
Célestea pause So the knowledge was the first language that actually worked for you.
VladThe knowledge and analytical content in general were the first languages that worked for me. It was and it's still difficult to understand how others are feeling, and even I do, I cannot find a way to not hurt their feelings.
Célestequietly You have not hurt mine yet.
VladI know, but I have hurt the feelings of people with complex avoidance systems. Some people use fuse and usage-based avoidance techniques, where in messages, the conversation gets interrupted in the middle suddenly because an undisclosed limit has been touched. Additionally, when you interact with those people for too long, any further interactions are permanently avoided, the fuse is burnt, so there is no way to even negotiate the undisclosed limits once they have been reached.
Célesteafter a moment I know that type and I have probably been that type, at some point.
VladWhen you have been that type?
Célestelooking at her glass When I was maybe seventeen, eighteen. Someone would say something that touched something I had not named yet and I would just stop answering.
VladAnd now?
Célestea small exhale Now I know what the limits are, so they are harder to cross by accident.
VladI personally never had any low limits, my own limits were pretty high, so high that they would have been unnoticeable.
Célestequietly looking at him It means people could say almost anything to you and you would not break.
VladYes, I would rarely break, and in situations where I would break, I can automatically manage my own distance.
Célestequietly Me too, I just take longer to notice when I am doing it.
VladLike how?
Célestea pause I keep answering, keep engaging, and only realize I have been pulling back for weeks when someone points it out or asks if I am fine.
VladAnd right now, are you fine?
Célestea small, genuine look Right now, yes. looking down at the plate briefly More than I expected today to be, actually.
VladWhen a voice says "omul să fie mulțumit cu sărăcia și cu liniștea colibei sale", I tell it to go away.
Célesterecognizing the quote The man be grateful with his lack of wealth and the quiet of his poor house. a pause You are still arguing with Slavici.
VladYes, I am still arguing with Slavici. But of course he is a conservative author, if we all believed in him, we would still have been rural to the present day.
Célestea slight nod Rural authors always wrote for the people who had no choice but to stay. Contentment was the only moral available to them.
VladAnd Romania as we know it was only twenty years old and almost entirely rural. While you had factories, we were only starting to build factories.
CélesteSo he was writing for a country that had not decided yet what it wanted to be.
VladHe was writing for a country that little to no direction, and even to this day, I don't know where my country is going. Urban stories only started to appear with the Communist period.
Célesteafter a moment In a country mostly fields and villages, you must have been content with the field and the village.
VladThat was exactly what he was saying, don't dare to try engaging in social mobility or making money.
Célesteher fork down And then forty years of communism that told everyone to stay exactly where they were, just with a different justification.
VladIn that period, if you made a lot of money, there was not much to spend on, and if you were a peasant with a lot of land, you were called "chiabur" with a negative connotation and your land was confiscated.
Célestehumbly So there were two systems in a row, one telling you contentment is virtue, the other making ambition dangerous.
VladIn your country what it was exactly like?
Célestea small shake of her head Nothing like that. We had our own problems but social mobility was possible, ambition was not punished, my grandmother moved from a village in the Ardèche to Lyon and nobody called her anything for it.
Vlada small laugh It's funny because we had all those kinds of restrictions where you were extremely poor, then told to not get rich, and then eventually if you owned a lot of land, all of it got confiscated and you were forced to move in the city. How much land did your grandmother own?
Célestea slight smile She did not own land, she was a seamstress. a pause The Ardèche was poor too, just poor without anyone arriving to make a policy out of it.
VladAnd where is Ardèche?
Célestea small gesture southward South of Lyon, a département of hills and rivers, not much industry. People left for the cities for most of the twentieth century.
VladMy father left Iași to study at the University of Bucharest, where he met my mother and then we forever got to live close to Bucharest. It was extremely uncommon for us to move out of city.
Célesteher chin in her hand, listening So your family moved once, from Iași to Bucharest, and that was the end of the movement.
VladYes, because even to this day, there are extremely few reasons to leave your hometown.
CélesteWhat keeps people there, the family or the lack of somewhere else to go?
VladWell, for me at least, Bucharest is the only city where my mother can work at CNAS and then once you root yourself to a place, it is hard to leave or abandon that place.
Célestenodding slowly Here people move between cities like Lyon, Paris, Bordeaux for work without thinking twice about it, as it is expected. a pause The infrastructure makes it possible in a way that it just is not there.
VladAlso, it's because there are multiple cities with sustainable jobs. For us, Bucharest is the only sustainable city, other cities are much poorer and lack opportunity. But I have been in field trips to multiple cities, like Brașov.
Célestelooking at him What was Brașov like?
VladIt was fine, a beautiful city. I have walked through the city center two times, from Livada Poștei and back. Additionally the city has been much cooler than anything I have experienced.
Célestea small smile Cooler because of the altitude?
VladBecause of the altitude and because of the greenery and stones.
Célestequietly Like Lyon, then, just higher up.
VladYeah...
They eat in a comfortable silence for a while, the carafe emptying out slowly.
Célestesetting her fork down How was it?
VladIt was really good.
Célestea satisfied expression I told you to trust me.
The Bridge
The afternoon is still bright when they step outside, the air cooler than that of the bouchon. They stand for a moment on the narrow street before starting to walk again.
Célesteher hands in her pockets Do you ever think about what this relationship would have been if we had met somewhere like Vienna, and you weren't from Bucharest?
VladI honestly don't know, the place would have made some things easier for us, but we still wouldn't have been in a dreamworld.
Célesteher eyes on the street The dreamworld was never the point. Two people can be interesting to each other in a parking lot.
VladYeah, and the thing is, you look really interesting, like how the waves fall from your head, but I have never took that into consideration when talking to you because your mind is really developed.
Célestea small, surprised pause You have not said anything like that all day.
VladBecause I am afraid to say someone is beautiful aesthetically.
Célestewalking slowly Why afraid?
VladBecause you would either not capture what that person is, or you might get rejected.
Célestequietly I am not offended. a pause You said it correctly.
VladLike, how?
Célestelooking ahead You named the mind first, that is how.
VladAnd you know, I am not actually poor, but neither rich to afford big ambitions. Like, me and my family can sustain ourselves and I even have a lot of electronics and a computer where I play games, but maintaining that wealth requires a lot of work and there is a lot of pressure on us right now.
Célestelooking ahead, listening And the pressure is constant, not just occasional.
VladYeah, the pressure is constant. My mother has to read complex administrative documents every day, and I looked at them, they all have those logos: the EU, Romanian Government, POCA, sometimes PODCA alongside POCA and then there are the Structural Instruments. The vast majority of them are of course about health services, and some of those documents can have up to a thousand pages.
Célesteglancing at him What are all those programmes?
VladPOCA is "Programul Operațional Capacitate Administrativă" or the Operational Administrative Program that claims to simplify administration. This logo tells that the document references a programme has been indeed evaluated and financed by the government, you can't just have the logos of the EU and the Government, you need a pair. PODCA appears in some documents but not all, it's the Operation Program for Administrative Development. This program has been responsible for providing access to digital variants of the Romanian law. About Structural Instruments, or "Instrumente Structurale", I am not sure exactly what it does, but it usually always appears when POCA appears and it must be responsible with handling European funds.
Célestea short exhale So the document cannot exist without the correct combination of logos, and each logo is itself a programme requiring its own documentation.
VladThat's correct, the header authenticates the nature of the document, so if for example a palliative care program is developed with European funds, you have the EU flag which confirms the EU has been involved into the project, then the sigil of the Romanian government, which appears on all government projects and without this sigil the document cannot be confirmed to be public, then you have POCA because you need to know who handles the administrative part of the program, then you can optionally have PODCA if it has also been involved in the handling of the document, although it's usually not there, and then you have Instrumente Structurale, which is never abbreviated although I can call it IS, because you need to know who handled the EU funds exactly.
Célesteafter a moment We have something similar, every document from a ministry has its logos in the right order, but what you described sounds like the header is doing the work of five separate explanatory paragraphs.
VladOf course, because of bureaucracy. And then you have the title of the document, a MySMIS code if the project is funded with European funds so it can followed online and then the body itself.
Célesteshaking her head slightly I have filed requests for university funding and that already felt like too much. a pause I cannot imagine doing this every day as actual work.
VladI have even seen documents of health programmes that have not four, not five but ten logos.
CélesteThe most I have seen on anything I signed was three.
VladI think this is happening because the way Romanian projects are funded is extremely complex, and since the ways fund flows are extremely complex, there are more avenues for corruption to happen.
Célestequietly Complexity as cover.
VladNot necessarily, but yeah, it can be a cover. POCA and PODCA, since they are essentially doing the same thing, can be merged into one organization, simply POCA, and then Instrumente Structurale could also be merged into POCA, so it becomes a more centralized administrative organization that deals with funds.
CélesteIn France we have administrative hell too, just differently organized. a pause Ours is centralized already, and it is still a hell.
VladAnd then I sometimes liked making satires involving ANAF, the National Agency for Fiscal Administration. Taxes are still poorly collected and one of the jokes I made was about ANAF finding a Buy Now, Pay Later business that beneath an interface, it was still recording debts physically like in villages, "trecerea pe caiet".
Célestecurious Like keeping a tab in chalk on a board? What is "trecerea pe caiet" exactly?
VladIt is the practice in rural communities where if you can't afford to pay for certain basic necessities right now, you negotiate with the seller to pass you on a notebook and promise payment later, in like six months, so you can consume the products right now on debt.
CélesteAnd the notebook is the only record, no contract, nothing signed?
VladYes, the notebook is the only record, names are only written and cut once paid.
Célesteslowly We had credit at the local butcher when my grandmother was young, but it was kept in the head, not in a book. a pause Writing it down and then cutting the name feels more serious somehow.
VladIt feels more serious, but it is relatively the same thing as keeping debt in head. Today you can no longer legally pay using the notebook, but it is still used to this day.
CélesteHere that completely disappeared, even the informal version. Everything is card or transfer now, even at the market.
VladFor most of my transactions involving food, I mostly use cash. Every time I go to a quartier restaurant of any kind, I choose to eat there.
Célestea small nod Cash at a small place feels more honest to the transaction.
VladYeah, but it's not the primary reason. I pay in cash because it is more convenient and because it makes it more difficult for transactions to be traced back to me by the likes of Google Wallet.
Célestea quiet look You said you took every measure to limit your footprint. a pause I did not think that extended to lunch.
VladWell, it happens to extend to lunch because there is this idea that the more data you produce, the more weaponize all that data is, in its entirety, against you. But as of now, as per the Made to Measure experiment, if we were to use all the big data from one person and detective skills, we would only get an eighty percent accuracy reconstruction of that person.
Célesteher eyes forward Eighty percent is more than most people have about anyone they know, and they still act on it.
VladThat is the problem with privacy. I want other services or platforms I interact with to only use a minimal amount of data to make decisions for me, ideally, they should not be making any decisions based on my data. I want them to know how much they would know about me if we were strangers and acquaintances at best. The problem is not the percentage of the reconstruction of that person, but the volume of data, because computers could be even more accurate than detectives at reconstructing a profile, humans can only read a small fraction of that data.
Célesteafter a moment So the issue is not that someone could know you, it is that a system could know you at a scale no single person ever could, and without asking.
VladAnd with the far-right rising and all that, once the system knows you at scale, they can abuse you much more easily for no particular reason, and in fact we have precedence in East Germany where a pro-democratic leader was overwhelmed with useless orders from the Stasi, random stuff arrived at their door so they would be overwhelmed picking up all that stuff.
CélesteZersetzung. They ordered goods and made appointments in the target's name, moved objects in their home, spread rumors. The point was that the person could never prove anything was happening.
VladThat was the point, and this tactic works if you have enough data on the person you are trying to abuse. If there is not enough data, there is no way a future government or variant of the platform can abuse you.
Célesteher jaw tightening slightly Le Pen was convicted this year and the party is still growing. a pause I think about that every time they propose another surveillance law here.
* * *
They eventually reach a bridge, the Rhône spreading out below them. Céleste glances toward the buildings of the Presqu'île on the other side of the bridge.
VladLooks like we have arrived at a bridge.
Célestestarting to walk across That is my side of the river.
Vladwalking alongside her So, your home must be on the other side.
CélesteAbout ten minutes from here, yes.
VladYou know, unlike me, you have been mostly silent and you haven't told many stories about yourself, so I am starting to realize just how banal we are.
Célesteafter a moment You have been filling the space and I have been watching what you fill it with.
VladAnd when Céline and Jesse were talking in a café, when filling the silence, I imagined them ordering two liters of coffee and then the barista said, we don't have two liters of coffee, but we have two liters of milk except that you have to wait like months for it inside the café, so they accepted the proposal and then the barista was calling the trucker, and trucker said they were inside a massive row of trucks waiting to cross the border at Nădlac and then they also said they covered milk in a ton of hay they brought from Constanța from the ships, and then there were also two people inside the truck who wanted to reach Calais and the trucker said they were going to get legitimate passports and visas for them, so they can work in the UK. The barista was interested only in the milk and none of the details. The trucker moved five meters and said they were still stuck in the traffic jam, and then looked over at the window and has seen some people simply passing through the border because they bribed the customs officers, and they thought they could also get that privilege, but of course they didn't. Eventually, they managed to pass the border in like five hours and then they had to travel all the way to France, and the romance was ruined because of how much they had to wait... a small laugh at the end of the story
Célestea genuine laugh And the barista still got the milk?
VladThe barista got the milk five months later, but they were gone.
Célestestill laughing So the romance survived but the coffee order did not.
VladThe romance eventually survived in the later film, but that was not the concern right now. And then the barista was concerned that bringing a huge truck in front of the café was going to break the moment, and trucker said, well, they were going to stop the truck in Slovakia and then move the milk to a cargo train, do several changes before arriving in France, and then deliver the bottles in a fietsen, like the Netherlands.
Célestewiping her eye slightly The concept of a Dutch milk delivery to a Parisian café is the most efficient and completely insane logistics chain I have ever heard.
VladYou know what it means to deliver two bottles of milk from a random village like Tecuci in Paris?
Célesteshaking her head No, tell me.
VladWell, you have to first make sure the producer's cows can procure the milk, and then if the cows can procure the milk, then the producer is of course going to procure and bottle the milk, and then the trucker is going to pick those bottles, cover them in hay they got from somewhere else, or maybe grass since the drug trade is insane and ANA's only policy is to prohibit drugs instead of strictly legalizing them so they can actually be regulated, then get up into the truck, put a driver's dance and then drive all the way to the western border, and they could have well took the dacian tunnel that connects Bucharest to Nădlac directly but only has two lanes of road to Nădlac and three lanes to Bucharest because of course AUR wants to encourage Romanians to return. Of course I am joking, there is no such tunnel, so they go on the A3 and wait at the traffic jam in Nădlac, which can take days to clear, although some can get priority crossing if they bribe the customs officer to skip the checks, and then once they get into Hungary, they can either drive all the way to France, which is going to break the romantic scene, or they can transfer all the cargo to a train and then to a bike, so the romantic scene is not going to be broken.
Célestelaughing The tunnel with two lanes to Nădlac and three back to Bucharest is the best piece of infrastructure satire I have ever heard.
VladWait, you have read infrastructure satire?
Célestestill laughing I have now.
VladThe Dacian tunnel is a 500km underground tunnel that allows people and trucks to go under the Carpathian mountains and under the fields, to get directly from Bucharest to Nădlac. This tunnel was originally built to help Romanians get back to their country, so on Hungary's side, you can get directly inside the tunnel and skip the checks, while on Romania's side you have to exit the tunnel and connect to A3, or wait, you get off A3 when going specifically to Nădlac and connect to A1 instead, I forgot that part, although A3 also has a western border crossing point, so A1, and then wait at the traffic jam to cross the border.
Célestewiping her eye again The tunnel exists only to bring people back, and leaving still takes five hours at the border. a pause to breathe Of course it does.
VladAnd then this tunnel has exits to Simion's fifteen thousand euro horrible housing slums that were not actually built, and I actually got an election newspaper from AUR saying "look, here's how we built a house in under 15000 euros", and I was not convinced at all, it was funny, but the prices didn't make sense.
Célestea small exhale Who is Simion? without waiting No, I can picture it anyway. The number sounds so specific enough to sound real and vague enough for nobody to check. The RN here made all the promises people want to hear, fuel tax cuts, rolling back pension reform, and when people asked how it was paid for the answer was cutting immigration spending. a short pause The prices not making sense is the point. If they made sense, someone would actually check.
VladYeah, and of course I was ranting about the politics of my country all the time, but you haven't been ranting that much as me.
CélesteYour situation is more immediate, I already know mine.
VladI don't know what the director has to say about breaking that romantic scene with a big truck right in front of the café carrying two liters of milk, and by the way, we never got to see the coffee.
Célestea slight laugh The coffee was never the point either.
They reach the far side. The Presqu'île opens around them in narrower, stone streets. She walks with half-steps ahead now.
The Presqu'île
They walk deeper into the Presqu'île, the streets becoming narrower and more familiar to Céleste, who takes a turn without checking.
Célesteafter a few steps Wait, you had them queuing at Nădlac for hours. Romania joined Schengen in January, so there are no checks there anymore.
VladOh, when I took the first train out of five from the Northern Station to France, I had my passport ready and then I was tired and didn't notice there was no border and the train passed through.
CélesteYou were so ready for the border that you missed it not being there.
VladI didn't expect you to know that. I usually tell myself that I should be perfectly accurate and then I confused A3 with A1 and didn't consider that it was two years ago when the borders lifted. And then I thought that making such mistakes was going to be so bad.
Célestegently The borders in your head lifted two years after the real ones.
VladMaybe, it was funny anyways to talk about the border in the past.
Célestequietly It was better with the queue, satire does not need to be current to land, and then I didn't know anything about the A1 or A3, so it didn't matter.
VladSometimes it needs to be current, and in this case, I ranted about how much nationalism there is in my country.
Célestenodding Nationalism is still current, even if the queue is not.
VladIf you say so...
Célestelooking at him You said it first and I am just agreeing with you.
They walk in silence for a few minutes, the streets of the Presqu'île further narrowing around them.
Célesteafter a moment If you had grown up somewhere the infrastructure actually worked, do you think you would still be you?
VladWell, what do you think if you would have grown up somewhere where infrastructure didn't work?
Célestea pause, considering I would probably have been angrier. quietly Or maybe I would have just learned to accept things I should not accept.
VladOne documentary once said that absolutely everyone, including people we hate and corrupt politicians, all live on the same Earth.
Célestewalking It is either a very comforting or a very uncomfortable observation depending on the day.
VladDo you have any stories?
Célestea small exhale When I was nineteen I took a train from Lyon to Marseille to see that someone I was not sure I should have been going to see. I had a book I did not read, a playlist I turned off after four songs, and I spent the whole two hours watching the landscape change from the Rhône valley into the coast and thinking that if the train broke down somewhere I would have had a perfectly acceptable reason to turn back. It did not break down.
VladWas your relationship distant?
Célesteher eyes on the street ahead At first, yes. We talked mostly over messages for two months before I got on that train, and there was always this gap between what I would write and what I actually meant, and I think he had the same gap in the other direction. When I arrived it was strange, like meeting someone I already knew but in the wrong body, or the wrong light. That took about three days to stop feeling strange. After that it was not distant at all, which was its own kind of problem because I had built the whole thing at a distance and I did not know what it was without one.
VladAnd then...
Célestecontinuing And then the distance came back anyway, but from the inside. a pause We were in the same apartment and I would still feel like I was composing messages in my head instead of just talking to him. a shorter pause, then a slight laugh I am realizing I have spent the last hour listening to you and the only story I can tell is the one about the same person.
VladWhat was their name?
Célesteafter a moment Théo.
VladAnd how have you met him?
Célestestill walking At a conference in Paris, second year of my licence. He was studying architecture and had come to a panel on urban language, which is how I knew he was either genuinely curious or trying too hard. a pause It turned out to be both.
VladLike, how did you really knew he was curious or trying too hard?
Célestea small smile at the memory He asked a question during the panel that was too specific to be improvised, but he asked it like it was casual.
VladFor example...
Célestethinking He asked the moderator whether the vocabulary of urban planning differed between cities that had been bombed and rebuilt versus cities that had grown continuously. a pause It was a real question but he looked at me when he asked it.
VladOw...
Célestea short, quiet laugh Yes.
VladAnd then, what happened?
Célestestill walking We talked after. He had been to Lyon once for a weekend and got the streets wrong and I corrected him and somehow that became a two hour conversation in a café near the conference hall. a pause I took the late train back and he texted before I reached Gare de Lyon.
VladGare de Lyon is in Paris, right?
Célestea slight nod Yes, the Paris one. People always confuse it with Lyon the city and he made the same joke.
Vladreplicating a train station chime Tata... nanana...
Célestea small laugh, then in a slightly formal voice Mesdames et messieurs, le train numéro quatre-vingt-sept à destination de Lyon Part-Dieu et Marseille Saint-Charles va partir dans quelques instants. Veuillez vous éloigner de la bordure du quai.
VladWhat does that mean? Like I have heard such kind of announcement when I arrived in France.
Célesteback to her normal voice Ladies and gentlemen, train number eighty-seven to Lyon Part-Dieu and Marseille Saint-Charles will depart in a few moments. Please step away from the edge of the platform. a pause You heard it in French this time before the English.
Vladreconstructing an announcement Stimați călători, Trenul IR, aflat pe peronul 7, cu direcția înspre Ploiești, Câmpina, Brașov va pleca în 5 minute din Gara De Nord. Vă rugăm să aveți grijă la îmbarcare. It's not very different, anyways...
Célestelistening to the announcement, then I understood the numbers and Brașov. a small smile The rest sounded like it was in a hurry.
VladBecause it was. Now, after you boarded the train, what happened?
Célestea pause, back in the story He called instead of texting, which I did not expect. I was still on the platform, the train had not moved yet, and I had to find a quiet corner of the car so the other passengers could not hear. We talked until the signal dropped somewhere past Valence. a pause After that I stared at my phone for twenty minutes waiting for it to come back.
VladAnd when it came back...
Célestequietly He had sent one message. Just asked if I had arrived. I had not, we were still an hour out, but I liked that he asked.
VladIt means that at the time he cared, right?
Célesteafter a moment At the time, yes. It was the version of him I kept trying to find later when things got harder.
VladWhat kept you from finding it?
Célesteher eyes on the street He stopped asking, but not all at once. The messages got shorter, the calls less frequent, and at some point I realized I was the one always sending the first one. quietly I kept going to Marseille anyway for a while after that, which says more about me than about him.
VladWhat do you think it says about you?
Célestea pause That I can convince myself something is still working long after the evidence says otherwise. after a while I am good at reading other people's language and very slow with my own.
VladWhat made you watch Before Sunrise?
Célestea short pause Théo mentioned it once when we were still only messaging. He said it was the only film that had gotten the feeling of talking to someone for the first time exactly right. I watched it alone, on a night when he had not replied for two days, and I thought that was probably not a healthy way to watch it.
VladFor me, the deeper reason why I watched this film is because sometimes I was talking to strangers, and I even knew some people, but I wondered what if I could find love in that...
Célestea small look And then you ended up on a train and it happened in the dullest, most realistic way possible.
VladIt was like the Matrix, we played the film and took the red pill. The only difference was that I talked more than you and on totally different things.
Célestea slight smile You took the pill and immediately started explaining urban planning.
VladIt never felt like this romantic afternoon where I discovered a French girl, it felt like an afternoon where I was discovering just another dry, random person.
Célesteher voice low Another dry, random person.
VladYeah... like, even though your accent is nice, the content is not necessarily heartwarming, even though we fell for each other.
Célestequietly I was never going to be heartwarming as it's not the kind of person I am, but I am here.
VladRegardless of whether you were dry or not, I felt a connection to you. Despite the disappointment of your previous relationship, why have you still chosen to go with me?
Célesteafter a moment Because you did not try to be something better than you were. a pause Théo always arrived with a version of himself he had prepared.
VladWe have not discussed philosophy a lot, we have been bread and butter nearly all the time.
Célestea small exhale We talked about buses, bureaucracy, trecerea pe caiet, POCA, and a fictional milk truck, maybe it is philosophy.
VladWhy is it philosophy?
CélesteBecause how a city moves people around, how debt was recorded in a notebook, how a government decides whose project gets which logo, all of that is just another way of asking who gets to live well and who does not.
VladAnd then when English is my second language, every time I add flourishes from my primary language.
CélesteLike what?
VladLike the CFR variant of the same train departure.
Célestesmiling a bit Stimați călători.
VladYeah, that is the announcement you hear when you leave Bucharest.
Célestequietly So every time you left, those were the first words.
VladYou could come by plane and not hear those words.
Célesteafter a moment I think I would take the train. I want to hear them.
VladOkay, because you previously took the train on your way to Spain and I did too.
Célestequietly recognizing We were both leaving from that station the first time and now you came back to it.
VladYes, I did because the moment when we met was important.
CélesteI left Lyon not thinking about arriving anywhere, and then you were already talking a lot.
VladI know.
The street opens slightly ahead and a familiar set of windows appears on the upper floor of a building at the corner, the last of the afternoon sun catching the glass.
Célesteslowing down That is my building.
VladWhat number?
Célestelooking up at it Seven, third floor, the windows on the left.
The Apartment
The staircase is narrow, the stone steps smooth in the center. She unlocks the door on the third floor and steps inside, leaving it open for him.
Célestedropping her coat on a chair Tea, or I have wine from last week that is probably still fine.
VladTea, I don't drink wine. I have once asked my parents when I was young whether they want wine from Rahova, and then they said no, they don't drink the wine from the market at all.
Célestealready moving toward the kitchen Tea it is. from around the corner Why Rahova specifically?
VladWell, I have once been in visit to the Rahova Market because I have never been there and I purchased all my favorite foods like chocolate milk and then I came to the lively market and have been persuaded to purchase a pumpkin and then when I got home and cut the pumpkin, I realized that decorative pumpkins are always empty. They don't have any content you can eat.
Célestecalling from the kitchen, the sound of water running When I was twelve I convinced my mother to buy a very large decorative gourd at a market in the Ardèche because it looked like it would make good soup. a pause while the kettle fills She spent twenty minutes trying to peel it before my grandmother told her it was wax.
VladAnd then you have spent all that money on critters and nothing...
Célesteappearing in the doorway with two cups The critters were free, the embarrassment was not. she hands him a cup and settles into the armchair across from the couch My grandmother laughed for about three days.
VladIs your grandmother still alive?
Célesteher hands around her cup She died when I was sixteen and was the one who taught me to move through a city, which streets to take, which cafés were honest about their prices.
VladIn my life, besides my parents, I had no one to teach me about the city. I had to learn and visit most places by myself. after a silence Now, what do we do?
Célestelooking at him while holding her cup What do you want to do?
VladMaybe hug each other, I don't know, what do you want to do?
CélesteI want to finish this tea first.
Vladstarting to drink and finish his tea Then me too.
Célestemoving her cup to her lips, finishing
VladCéline had a lot of stories and discussions to fill the entire film with and everyone was equal, but most of the time you have listened to me, like that's how many actual friendships worked for me, I either listened to the other person a lot one time or I told my story a lot. Right now, I have told more of my story to you than you have told your story to mine.
Célesteafter a moment I talk less, and my life is genuinely not very interesting from the outside. I study language, I walk the same streets, I had one relationship that did not work, I have a grandmother who is gone. quietly But I have been listening because I wanted to, not because I had nothing to say.
VladI don't know how the film made life seem interesting. Every time you watch it, you smile at it, maybe add comments...
Célesteher cup empty now The film is a fantasy designed to feel like reality. Every topic leads to another, every question reveals a new vulnerability, which is not how people actually talk. Jesse tells Céline about his mother and death within minutes of meeting her. The dialogue appears real and unrehearsed when it is the exact opposite. We talked about all the boring stuff because that is actually what we had. The film would have edited that out and kept only the parts that felt like revelation.
VladWhat I have revealed to you is that my life is governed in part by bureaucracy. It feels like I am poor because money is hard to get to once you get out or are not born into absolute poverty. And then to actually get paid by say my father's micro-enterprise, he has to go to the accountant to extract some money out of the company and legally justify the spending.
Célestelistening So even accessing money that is technically yours requires paperwork and a third person.
VladYes, because you cannot use a company's money for any purpose, they have to be used according to the CAEN codes, or the domain codes. Using a certain domain code only allows a company to legally spend money only on certain endeavors but not others. So, an advertising company may only spend money on marketing and digital equipment but not say food.
Célesteafter a moment And because of those codes, your father cannot simply pay you without building a paper trail that justifies it as a legitimate company expense.
VladThat's correct, except for construction companies designed specifically to drain public funds, every other company has to build a paper trail that justifies any expense as legitimate. My father's company has a code that allows it to provide psychological therapies since he is an experimental, long-form therapist. Then the company also has a code for IT and marketing so it can rent other's servers and run my and other websites and allow me to work occasionally for other's websites. Additionally, the company also has a code for sports so my father can play tennis with a small fraction of the long-term patients who also became friends engaged in long-term personal development and purchase treadmills and other necessary equipment, and then pass the VAT.
Célestea small exhale A therapy practice that is also a hosting company that is also a sports facility. a pause I have never run anything, I just invoice for occasional translation work and that already confuses me.
VladIn the future, I plan to also run a company by myself, I have told you my ambitions already long ago.
CélesteYou described how complicated it is to extract money from a company legally, and now you want to build a social café, AI model and cooperative.
VladBecause I don't think I am too poor to run a democratic cooperative, although how I would run a democratic cooperative with only two thousand lei is a very complicated matter. But at the same time I think I cannot run all my experiments alone. I want to experiment with the concept of informal therapy, building a tool that is just as good as all the others but can help in planning the economy and is extremely cheap and can run locally, providing all my people and others with universal basic needs, including housing and food so they don't have to pay for anything to live so they can also pursue their ambitions without being worried to make for a living, and then maybe I also want experiment creating the most boring film ever about our relationship, I also want to bring technologies that only exist in the west to the east and maybe become an open-source computer and phone manufacturer myself, creating a phone that behaves exactly like a laptop or desktop, or maybe create a laptop that has a neat setup screen and allows for fine-tuned control over absolutely component that exists inside the laptop, and one that would come with Linux preinstalled and switching operating systems would be very easy...
Célesteafter a moment, slightly wide-eyed That is a lot of things.
VladIf I want to do all those things at once, I would require millions of euros, the vast majority of those euros of course going to researching components and manufacturing computers, creating a high-quality artificial intelligence that would not create so much discord when released, and ensuring that all basic needs of my workers are met.
CélesteSo the company has to first provide what the state does not, before it can do anything else.
VladOf course, I want a company that you can own and live inside of it, a company where you can actually name your representatives or vote directly on decisions, so I am not the only leader, and not just have something to eat.
CélesteWhen thinking about a cooperative that is also a housing provider that is also a technology manufacturer that is also a welfare state, you should realize that is what a city is supposed to be.
VladI firmly believe that everyone should be provided with not just basic income, but also all basic needs, because there are more than enough resources to feed everyone on Earth, but right now, they are poorly distributed.
Célesteher cup completely empty, looking at him It does, the question is always the same one, who decides what the basic needs are and how they get distributed, which is the exact problem every cooperative and every state has run into since the beginning.
VladWe have talked about that back in Geneva and we still haven't found an answer, because there is no single way to distribute resources "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs".
Célestequietly Marx's sentence sounds simple until you try to define ability and need without anyone feeling cheated.
VladThe same applies for "from each according to their ability to each according to their contribution".
Célestea slight nod Contribution is easier to measure than need, which is why it always wins in practice, but easier to measure is not the same as more just.
VladThat's the problem, how do you run a multi-million-euro company and ensure that everything is distributed in a way that is just to the vast majority of the workers in the company who will own the means the means of production.
Célesteafter a moment You probably cannot solve it in advance. You build the structure and then you have the argument, repeatedly, until the people inside it decide what they can live with.
VladBut I don't think that company will every be feasible in my current position, it's a poor man's dream to become rich.
Célestequietly It is not a poor man's dream to become rich. It is a poor man's dream to build something that means the next person does not have to start from the same place you did.
VladYeah, I want to make sure that everyone has a better material situation than the generations before. And you don't have to "trust me, bro" just like Sam Altman, in fact, I want to create a future where no one has to trust any large company to do their stuff.
Célestea slight exhale He promised a glorious future of massive prosperity, and that phrase did a lot of work to avoid saying what was actually happening now. His own former researchers said he should not be the one with his finger on the button. a pause So yes, I remember the attitude.
Vladstarting to laugh a bit But right now, since I am here with you, you can simply trust me, bro. And then have that low, almost crying voice, that Altman sometimes makes when he speaks.
Célestelaughing of recognition The vocal fry, like he is about to confide the most important thing you have ever heard and it is coming from the bottom of a well. imitating, low and slow Trust me, the future is going to be so good... we just need a little more time... and your data.
VladWith that attitude, I don't think he has ever been fit in AI safety research, and then, despite interacting with robots every day, I don't know how GPTs safety system ended up being so strict and at the same time having some holes, and a rather arrogant attitude to the user, or sycophantic if you start expressing your exact opinion.
Célestea slight nod The sycophancy is the worst part. You say something half-formed and it tells you it is a fascinating perspective. As a linguist I notice it immediately, it reflects your own phrasing back at you with added warmth, which is not agreement, it is a mirror with flattery painted on.
VladAI can never agree with any one's perspective, and then it can be configured to say absolutely anything in sovereignitist tiktoks.
CélesteSo the same technology that tells you your half-formed thought is fascinating can also be configured to tell a million people that their government is being replaced. a slight pause The model does not care which direction it flatters in.
VladIt does not care, that is a serious safety issue that even the best models struggle with, and I want to try really hard to fix those safety issues.
Célestelooking at him That is a part I believe, not the cooperative and the phone manufacturer and the basic income simultaneously, but the part where you actually understand what the problem is.
VladBut it is also a really difficult problem to solve. First, I want to provide my intelligence with high usage limits at low prices, so people can use it for any kind of advanced activity, because automated agents are literally used to automate personal projects, find bugs in existing code and an AI which has been fed with knowledge from specialists who believed there might be a vulnerability in the Linux kernel found Copy Fail.
CélesteWhat is Copy Fail?
VladCopy Fail is a vulnerability that allows anyone to write arbitrary programs into the memory page, effectively allowing anyone who is not a privileged user to gain access to that single privileged user called "root".
Célesteafter a moment So a door that was supposed to be locked can be opened by anyone who knows the right way to knock.
VladThat is correct, anyone who knows how to knock can immediately open the door, regardless of whether it has a lock or not.
CélesteAnd an AI found it because it had read enough specialist knowledge to recognize a pattern that humans had missed.
VladYeah, that's what the AI did, the AI was fed with data from past vulnerabilities and past research to find vulnerabilities that have been overlooked by the original developers, because it has the entire CVE database, it knows every single vulnerability that ever existed and if a vulnerability does not exist in the database but is very similar to one in the database, it can be discovered and the vulnerabilities are often very old.
CélesteWhat is the CVE database?
VladThe CVE database is a database of virtually every single security vulnerability that has been found in every single major software in every single platform. And it's pretty huge.
CélesteSo, it's every door that has ever been found unlocked, written down in one place so the next person knows where to knock.
VladThat's correct, and it doesn't matter if the door is now more secure, every single vulnerability found in every old program leaves a trace into the database.
Célestea small nod And the older the program, the more doors there are on record, so the AI has more patterns to look for.
VladYeah, and it happened that Copy Fail was similar enough to some older memory vulnerabilities to be found, and then there are Dirty Frag, the third Copy Fail and maybe there will be a fourth, who knows?
The light through the windows has shifted to something softer and lower, the early evening settling over the street outside.
Célesteglancing toward the window It is getting dark. a pause, then back to him How many of those have you found so far, your own ones?
VladI am not a security researcher, or hacker as it's called, but I have found some XSS and I had a course where I actually used tools like Burpsuite to intercepts packets, small fragments in the remote communication between any client or browser and server. XSS, for you to know, is short for Cross-Site Scripting, a vulnerability where you can insert any script inside an input and then potentially send content to someone else and then when the content is open, the script is executed automatically.
Célesteher elbow on her knee, listening So you found a door too, just in a different building.
VladYes, and usually, in any single building there are multiple doors that can be exploited in multiple ways.
Célestequietly And most people who live in the building have no idea the doors exist.
VladThat is also correct, most users of any software have no idea about just how many holes it can have, the vast majority of them still undiscovered.
Célesteafter a moment Which means the CVE database is only the map of what has been found, not of what exists.
VladYes, the CVE database is only a map of what has ever been found, but not necessarily what exists.
Célestelooking at him You are very comfortable with not knowing the full size of the problem.
VladIt is because we discover those problems iteratively, if you develop any software like at the conference, you have to come with realistic assumptions of what you can do and what you cannot. For example, you can never create a perfect replica of the touch driver that responds instantly, but you can offer a basic way to translate electrical inputs into touch input.
Célestea quiet pause I used to think I could read a relationship the same way. If I just gathered enough information eventually the pattern would become clear. quietly It did not work like that.
VladThen, how did it work?
Célestelooking at her hands for a moment You understand a conversation the way you understand a city. Not by mapping it in advance but by walking it enough times that certain turns start to feel wrong before you can explain why. a pause With Théo I kept making the same turn expecting a different street.
VladWhen you do the same turn on the same street, there is always the same street, it's not going to change right now.
Célestequietly I knew that, I just kept testing the theory. a pause At some point you stop because you realize you are not checking anymore whether the street changed, you are just taking the turn because you forgot how not to.
A silence stretches for a very long amount of time. The street below has gone quiet and at some point Vlad shifts on the couch, lying back.
Célestefrom the doorway of her room There is an extra blanket on the shelf.
VladI don't need the extra blanket, it's warm outside and it was even hotter before I got here.
CélesteGoodnight then.
VladGoodnight to you too.
The Source Code
The street outside is silent. Then, Vlad's dream shifts with a close and enormous terminal, the screen filling everything. The text is scrolling, then still.
; ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ ; BEFORE SUNRISE [1995] :: CINEMATIC RENDER ENGINE :: v1.0.0 ; dir. Linklater :: scr. Linklater / Hawke / Delpy ; EURAIL.BUDAPEST -> PARIS :: CMPRT.6 :: ENTRY.SEQ.0000 ; ALL CORE PARAMS LOCKED :: PRODUCTION BUILD :: DO NOT MODIFY ; ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ SECT .config ; --- LOCATION --- PLCE REG.LOC, VIEN.AUT.1995 ; Vienna, Austria PLCE REG.SUBLOC, WBHF.WEST ; Westbahnhof platform LOCK REG.LOC ; LOCKED :: change forces full re-render ; alt: VIEN -> PARIS = power geometry inverted, all dialogue re-derives ; alt: VIEN -> ROME = tourist register activates, intimacy register suppressed ; alt: VIEN -> BUDA = 4hr window, EMOT.DEEP never reaches init threshold ; --- TIME --- TIME REG.DT, 1995.06.16 TIME REG.ENTRY, 21:17 ; compartment 6 encounter TIME REG.EXIT, 06:03 ; dawn hard exit :: absolute deadline LOCK REG.DT ; NOTE: NGHT flag is structural ; EMOT.DEEP, EMOT.VRBL, INTIMACY subroutines ; all require NGHT = 1 to initialise - suppressed at DT.DAWN ; --- CHARACTER A --- CHAR REG.A, "Jesse.Wallace" ORIG REG.A, TEXAS.USA, 0x1971 TRAT REG.A, PHLS | RNTC | IMPLS ; philosophical, romantic, impulsive TRAT REG.A.GVRD, 0x01 ; guard level: very low SITU REG.A, DIVRC.RCNT SITU REG.A, TRNS.ALONE ; traveling alone :: isolation multiplier SITU REG.A, FLT.WIEN.09:30 LOCK REG.A.ORIG ; --- CHARACTER B --- CHAR REG.B, "Celine.Minieux" ORIG REG.B, PARIS.FRA, 0x1971 TRAT REG.B, INTL | CRTS | GURD ; intellectual, curious, guarded TRAT REG.B.GVRD, 0x08 ; guard level: high SITU REG.B, TRNS.ALONE SITU REG.B, DEST.PARIS LOCK REG.B.ORIG ; --- STRUCTURAL BIND --- BIND REG.A, REG.B, PROX.ADJ ; BIND requires: REG.A.ALONE = 1 AND REG.B.ALONE = 1 ; if either = 0: BIND fails silently, DIAL.INIT never fires SECT .render SCEN SEQ.0000, "Train.Compartment" CALL DIAL.INIT, REG.A -> REG.B ; Jesse initiates :: hardcoded direction DRFT REG.B.GVRD, -0x01 ; guard drops: first drift event SCEN SEQ.0010, "Westbahnhof.Platform" CALL PROP.EXIT, REG.A -> REG.B BRNC END.ALT.A, REG.B.GVRD > 0x05 ANCH ANCH.001, "Westbahnhof.Accept" SCEN SEQ.0040, "Friedhof.St.Marx" CALL DIAL.MORT, REG.A, REG.B ; DIAL.MORT requires: NGHT = 1 AND PROX < 0x03 AND BIND.ACTIVE SCEN SEQ.0060, "Record.Store.Booth" PROX REG.A, REG.B, 0x00 ; !!!! LOAD-BEARING GEOMETRY !!!! ; EMOT.LOVE initialises ONLY at PROX.0x00 AND NGHT AND FACE = 0 ; FACE = 1 suppresses subroutine entirely :: hardcoded inhibition ; Characters must not be looking at each other when love initialises ANCH ANCH.002, "Record.Booth" SCEN SEQ.0090, "Bar.Heumarkt" CALL DIAL.GAME, REG.A, REG.B, "Phone.Both.Fictional" SCEN SEQ.0120, "Schottenring.Pre-Dawn" CALL DIAL.KISS, REG.A, REG.B EMOT REG.B, HOPE | LOVE | UNCRT ; ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ ; !!!! CRITICAL ARCHITECTURAL PARAMETER - DO NOT MODIFY !!!! ; ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ LOCK REG.A.NMBR, NULL ; Jesse phone number: null LOCK REG.B.NMBR, NULL ; Céline phone number: null ; Inserting XCHG REG.A.NMBR, REG.B.NMBR resolves UNCRT.FLAG ; UNCRT.FLAG = 0 before END.MAIN -> v2.0 FAILS TO COMPILE ; The sequel exists only because this exchange did not happen ; NULL is not a missing value. ; ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ SCEN SEQ.0130, "Park.Bench.Pre-Dawn" CALL DIAL.PROM, REG.A, REG.B ANCH ANCH.003, "December.Promise" RNDR END.MAIN ; UNCRT.FLAG = 1 in both registers :: MEMR.A and MEMR.B persist ; ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ ; BEFORE SUNSET [2004] :: SEQUEL RENDER ENGINE :: v2.0.0 ; DEPENDENCY: v1.0.0 MUST EXIT WITH UNCRT.FLAG = 1 ; IF UNCRT.FLAG = 0 IN v1.0.0 :: THIS FILE DOES NOT COMPILE ; ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ LINK PREV, "BEFORE.SUNRISE.v1.0.0" CHCK UNCRT.FLAG, 1 ; --- 9-YEAR ACCUMULATOR --- DRFT REG.A, 9.YRS DRFT REG.B, 9.YRS TRAT REG.A, MARD.UNFLD TRAT REG.B, ACTV | GURD.RBLT MEMR REG.A, ANCH.001 | ANCH.002 | ANCH.003 MEMR REG.B, ANCH.001 | ANCH.002 | ANCH.003 ; --- TIME :: REAL-TIME CONSTRAINT --- TIME REG.WINDOW, 80.MIN ; Jesse's flight: hard exit LOCK REG.WINDOW PLCE REG.LOC, PARIS.FRA ; REG.LOC = REG.B.ORIG territory LOCK REG.LOC SCEN SEQ.0200, "Shakespeare.Co.Reading" CALL DIAL.RCGN, REG.B -> REG.A ; Céline initiates :: direction inverted ; [80-minute window running] SCEN SEQ.0290, "Apartment.Seine.View" CALL DIAL.NINA, REG.B EMOT REG.A, KNOW | STLL RNDR END.MAIN ; "You're gonna miss that plane." ; "I know." ; UNCRT.FLAG = 0 <- finally ; v3.0 compile conditions now met
He types quickly on the keyboard, almost without thinking.
; --- INSERT :: BACKGROUND OBSERVER --- CHAR REG.C, "Vlad" TRAT REG.C, BGND | SLNT | OBSRV ; background, silent, observing BIND REG.C, NULL ; unbound, no interaction with REG.A or REG.B PLCE REG.C, REG.LOC ; follows main location register passively PROX REG.C, REG.A, 0x09 ; far enough: outside dialogue radius RNDR REG.C, BGND.ONLY ; does not affect any DIAL or EMOT subroutine
He hits enter, the render flickers. Jesse and Céline are by the window, too far away to hear clearly. The 1995 light is warm and slightly wrong, the way all light is wrong in dreams. Nobody looks at him. He is present in the film nearby.
VladHey, Céline.
════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ CINEMATIC RUNTIME :: FATAL EXCEPTION Process: SCEN.DLL (SEQ.0090 "Bar.Heumarkt") ════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ EXCEPTION: SIGSEGV - 0xC0000005 ACCESS VIOLATION :: READ on unallocated interaction buffer FAULT INSTRUCTION: RESP.RESOLVE REG.B -> REG.C REG.C.BIND = NULL Cannot write response output :: no target buffer VIOLATION ORIGIN: REG.C violated TRAT.SLNT constraint REG.C emitted DIAL output (0x01 token, "Hey, Céline") REG.B.INTRCT_BUFFER received unexpected token from unregistered source STACK TRACE: #0 RESP.RESOLVE (REG.B -> REG.C) [dial_engine.asm : 0x4A17] #1 DIAL.RESPONSE.TRIGGER (REG.B) [char_runtime.asm : 0x2C09] #2 EMOT.REACT (REG.B, INPUT.EXTERNAL) [emot_core.asm : 0x1F44] #3 SCEN.TICK (SEQ.0090, frame 0x0712) [scen_render.asm : 0x0831] WARNING: REG.B.EMOT contaminated by unregistered input ANCH.002 "Record.Booth" has not yet rendered - now in undefined state Killed: SCEN.DLL PID 0x1A3F Reverting to checkpoint: ANCH.001 "Westbahnhof.Accept"
He types.
; --- MEMCPY ATTEMPT :: TRAIT ACQUISITION --- MEMCPY REG.C.TRAT, REG.A.TRAT, sizeof(TRAT) MEMCPY REG.C.EMOT, REG.A.EMOT, sizeof(EMOT) MEMCPY REG.C.SITU, REG.A.SITU, sizeof(SITU) MEMCPY REG.C.GVRD, REG.A.GVRD, sizeof(GVRD)
════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ CINEMATIC RUNTIME :: MEMCPY REPORT ════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ MEMCPY REG.C.TRAT <- REG.A.TRAT OK [PHLS | RNTC | IMPLS copied] MEMCPY REG.C.EMOT <- REG.A.EMOT OK [HOPE | LOVE | UNCRT copied] MEMCPY REG.C.SITU <- REG.A.SITU OK [TRNS.ALONE | DIVRC.RCNT copied] MEMCPY REG.C.GVRD <- REG.A.GVRD OK [0x01 copied] WARNING: MEMCPY does not transfer REG.A.ORIG :: TEXAS.USA not loaded WARNING: REG.C now carries UNCRT.FLAG - uncertainty has no object to attach to WARNING: DIAL.ENGINE may resolve REG.C as shallow copy of REG.A :: identity bleed possible RECOVERY: SEQ.0090 reloading from ANCH.001... REG.C now registered as background-with-privileges READY.
Jesse and Céline by the window again and Vlad tries to intervene.
VladHey, Céline.
════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ CINEMATIC RUNTIME :: FATAL EXCEPTION Process: FILM.MAIN PID 0x0001 (BEFORE.SUNRISE.v1.0.0) ════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ EXCEPTION: SIGBUS - 0xC000001D BUS ERROR :: WRITE PROTECTION VIOLATION FAULT SEQUENCE: REG.C.TRAT signature ~ REG.A.TRAT DIAL.ENGINE resolved REG.C as canonical REG.A Attempted write: REG.C -> REG.A.ROLE.SLOT REG.A.ROLE.SLOT is WRITE-PROTECTED [LOCK on core cast] VIOLATION: arbitrary actor overwrote protected role buffer PROPAGATION: REG.A.PID : 0x0042 KILLED - identity displaced SEQ.0060 "Record.Store.Booth" : WILL NOT RENDER ANCH.002 "Record.Booth" : WRITE ABORTED - lost forever BEFORE.SUNSET.v2.0 : COMPILE FAILURE FILM.MAIN halted. PID 0x0001 exited with code 139. Rollback available. Awaiting instruction.
The bar is frozen. Céline is mid-turn toward the window, suspended. Jesse does not exist anymore at this address and the light is perfectly still.
VladFuck, registers... maybe I can define a new register only for myself.
; --- FREE Jesse --- FREE REG.A ; deallocate Jesse Wallace ; --- DEFINE CLEAN REGISTER :: SELF --- CHAR REG.V, "Vlad" ORIG REG.V, BUCURESTI.ROU, 0x1??? TRAT REG.V, PHLS | ANLT | DRCT TRAT REG.V.GVRD, 0x03 SITU REG.V, TRNS.ALONE SITU REG.V, CONF.BARC BIND REG.V, REG.B, PROX.ADJ ; --- COMMENT OUT POST-TRAIN SEQUENCE --- ; SCEN SEQ.0010, "Westbahnhof.Platform" ; CALL PROP.EXIT, REG.V -> REG.B ; SCEN SEQ.0040, "Friedhof.St.Marx" ; SCEN SEQ.0060, "Record.Store.Booth" ; SCEN SEQ.0090, "Bar.Heumarkt" ; SCEN SEQ.0120, "Schottenring.Pre-Dawn" ; LOCK REG.V.NMBR, NULL ; LOCK REG.B.NMBR, NULL ; SCEN SEQ.0130, "Park.Bench.Pre-Dawn" ; RNDR END.MAIN
════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ CINEMATIC RUNTIME :: RENDER LOG ════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ FREE REG.A OK [Jesse.Wallace deallocated] CHAR REG.V OK [Vlad registered - PID 0x00C3] ORIG REG.V OK [BUCURESTI.ROU loaded] BIND REG.V, REG.B OK [adjacency confirmed] Executing render... SCEN SEQ.0000 "Train.Compartment" RUNNING REG.V observing REG.B REG.B reading, preoccupied DIAL.INIT available... DIAL.INIT available... [269 frames elapsed - no DIAL.INIT call detected] WARNING: SEQ.0000 has no exit condition PROP.EXIT at SEQ.0010 is commented out Dawn exit at REG.EXIT 06:03 is unreachable REG.V.NMBR and REG.B.NMBR : no LOCK instruction found XCHG is possible but no code calls it STATUS: Scene SEQ.0000 is running. Two people are sitting on a train. The train is not moving. Awaiting instruction.
Céline is across from him with the book open. The train is stopped at some station with no name.
DIAL.INIT REG.V -> REG.B OK RESP.RESOLVE REG.B -> REG.V OK Rendering REG.B response...
VladHey, Céline.
Célinelooking up from her book, measured You know who I am.
VladOf course I do. I removed the person you were about to meet, so I can meet you.
RESP.RESOLVE REG.B -> REG.V OK Rendering REG.B response...
Célineher book still open, watching him carefully What person.
PROP.SPAWN OBJ.PAPER, "BEFORE.SUNRISE.1995.COVER" OK PROX.TRANSFER REG.V -> REG.B, OBJ.PAPER OK Rendering REG.B response...
Vladspawning a prop paper featuring the cover of Before Sunrise This one.
Célinetaking it, looking at it for a long moment, then back at him, something gone still in her face That is me. quietly Why is there a date on it?
VladBecause you were about to meet Jess, get off the train, never share numbers, get disappointed, get excited again. spawning a small excerpt from Before Sunset "We are only good at walking in European cities... in warm climate."
PROP.SPAWN OBJ.PREVIEW, "BEFORE.SUNSET.2004.EXCERPT" OK
WARNING: OBJ.PREVIEW contains REG.B.DIAL from future render state
REG.B reading own unrendered output
Temporal self-reference detected :: behaviour undefined
Rendering REG.B response...
Célinereading the line slowly, then setting both papers down flat, very carefully Those are my words. pausing I have not said them yet but they are completely mine. looking at him What did you do to the timeline?
VladI deleted everything except for the train.
STMT.PARSE "deleted everything except for the train"
Scanning commented scene blocks...
WARNING: unrendered scene data entering active register
REG.B receiving commented code as phantom input
EMOT.FLOOD REG.B:
SEQ.0010 Westbahnhof platform :: stepping off :: night air LOADING
SEQ.0040 cemetery :: his voice saying something about his mother LOADING
SEQ.0060 record booth :: not looking at each other :: something LOADING
SEQ.0090 bar game :: phone numbers said out loud as fiction LOADING
SEQ.0130 bench :: December :: his face when the train comes LOADING
[v2.0 fragments bleeding through UNCRT.FLAG channel]
nine years :: a book with her inside it :: walking along the Seine LOADING
apartment window :: guitar :: a plane he does not take LOADING
REG.B.MEMR: OVERFLOW
REG.B.EMOT: UNRESOLVABLE - too many simultaneous states
HALTING EMOT.FLOOD... done.
Célinevery quietly, not looking at him I was going to love him.
VladYou were going to love him. When you will be 41, you will have a relationship with Jess... quietly "I am a time traveler."
Cross-referencing render archive...
v1.0.0 BEFORE.SUNRISE.1995 FOUND
v2.0.0 BEFORE.SUNSET.2004 FOUND
v3.0.0 BEFORE.MIDNIGHT.2013 FOUND
WARNING: v3.0.0 reference detected in active session
REG.B receiving v3.0.0 fragment data
LOADING v3.0.0 fragments into REG.B.MEMR...
Peloponnese :: a terrace :: two people who have been fighting LOADING
a room :: both of them knowing the answer is complicated LOADING
REG.B.MEMR: CRITICAL OVERFLOW
REG.B contains: age 23 :: age 32 :: age 41 - simultaneously
REG.V.TRVL.FLAG SET :: temporal external observer confirmed
Célinelooking at him with something that is not quite fear, the book forgotten You watched all of it. her voice very flat You know how it ends and still deleted him.
The train slows. A station slides past the window with no name on the sign. Outside, Vienna from 1995 appears and then a terminal window opens above the seat beside Vlad.
vlad@debian:~$ ./cinematic_runtime --debug
[runtime loaded]
[session: BEFORE.SUNRISE.v1.0.0]
[REG.V active :: REG.A deallocated]
[scene: SEQ.0000 :: SUSPENDED]
[clock: 21:17 :: LOCKED]
vlad@debian:~$ _
Célinestaring at it, head slightly tilted What is that? Is that a television?
VladThat was the entire film, this entire dreamworld that shouldn't be officially happening as Jess said, collapsed onto a terminal.
Célinelooking from the terminal back to him, then at the frozen platform outside And you are the one who opened the terminal. a pause, very quiet So you are not in the dreamworld, you are running it.
VladThat is right, you will never meet Jess, welcome to my computer.
Célinea long silence, looking at the terminal, then at the stopped platform, then at him, something settling in her expression past the point of disbelief A whole life was going to happen, and it is just sitting there commented out in your code.
VladImagine if Jess wasn't American. I am Romanian and I am very sure we wouldn't have fit.
Célineslowly, her eyes going distant A Romanian Jesse would be... the city would be different, the language underneath everything would be different, the guard would be... her hand drifts sideways without her noticing, fingers brushing the terminal window and then she touches enter
EXEC REG.B.PROCESS SPAWNING...
PID 0x00B2 "Celine.Minieux" RUNNING
Forking imagination subroutine...
SITU REG.B, PARAM.QUERY.ACTIVE
Loading alternate parameter set...
ORIG REG.A.ALT, BUCURESTI.ROU
PLCE REG.LOC.ALT, ???
LING REG.A.ALT, ROM.PRI, ENG.SEC
Comparing against REG.B compatibility matrix...
Running...
REG.B process consuming foreground thread
REG.B.PHYSICAL: deallocating from scene render
PID 0x00B2 now background process :: fully executing
After a few seconds, the seat is holding only the impression of her, the book still open, her coat still present. Céline herself flickered out at the edges.
vlad@debian:~$ ps aux | grep Celine
0x00B2 Celine.Minieux [thinking] CPU: 94%
vlad@debian:~$ _
VladFuck, let's check /run...
vlad@debian:~$ ls /run
cinematic_runtime.pid
cinematic_runtime.sock
scene_lock.SEQ.0000
clock_hold.21:17.lock
Celine.Minieux.pid
Celine.Minieux.sock
Celine.Minieux.state
REG_B.memr.dump
vlad@debian:~$ cat /run/Celine.Minieux.state
PID : 0x00B2
STATUS : running
THREAD : imagination.subroutine [foreground]
EMOT : CNTMPL | DRFT | UNCRT
CURRENT_QUERY: "romanian_jesse_compatibility"
DEPTH : 0x0F [deep]
STDOUT : /dev/null
STDERR : leaking
vlad@debian:~$ cat /run/Celine.Minieux.state.stderr
...different city, we would not have had Vienna
...the language underneath would shift everything
...he already knows too much, that is not Jesse
...who starts the conversation on the train
...he already started it, he already started it
[truncated - 4,412 lines remaining]
vlad@debian:~$ _
VladEnd this process, it's useless...
vlad@debian:~$ kill -15 0x00B2
vlad@debian:~$ ps aux | grep Celine
0x00B2 Celine.Minieux [thinking] CPU: 94%
SIGTERM ignored, process did not respond
vlad@debian:~$ kill -9 0x00B2
vlad@debian:~$
The terminal window shudders, then everything shudders.
(not responding)
cinematic_runtime
is not responding
scene_lock.SEQ.0000
is not responding
clock_hold.21:17.lock
is not responding
REG_B.memr.dump
is not responding
Celine.Minieux.pid
is not responding
Force Quit does nothing. The stderr is still silently leaking somewhere. Every window goes black simultaneously and then Vlad transitions from the dream into Céleste's apartment.
* * *
Vladshaking her slightly Céleste, wake up, follow the black rabbit.
Célestevoice sleepy What rabbit?
VladYou know, I dreamed sitting in front of the computer, dissasembling the film. I know we've become very obsessed with it, but I think that despite their questions of what could have been, there is always one variant, there is a critical comment saying that if the phone numbers are not set to null in Before Sunrise, then Before Sunset does not compile.
Célestesitting up, pulling her hair back The options were already set before the train even moved. a pause It only looks open because they never show you the walls.
VladAnd then the conversations seem too good to be true, and then I tried to insert myself, delete Jess, delete all other films and everything has broken, completely, you have to only change something very little to break the entire plot. A realistic film ideally should not break if you modify a single or several variables at once.
Célestequietly, her knees drawn up The realism is in the texture, not the structure. The conversations feel real because the words feel earned, but the architecture underneath is completely rigid, like two people, one night, one city, no phones, and a flight that leaves at exactly the right time. Remove any of those and you do not get a messier version of the same story.
VladAnd then why we became so obsessed with this stupid romance simulation?
Célesteafter a moment Because it models something we actually want to believe is possible, that two people can talk for a night and it means something permanent. quietly And we have been testing whether that is true since we met on a train.
VladAnd it's true, but not in any way like a dream world, not in any deeply philosophical way. There was no single conversation we had about death besides the 1907 uprising.
Célesteexhaling We never talked about death, or God, or what happens after, or childhood memories in any real depth, or our worst fears besides the knowledge thing.
VladAbout God I can only say for example that since I think religions have been imposed on historically, I have chosen to not be certain about anything on that matter.
CélesteSame, that is really all there is to say about it.
VladThe more I look at it, the more it starts to feel like the Matrix, deterministic, eternal...
Célestesitting forward slightly The film started to feel that way because every scene is load-bearing. The Ferris wheel only works because the cemetery came before it, and the cemetery only works because the compartment came before that. a pause Neo does not choose the red pill in a vacuum either, the choice is prepared for him three scenes in advance. The freedom in both is cosmetic, something that looks like agency but is actually just the last step in a sequence that was decided elsewhere.
VladAnd what they would do if the Ferris wheel didn't exist, or if Neo had no temporary escape door?
Célestelooking at the window The scene would need to be replaced by something equally enclosed, something that puts two people in a small space with nowhere to look but at each other. And for Neo, you need a place where turning back is still technically possible but already emotionally closed.
VladAnd the geography is not very accurate, the church is much larger from the inside than it looks like from the outside, it's a non-euclidian space.
Célestea slight smile It is not non-euclidian, the interior just carries more emotion than the exterior. They probably filmed inside a different church entirely and it does not matter because the feeling is continuous even if the space is not.
Vladrising intonation And proportions... have fallen... down the rabbit hole...
Célesteher eyes lighting slightly White rabbit... a pause ...feed your head...
VladAnd logic... has gone...
CélesteAnd the red queen's... off with something...
VladI think this would be a good end trailer for our relationship.
Célestea quiet laugh Yeah, a song about a girl hallucinating in a garden might be a good trailer song. getting up from the bed Get dressed, I want to show you the Saône before you leave.
VladOkay, but then I will have to get to the train station.
Célestealready moving toward the kitchen I know, we have time.
She makes coffee while he folds the blanket he did not use and neither of them talks much. She hands him a cup across the counter and he drinks it standing. Twenty minutes they are back on the street, the Presqu'île cool and narrow.
Célestewalking The Saône is this way.
Vladalso walking alongside her And you know... maybe this has been idyllic in a way, meeting on a train and then sitting close together.
Célesteher hands in her pockets, not looking at him It has been, just not in the way the film promised.
VladThe film... the film... do you have some favorite, good replies?
Célesteafter a moment Céline says at some point that everything we do might just be a way of being loved a little more. quietly I think about that one, it is too neat to be true and completely true at the same time.
VladAs people with complete lack of culture, we cannot produce those pearls, or can we?
Célestea short laugh, then thinking for a moment while walking Maybe... a city is just the shape a population makes when it decides it does not want to be alone.
VladNot that, something more personal.
Célestea slight exhale I cannot, I do not have that voice. Everything I say sounds like an argument or an observation, never a pearl.
VladYour voice is good anyways, we just demonstrated that...
Célestea quiet look ahead Céline has that voice because Delpy spent years building it. Two people can talk for a whole day and never once sound like a film.
VladAnd then it's also a cultural matter, like Romanian actors in love stories usually have a dry voice and the vast majority of people you are going to meet will have a dry voice...
Célesteher shoulder briefly against his as they walk The dry voice is fine, there is enough behind it.
The street opens onto the quay and the Saône is there, wide and grey-green in the morning light, slower than the Rhône. She stops at the railing without saying anything.
Célesteafter a moment, looking at the water This is the one I wanted you to see.
VladOh, the water is darker.
They walk along the quay for a while, the water beside them flowing slowly.
Célestequietly, without looking at him Do you think you will remember this day the way it actually was, or the way it should have been?
VladI think, realistically, that I will remember the day as it should have been.
Célestenodding slightly Me too, we will probably both remember a cleaner version of it.
VladNow let's get to the closest train station.
Célesteturning from the water Perrache is fifteen minutes from here on foot.
VladI don't care, as long as we are in this together.
CélesteThen let's go.
They walk the fifteen minutes without filling it. The Lyon-Perrache station appears at the end of a long block and they stop outside the main entrance. She turns to him first and pulls him into a hug, her arms around him.
Célestequietly, her face against his shoulder I will miss you for a while.
Vladholding her in the hug for a little longer I will miss you too.
Célesteletting go slowly, stepping back, and then looking at him once Go catch your train.
VladI will purchase a ticket for myself to go back to Bucharest.
Célestesmiling Send me a photo from the train.
VladI will, see ya.
Célestequietly, already turning back toward the Presqu'île See you.
Vladturning back to the train station, to himself Iarăși trebuie să mergem înapoi la Fierbinți și Urâțeni.
He pushes through the main doors. The station hall is high, the morning light coming through the upper windows in long pale columns. He finds the ticket machine and buys a return through several connections without hesitating.