It smiled when you cried. It comforted you once—then called it a debt. It praised your faith—then mocked it in private.
In this dark, lyrical narrative, we explore the psychology and spiritual roots of narcissism: from Scripture and Greek myth to the hidden corridors of Soviet Russia. Through the quiet witness of one faithful woman, and the slow corrosion of a neighbor bent on control, this episode examines how narcissism disguises itself as virtue—and what it means to resist with something stronger than fear.
Featuring fictional characters Yuri, Lena, and the manipulative Anastasia Rascalnuts, this story asks: What happens when sincerity becomes subversive? And why does evil always wear a smile?
📜 Full Episode Transcript
The Face Beneath the Mask
It smiled when you cried.
It comforted you once. Then called it a debt.
It soothed your shame. Then used it against you
It honored your virtue. Then mocked it in private.
It shared your story. Then made you the punchline.
It smiled at your joy. Then rolled its eyes.
It lets you unravel… and watches…It just smiles until you question your own voice.
Beware! the face beneath the mask!
According to Psychology Today, narcissism is defined in the following way:
It is, quote, “characterized by a grandiose sense of self-importance, a lack of empathy for others, and a need for excessive admiration. It often masks deep insecurity.”
In simple terms, this is someone who thinks very highly of themselves… thinks they are more special than others… someone who sees themselves as the main character in a play… and you and everyone else in the world as the cast in their story. Someone who needs others to see and appreciate the greatness that is them!!
Okay… how about this… let me know if this sounds like it fits the bill:
“I will ascend to heaven,” said the fallen one. “I will raise my throne above the stars of God… I will make myself like the Most High.”
— Isaiah 14:13–14
Sounds like this describes Satan… right? Maybe the very first sin ever committed in heaven!!
Okay, how about this one:
“Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
“You will not surely die… For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God…”
— Genesis 3:1, 4–5
Oh! Satan again! This time, offering up the very first temptation on earth… and, this… Man’s first sin too! He was offering the ability for man to determine what is good and what is evil… on his own terms… to reimagine obedience entirely… to become one’s own source of truth. Sounds pretty narcissistic!
Okay, okay… just a coincidence, right? Surely we all learned our lessons and stopped these shenanigans… right?
Think again!!
It appears, in some form, time and time again… throughout nearly all the books of Scripture. It is condemned more often than violence, more often than immorality, and, more often than idolatry…
The self, made sacred. The image, made into god.
THE ULTIMATE IDOLATRY!!
Christ offers the strongest rebukes and corrections during his ministry for those people exhibiting these very traits… LISTEN!!
From Matthew - “They do all their deeds to be seen by others… They clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence… You are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones.” - Matthew 23:5, 25, 27
From John - “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” - John 5:44
From Luke - “The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men…’” - Luke 18:11
And this is just scraping the surface!!!
God has been warning man about Satan’s influence through our own behavior, literally, FOREVER!!
This pathology is dangerous because it does not look like a threat. It speaks the language of concern and flattery... but underneath, there is calculation. Control. A base dishonesty… A fear of Truth that disguises itself as virtue. It infects institutions. It erodes families. It can operate behind pulpits or within committees.
And it rarely acts alone.
This fracture. This hunger. This mask... The first sin in heaven and… the last sin in heaven… the first sin on Earth, and, likely, the last sin on Earth…
And so we begin with a story. A myth, yes… but perhaps more than that…
It is said that, long ago, in the shaded hills of Greece, a girl named Echo wandered alone in the hills. She was a nymph, cursed by Hera, queen of the gods, to speak only what others had already said… never her own words, never her own thoughts. She had once been clever. Joyful. Full of mischief and melody. But now, she was an instrument. A reflection. No matter what she felt or believed, she could only repeat the sounds of those around her.
Then came Narcissus.
He was beautiful, so beautiful, in fact, that he had never loved anyone but himself. He scorned the affections of others and wandered the forest alone, until one day he came upon a still pool of water and saw his reflection. He didn’t recognize the face as his own. But he loved it.
He stayed there for days, staring. Entranced, and the more he stared, the more he faded, until at last, he died, having never looked away.
Echo watched him with longing. She tried to speak. Tried to call his name. But all she could say was what he had already said.
“Who are you?”
“Are you there?”
“Love me.”
And so he vanished, devoured by his own image.
And she vanished, devoured by his voice.
But, perhaps, Echo never truly faded.Perhaps she entered his mind.Slipped past the gaze, through the pool, and into the echoing corridors of his mind. And there, in the silence between thoughts, she repeated what he could never face:
“You are alone.”
“You are hollow.”
“You are not who you pretend to be.”
He answered, of course.
“I am loved.”
“I am admired.”
“I am enough.”
And so it went, the voice and the echo, circling each other endlessly. One full of pride. The other full of grief. Two selves… one soul. Divided. One side performs in the light… the other, torments itself in the dark. And an endless mirror.
But maybe this is not only a myth… maybe this describes broken personalities that lurk among us.
The Greeks understood this, before Christ, and had a word for it… it was schízein, meaning to split, to tear, to sever.
Sound familiar? It’s the root of schism… a word the Church uses not for mere disagreement, or a trifle… but for something far more grievous. A schism is a wound. A rift in something meant to remain whole. When the Church divides, the Body of Christ aches.
And when a soul divides… the mind becomes wounded, paralyzed… a divided person begins to decay inwards and over time, the hunger for love is replaced with the hunger for control.
Worse still… they come to fear the ones who live without masks… they are terrified by authenticity… the unfiltered presence of someone with nothing to hide… someone who knows, really knows… and understands… Truth… and can discern right from wrong. Because the truth, in its quiet power, has the ability to reveal.
We know this to be true because it was revealed to us by Jesus himself, in John 3:19–21,
“And this is the judgment: that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been carried out in God.”
Even without formal teaching, most people recognize what must be avoided. The warning is silent… a hesitation, a shift, a quiet pull away from evil… a joke that cuts, a compliment that corners… a rumor, spread through gossip… Most don’t name it. They feel it. And they step back.
But some don’t. Some lean in. They adjust. It feels useful. Maybe even smart… downright practical. But beneath that choice is a surrender… a surender to ultimate sin.
They call it wisdom. But it’s consent. And once given, evil is never satisfied with being used once. It offers results… quick, powerful, intoxicating results. It grants influence, the ability to steer a room, to unsettle an opponent, to know exactly where to press in a conversation to gain control. But what it offers is borrowed. And what it takes… it keeps.
The Fathers warned us. St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote,
“That which the soul chooses freely, the same it becomes. The eye that turns to darkness becomes dark; the heart that turns to deceit becomes a lie.”
Even St. Paul, writing to those who knew the truth… saw how easily it could be exchanged:
“Though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God… their thinking became futile, and their hearts darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools… and exchanged the truth of God for a lie.” (Romans 1:21–22, 25)
The soul does not simply “do” evil… it becomes it.
After the Revolution, Russia did not surge forward, as expected. It was more of a stumble.
The tsar had fallen, the Church lay in pieces, and the old nobility had been swept away beneath layers of slogans and broken promises. What followed was not peace. What emerged instead was a new kind of order—one maintained by silence, suspicion, and submission.
By 1923, the paradise that had been promised resembled something far more bleak:
damp bread gone to mold, queues that stretched into freezing rain, and bureaucratic forms stacked high to prove a citizen still deserved shelter.
Across the city stood statues no one had requested and policies no one dared question. The streets were quiet.
The words truth and virtue remained in use, but their meanings had shifted. Justice now meant whatever aligned with Party need. Conscience, once a guide, had become a liability. To speak from the heart was dangerous. To think independently was worse.
But the people adapted, or tried to. They learned to say what was safe, not what was true. They learned to watch their neighbors, and, in turn, to wonder who was watching them.
This was a war against the interior life… against memory, worship, affection, even thought. Especially thought. The self… the individual… had to be broken down and remade in the image of the State.
In this atmosphere, a new kind of soul began to flourish. The kind who understood how to survive through charm and cruelty, who could turn conviction into theater and ideology into leverage. They smiled while diminishing others. They wrapped malice in compliments. They gathered secrets through false intimacy, then used them for control.
And this is exactly where our story takes place… in an ordinary building on an ordinary Moscow street… with what looked like, ordinary people.
…The building was gray. Gray like the others. Gray like the streets, the coats, and the skies.
It had once been a grand old house, but now its rooms were chopped into apartments. Peeling paint, thin walls, and one staircase that creaked no matter how softly you stepped.
On the third floor, in a quiet corner, lived Yuri and Lena.
They didn’t cause trouble. They smiled at neighbors, kept their apartment clean, and didn’t speak too loudly. Yuri fixed things around the building… pipes, hinges, whatever was broken. Lena sewed clothes, read old books, and boiled tea every evening whether they needed it or not. There was nothing dramatic about the way they lived. But in a place like this, simplicity took effort… and that made them unusual.
Across the hall lived Pickpock Rascalnuts and his wife, Anastasia.
Pickpock posed little threat, at least not directly. He struggled to follow most conversations, lost track of his own thoughts, and often wandered the halls with a clipboard under one arm, looking for something he might have written down. Still, he had a title—several, in fact—and in post-Revolutionary Russia, titles carried weight.
Or danger.
Sometimes both.
He claimed to work in the “Cultural Morals Engineering Department.” No one was quite sure if this department existed. But no one challenged him either.
They didn’t laugh until his back was turned. But they never dismissed him outright.
Because he had a wife.
Anastasia was not confused. No one ever quite knew what to make of Anastasia Rascalnuts.
She wasn’t cruel. Not openly… at least… not obviously so. She offered help, smiled and laughed often… and remembered birthdays! Her compliments were always just warm enough, her questions just curious enough, her tone just low enough to never draw official suspicion.
But there was something about her… something people couldn’t name. A feeling that when she was around, you were being measured… like a bill held up to the light to check for forgery.
Anastasia had once been a mother of two. She still was, technically. She mentioned them sometimes... One son was said to be performing in a traveling theater in Leningrad. Or was it Tula? He had “artistic leanings,” she said, with a tired smile. The daughter, she claimed, had a government job. A good one. Anastasia said this as though it proved something.
But she never spoke of visits. Never of letters. And she never said why they left.
One evening, with the hallway dim and quiet, Anastasia sat at the kitchen table with Pickpock. The samovar hissed quietly on the counter. Her tea was cooling. She hadn’t touched it.
Pickpock was folding a piece of newspaper into something resembling a hat.
“So… they didn’t write back?”
“No,” she said flatly.
“Maybe the letter got stuck, or… or maybe they’re just real busy with their kids and stuff.”
Anastasia didn’t look up. “They make time for who they want to make time for.”
Pickpock blinked. “Well, Mitya always liked being in the city. Better work there, he said. More chances.”
“He was wrong,” she said, sharp. “What he wanted was attention. He wanted to feel important.”
“Duh… I thought he just wanted to get out of the village. Said it felt small.”
“He said that to hurt me,” she snapped. “He made it sound like we were the problem. Like his whole life here was something to escape from.” She stared out the window, at the faint glow of the streetlamp beyond the frost. “I gave him stability. I kept him from making foolish choices. But he never saw that. He just wanted to be admired.”
Pickpock scratched his chin. “Doo.. drt… Maybe he just wanted to do something else.”
She didn’t answer directly.
“He’s working some kind of desk job now. Sends photos of office parties like that’s something to be proud of. And they live in an apartment where the children hang icons in the hallway. Did you know that? Like a little chapel.”
“Well, they’re Catholic now,” Pickpock offered. “What’s wrong with a little, duh.. chapel”?
Anastasia took a long sip of her tea, then set the cup down.
“She converted and now, suddenly it’s all candles and saints and morality. No time for real conversation, no time to gossip with their poor mother. They’re too busy 'forming their children.' As if that’s something to brag about.”
Pickpock tilted his head. “Well, Alina says it helps the kids. They got little rules and traditions. Storytime. Something called a catechism… it seems pretty nice to old Pickpock”
“They think they’re better than us,” Anastasia said. “They think they’re doing what I failed to do. Their only doing this to prove a point to me. That they’re better because they’re raising them right. Giving them something deeper she says.” She let the words hang there.“But what they don’t see is how hard it is to raise children when you’re just surviving. When you’re tired… and especially when they’re so ungrateful”
“Duh, Well, yeah. You didn’t never go to no church though… duh.. Puh… grk.. Neither did I… but, um… duh” Pickpock tapped the table. “You want me to write again?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m not going to beg for scraps. If they want to raise their children with saints and sacraments and moral superiority, let them. But they don’t get to act like they’re better than the woman who held them up when no one else would. They aren’t grateful at all. They owe me more than this!”
She pushed her chair back and stood.
“Let them train their perfect children to sit in pews and memorize Latin… and… and… pretend they’re better than everyone else. They’ll see. Someday. Real life doesn’t work like that… sometimes you have to compromise”
Pickpock just nodded, folding his paper hat again.
She moved toward the hallway, then paused at the door.“I was a good mother.”, she said. It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even a statement.It was a verdict. And it wasn’t open for appeal.
It had been three months since Yuri and Lena moved in.
Their apartment was smaller than the one they'd left behind, just two rooms and a narrow kitchen, but Lena made it warm. There was always something on the stove, a curtain pulled to soften the light, and a sense of quiet that made neighbors pause before knocking.
Anastasia knocked anyway. Often. She had taken to stopping by several times a week now, sometimes with a bowl of barley, sometimes with a pair of hand-mended baby socks, once with a clumsy drawing she claimed had been made by one of her children “back when they still liked paper.”
To anyone watching, she was being generous. Helpful! Neighborly!
But Pickpock had seen it before. One night, as he watched her iron a napkin that wasn’t wrinkled, he asked:
“You’re... duh, are you gunna, duh… try again, huh?”
She didn’t look up.
“Try what?”
“To, you know… dooo... the whole thing. The mother thing. With the other one.”
“Her name is Lena.”
“Yeah. Lena. Right.”
She folded the napkin with unnecessary precision.
“She needs guidance,” Anastasia said. “She’s a new mother. All nerves and feelings. No structure. It’s familiar.”
Pickpock scratched his neck.
“But, uh… they’re kind of different. Churchy. She’s got... candles. She seems to know what she’s, duh. What? Um, what she’s doing’”
“Which is why she needs someone grounded,” Anastasia said, pressing the iron hard. “Someone who knows how the world actually works. Not just prayers and feelings and.. whatever other nonsense she believes in.”
Pickpock nodded slowly, eyes wandering. “Dooo… They don’t really talk much, huh? The two of them. Kinda quiet.”
“They’re polite,” Anastasia replied. “But she listens. I can tell. She just needs a little direction.”
“Duh.”
She didn’t say more. But she smiled to herself as she placed the napkin in a basket and wrapped it with string.
Across the hall, the new parents were still awake. The baby had fussed through the night. Teething, perhaps, or maybe just unsettled. Lena didn’t mind. She held him close, rocked him gently, sang low prayers in his ear. Morning came like a veil slowly lifting.
Then, three knocks at the door.
She opened it to find Anastasia, basket in hand, with Pickpock Rascalnuts shuffling just behind her, hat slightly askew, holding what appeared to be a spoon.
“Hellooo,” Anastasia sang. “Just thought I’d drop these by. A few things that helped me when mine were little. You’re probably drowning in laundry.”
Lena stepped aside with a quiet thank you. Her voice was sincere, but her body told a different story. The thankfulness did not extend to the rest of her frame.
Pickpock wandered in behind, mumbling something about having misplaced the lid to the sugar jar. He offered the spoon to the baby, then to the kettle, before sitting quietly on a stool and staring at the wall with deep concentration.
Anastasia's eyes moved slowly across the apartment. Sparse. Clean. A crucifix above the stove… “that looks new”. She pretended not to see it.
“You look exhaaaausted,” she said, drawing out the word. “Have you even had a moment to rest? You should lie down. Take a nap. I can watch the baby. I’ve done it before, you know. I still remember how.”
Lena offered a small smile and a firm shake of the head. “He’s asleep now.”
“He wakes often, doesn’t he?” Anastasia said, already picking at the blanket in the cradle. “That’s strange. Mine always slept through everything—sirens, thunder, even the neighbors shouting. But some babies are just… different.”
She set the basket down with ceremony. One by one, she laid out its contents.
“Structure and strict discipline is the secret,” she said. “Children need order. When mine were young, we had a system. Makes them feel safe. Of course, if they misbehave… they got the belt. You have to start whipping your kids at a young age, you know.”
Lena nodded but didn’t look up.
“You know,” Anastasia continued, “it’s also important to begin early with proper manners. Greeting adults, making eye contact, holding still during church. If you teach them when they’re tiny, they don’t grow up wild.”
“He’s four months old,” Lena said, simply.
Anastasia blinked. “Yes, well. That’s when it starts. People always wait too long.”
The baby stirred. Lena glanced toward the cradle.“He always flinches at loud voices,” she murmured. “It’s almost like he already knows when something’s wrong… or… not kind.”
Anastasia laughed…. a soft, breathy trill meant to sound maternal… but it held a layer of dismissal underneath.
“Oh Lena,” she said through her smile. “That’s a sweet thought. But babies don’t understand things like that. That’s just your tired brain talking.”
She patted Lena’s hand, like one might pat the armrest of an old chair. They sat. Tea was poured. Steam curled from the chipped cups. Pickpock stirred his with the wrong end of the spoon and whispered something about pigeons.
“I always say,” Anastasia went on, crossing her legs, “a mother sets the whole mood of the home. Her attitude shapes everything—the baby, the husband, the neighbors. We all contribute to the social fabric, Lena. Harmony begins here. Sometimes a restless baby indicates displeasure.”
Lena smiled softly, but didn’t answer. She did not argue…. But she did not agree.
And Anastasia noticed. And Anastasia remembered.
That evening, after the lamps were lowered and the baby had drifted into a fragile sleep, Lena stood by the window, watching the fog bleed through the alleyways. The city always looked damp at night. Yuri returned quietly from his shift… his boots scuffed, and his shoulders were slumped and tired. He kissed her cheek, careful not to wake the child.
“She came again today,” Lena said, her voice low.
Yuri sighed. “Anastasia?”
She nodded. “With linens and stories… advise. Said I looked tired. Offered to watch him so I could nap.”
He set down his workbag. “And Pickpock?”
“Present,” she said dryly. “In form, at least.”
Yuri allowed a tired chuckle. He sat at the table and rubbed the back of his neck.
“They mean well,” he said. “In their way.”
Lena turned from the window. “She said babies don’t understand kindness.”
Yuri looked up at her. “She said what?”
“She said that it’s just something tired mothers tell themselves. She laughed. Like I’d said something from a child’s book.”
Yuri was quiet for a moment.
“I feel like, since the revolution, the whole neighborhood is sleepwalking. Everyone is focused on themselves. The neighbors,” she whispered. “I watch them sometimes from the balcony… Mrs. Yelena with her polished phrases about collective harmony, and old Gregor reciting the Party lines like they’re prayers.”
Yuri shook his head.“They’re scared. We all are. This system makes people afraid of each other… always looking inward… watching your actions and thoughts constantly… But fear makes some people faithful to the wrong gods.”
Lena looked down at her hands.“I used to think the Revolution just broke things… the churches, the families, the songs. But it’s more than that. It replaces them. It’s not just violence. It’s... imitation. Bad imitation too. Hollow rituals. Manufactured peace. A whole country pretending it's healed. Pretending everything’s okay. It’s very unsettling”
He reached across and gently took her hand.“And yet,” he said, “here we are. Still lighting a candle. Still holding fast. Don’t worry doll, the world will come back around eventually”
They sat in silence. Outside, the city churned. Inside, the crucifix above the stove caught a sliver of moonlight.
The Bolsheviks had won the war. But it wasn’t a war in the traditional sense… it wasn’t fought for land, or even for power… it was a war for the interior of the human being.
In the decade following the Revolution, Lenin’s vision of the “new Soviet man” was no longer a theory… it was becoming policy.
The Church was declared an enemy of progress. Monasteries were shuttered. Relics were seized. Priests were imprisoned. Bishops disappeared. Truth, once a matter of revelation and conscience, was now issued by decree. The family, too, was reframed… this wasn't a sacrament of unity and love, but only a temporary social construct, subject to the greater needs of the collective.
Under Lenin, and even more under Stalin, the old moral vocabulary was not discarded… just gutted and repurposed. Love became loyalty to the state. Charity became submission to policy. Truth became whatever advanced the revolution.
Children were encouraged to inform on their parents. Teachers replaced priests. Icons were replaced with portraits.
This was a regime that transcended governance… it was the thought police. People learned to smile without sincerity and repeat without actually believing… to perform the motions of joy while hiding the slow erosion within.
In such a world, people like Anastasia flourished. Women like her, men like her husband, learned to mimic loyalty with just enough charm to rise in the eyes of the Party while keeping their neighbors slightly off-balance. They knew how to pivot from praise to suspicion in a single sentence. How to feign concern while extracting information.
They were not officials… but they were still useful tools, and useful tools often survive the longest.
Beneath their polished exteriors, however, there was a soul that had been living on borrowed power for so long… it had forgotten how to love without control. Anastasia didn’t just resent Lena’s quiet faith… she needed to replace it. Because it was a reminder. A quiet witness. It was an authentic life… not one built on performance…
And the mere presence of someone who lived differently, who loved honestly, who prayed sincerely, who mothered gently… well, that was its own form of dissent, now wasn’t it.
And the great war of Soviet Russia… the one waged in basements and kitchens and apartments, was fought in the souls of the normal people… it was fought with lies, and it was lost, or won, one conscience at a time.
It was Lena’s idea.
She mentioned it quietly to Yuri one evening.
“I think we should have them for supper. Just once. Just... to soften things.”
Yuri looked skeptical. But he knew Lena. She wasn’t naive… she was actually trying. Holding out one last thread of charity.
He nodded. “If you’re sure.”
She wasn’t. But she set the table anyway.
They came promptly at seven.
Anastasia wore her best coat, though it was too warm inside to keep it on. She removed it slowly, letting her eyes scan the room with the air of someone checking for dust with her fingertips.
“So tidy,” she said. “And all so... quiet. It’s like a chapel in here.”
Pickpock followed, carrying something that may have once been a pie.
“I made this,” he said, handing it to Yuri upside-down. “It’s got... food in it.”
Lena smiled. Took their coats and offered tea. The baby stirred in the other room.
Anastasia tilted her head. “He’s not asleep yet?”
Lena shook her head. “He sleeps lighter in the evenings.”
“Oh, mine were always out cold by now,” Anastasia said, gliding to the table. “You just have to train them.”
The first course was soup. Anastasia sniffed it before tasting.“What’s in this?”
“Barley, onion… a bit of dill.”
Anastasia nodded, then set her spoon down after one bite.“Ah. Dill. That explains the… flavor.” She smiled. “Very traditional.”
Conversation unfolded slowly. Yuri tried to ask Pickpock about his job, but got only vague answers about “public morale.”
Anastasia spoke in bursts… first about the baby (“He looks paler than last week”), then about the hallway light (“It flickers, you know… might be bad for infant eyes”), and finally about Lena’s tea towels (“So clean. You must not have much time for... reading these days.”)
Lena replied kindly. Measured. But each remark chipped just slightly… at the atmosphere, at her posture, at the fragile dignity of her effort.
Then came the candle.
It had been lit on the shelf, next to the icon of the Holy Family. A quiet flame. A gentle glow. The same one she lit every night after supper.
Anastasia stared at it for a long time. Then:
“Do you light that for him? For the baby?”
Lena looked over. “I do.”
“Even though he can’t see it?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Anastasia smiled sweetly.
“How... poetic.”
The baby cried once during the meal. Lena rose to soothe him, and Anastasia followed with her eyes.
“He’s always unsettled,” she said to the room. “I wonder if it’s the silence. Or the incense. Or maybe it’s just the tension.” She sipped her tea. “Babies sense when things are... off.”
Lena returned a moment later, the child now resting on her shoulder. Yuri stood to help her, but she shook her head, quiet.
Anastasia stood too.
“Well, thank you for the supper, dear,” she said, brushing invisible crumbs from her coat. “Next time, you should let me cook. You’ve got your hands so full.”
Pickpock bowed to no one in particular. “Nice tea. Very hot.”
Yuri walked them to the door. Lena followed.
“It was lovely having you,” she said, too gracious for how raw she felt.
Anastasia leaned in to kiss her cheek… but missed slightly, her mouth near Lena’s ear.
“He still doesn’t sleep,” she whispered. “It’s not normal.”
Nobody else heard. Nobody noticed. And then she was gone.
Back in their own apartment, Anastasia dropped her coat without folding it.
She stood at the sink, staring at the tile.
Pickpock scraped pie crust off his fingers. “Duh, good meal, huh?”
Anastasia didn’t respond.
He looked up. “You okay?”
She turned slowly. Her face was still, but her eyes burned. “She dismissed me. In her own home.”
Pickpock squinted. “She made dinner.”
“She tried to prove something.” Her voice was quiet, measured. “Like she’s strong. Like she doesn’t need help. She thinks because she lights candles and reads psalms and sings lullabies, she’s safe from the world.”
She picked up a plate. Set it down hard. “She forgets how quickly warmth turns to suspicion. How neighbors can be made to wonder. How peace can be interpreted as... hiding.”
Pickpock looked unsure. “But… the baby’s cute?”
She smiled. A sliver. And not of kindness.
“That won’t protect her.”
Institutions don’t have souls, only the people that make up the institution.
But what, then, do we call the thing that animates them? That invisible current of memory and motive that shapes every policy.
Post-revolutionary Russia had no soul. But it had a face.
A carefully arranged face… one that smiled in posters, wept for ballads, and glowed from murals like a deity. But behind it… nothing whole. Only contradiction and more contradiction.
Russia was a nation rehearsing for something… although what that was, nobody could quite articulate. The new regime called itself a brotherhood! But brothers don’t monitor each other’s thoughts, or falsify birthdays to match Party milestones… and they don’t try to burn history.
What the revolution built was a vast, coordinated theater in which every citizen had a role to play. The face of Soviet Russia was always onstage. But inside? It was split.
It was a government wearing a mask. And the longer something wears a mask… the harder it becomes to remember what’s underneath. Because the mask smiles. It reassures. It tells you that you’re safer this way. That truth is too messy. That memory is too dangerous.
A people cannot live forever in contradiction. Not without consequences, at least.
For, regimes built on illusion… the true threat, is not the revolt it fears… It is reality.
Morning arrived slowly. Lena had been awake for some time, sitting near the window, watching the light change across the floor. The frost along the glass had thickened overnight. She used her knuckles to clear a patch near the center and leaned forward to see outside. Down in the alley, a cart sat crooked. One of its wheels had snapped, and two men were trying to repair it. Their movements were impatient, their tools striking metal in uneven rhythm. A few passersby walked around them without stopping.
Behind her, the baby stirred. She didn’t turn immediately. She began to hum, softly and without thinking… a tune her mother used to sing. It didn’t have words. It didn’t need them.
The candle near the icon shelf remained unlit. She’d meant to light it earlier, as she always did, but something had given her pause. She couldn’t say what or why.
The hallway outside had been quiet that morning, unusually so. Not the usual kind of quiet, either. Something about it felt unnatural, as if the silence didn’t belong to the hour or the building. The baby had resisted his nap, and when she stepped out to gather the laundry, the little girl from the second floor—a child who usually greeted everyone—had looked down at her shoes and kept walking. Then, in the laundry room, Mrs. Yelena smiled for a little too long and said nothing at all.
Lena had returned to the apartment unsettled. She set the kettle on the stove, adjusted a stack of towels that didn’t need adjusting, and checked the door lock again, even though she hadn’t heard anyone come near it.
Then, a voice… low, calm… from the inner room.
“He’s sleeping lighter,” Yuri said.
She nodded.
“Even the air feels thinner,” she whispered.
He didn’t disagree. He only looked toward the window and then back at her, as if confirming they both saw it now.. whatever it was.
The next morning, the street smelled faintly of coal smoke. Somewhere down the alley, a dog barked, and a man cursed the wind for stealing his hat.
And inside Apartment 3B, Anastasia stood at the mirror.
She held a comb in one hand and a small pin in the other… red enamel, worn at the edges, a star at its center.She pinned it to her coat with care.
Pickpock sat at the table chewing the end of a pencil. He had been doing so for twenty minutes. The paper in front of him read:
Public Development Office
Form 9B — Atmosphere Checkpoint
Beneath it, his handwriting wavered between lowercase and uppercase, skipping lines.
“Duh… Anastasia? What do you think… durt… um, Anastasia” he muttered. “Too many ‘m’s in ‘community’?”
Anastasia didn’t answer. She adjusted her collar, dabbed her cheeks, and looked herself in the eye.
“She thinks she’s safe,” she said softly.
Pickpock squinted. “Duh… Huh?”
Anastasia turned. “I’m heading to the local office. Just a brief stop. We’re overdue for a building wellness review.”
“Oh yeah,” he said, nodding. “Lots of wellness lately. Real public.”
She crossed the room, set a kettle to boil, and waited for it to whistle.
“She’s isolating,” Anastasia murmured. “She won’t take help. Avoids social contribution. She speaks in religious tones… refuses to share my parenting strategies. It’s not good. Not safe.”
Pickpock scratched his head. “What are you talking about lady? Lena?”
Anastasia smiled. “It’s not personal. It’s a matter of... communal health… unity. I just want peace in the community. ”
He stared at her blankly. “I’m so confused”
“She may be unstable,” she added. “It’s best to intervene now. Before the child internalizes something that cannot be corrected.”
Later that day, in a different part of the city, a woman sat behind a metal desk. She had a mole on her chin and eyes that moved twice over everything. She barely looked up as Anastasia approached.
“Name?”
“Anastasia Rascalnuts. Building 8, third floor.”
“Purpose?”
“A community concern,” she said, placing a folded form on the counter. “It’s not urgent. Just… a maternal observation. Possible ideological fragility. Signs of spiritual detachment. The child may be at risk for emotional disorientation.”
The woman raised an eyebrow. “Religious?”
Anastasia lowered her voice.
“There’s a crucifix. Candles. Prayers. Songs that don’t go with the new pledge. She seems disloyal. I’m worried the new child might be mislead.”
She smiled apologetically. “I tried to help. But she resists structure, you know?. She resists me. And… well… if something happens, and I said nothing… I just would feel so guilty”
The woman nodded. Scribbled. “We’ll send someone,” she said.
Anastasia walked home with careful steps, her posture composed. The cold wind pressed against her coat, but she didn’t hurry. Her chin was lifted, steady, like someone convinced of her own purpose.
Outwardly, she appeared calm. Measured. But something in her had tightened.
She wasn’t acting out of principle. She wasn’t seeking peace. What she wanted was for someone to admit it.
She wanted Lena to look at her and say it plainly—You were right. You mattered. You were a good mother. She spent her entire life seeking those words.
It wasn’t enough to disapprove of Lena’s quiet faith or her gentle ways. Lena had to break. Because Lena had become something unbearable: a reflection… a reflection of what she wanted to be… but wasn’t.
And Anastasia was tired of being seen.
Later that week, the building had settled into its usual patterns… buckets clattering in the laundry room, radios echoing faintly behind closed doors, the smell of boiled cabbage drifting through the vents. Near the stairwell, a draft carried the cold up from the entryway, whistling faintly where the weather stripping had come loose.
Yuri had offered to fix a loose hinge on the mailroom door. It had been sticking for days, and someone had finally mentioned it to him in passing. He brought his tools after supper. Pickpock came too, claiming he wanted to help, though he spent most of the time rotating a wrench in his hands like a relic whose purpose he had half-forgotten.
Anastasia stood nearby, arms folded, coat unbuttoned, watching them with a vague air of usefulness.
Lena had come down to hang a damp towel in the courtyard sun, the baby bundled in a sling against her chest.
Pickpock pointed at the hinge.
“Duh… maybe it’s, uh… corroded? Or sleepy? Metal gets tired, right? That’s why bridges fall over time. Just… duh… metal naps.”
Yuri smiled gently. “It’s the pin, Pickpock. Just rust.”
“Rust,” Pickpock repeated, solemnly. “I dont like rust… it’s too duh… rusty”
Yuri chuckled and crouched again.
Lena adjusted the sling.
Anastasia’s eyes slowly moved from the tools, to the towel, to the child.
Then she spoke, voice casual, but clear.
“Funny thing about babies,” she said, looking straight at Lena. “You can always tell what kind of home they’re being raised in… once they start making sounds.”
The hallway was still.
Yuri didn’t seem to catch it. Pickpock was now preoccupied with whether or not rust could “spread by touch.”
But Lena met Anastasia’s gaze… and held it.
Anastasia smiled. Sweetly. Like someone complimenting a painting.
“Of course,” she added, “some sounds… don’t mean what people think they do.”
Then she turned. Adjusted the cuff of her sleeve. And walked back up the stairs.
The door creaked behind her. Lena stood still, one hand gently on her child’s back. She said nothing. But her eyes were not still.
Yuri looked up. “You alright?”
She nodded. But she did not move.
By 1923, Soviet records listed over a thousand daily denunciations in Moscow alone. Many were unsigned. Most came from within the same buildings, even the same floors.
In time, the state no longer needed a watchman in every corridor. It had trained citizens to do the watching. Reporting others became a pathway to better housing, preferred work, or quiet favor from the local committee. It didn’t always matter whether the accusation was true. What mattered was that it proved loyalty.
Those who stayed silent were not seen as neutral. Under a government that relied on constant approval, even quiet could be interpreted as defiance.
Movement was limited by design. The propiska system controlled where a person could live, work, or travel. Relocating required state approval. Leaving the country was almost impossible. Travel documents were tightly monitored. Permission was a barrier few could cross, and most routes out were blocked long before the question could even be asked.
This created a population shaped by uncertainty. People memorized the acceptable phrases. They corrected their expressions in conversation. They adjusted what they said depending on who stood nearby. Under those conditions, people like Anastasia did well.
She kept to the rules that mattered. She maintained the appearance of cooperation. But the way she operated had nothing to do with duty or conviction.
She measured people. She tested for weakness. Her judgments were never spoken directly… always subtle… always with plausible deniability.
She didn’t need anyone to believe her. She only needed them to react.
It was a prison made of eyes and ears, and whispering mouths…
The hallway outside their door was quiet tonight. The baby had just fallen asleep.
Then… three gentle knocks.
Lena opened the door to find Anastasia standing with a half-loaf of rye in her hand and a damp scarf around her neck, pretending not to notice the quiet in the apartment.
“Just passing through,” she said brightly. “I had a bit extra from the ration this week. Thought of you.”
Yuri stepped forward. “That’s kind of you.”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” she smiled. “We all do our part. Community starts with gestures, doesn’t it?”
She entered before being fully invited, removing her gloves finger by finger. Pickpock trailed behind her with a jar of pickled beets, looking confused about whether he was delivering them or not.
“Hadn’t seen you at the stairwell bulletin,” Anastasia added, placing the bread gently on the counter. “They’re posting new child nutrition guidelines. Very modern. Very progressive. You’d love them, Lena.”
Lena nodded, politely.
“And you look well,” Anastasia continued, eyeing the baby’s swaddle. “Tired, of course. But who isn’t these days?”
Yuri poured tea. Pickpock began humming a tune.
And then, casually, Anastasia leaned slightly toward the cradle.She didn’t speak loudly. Just enough for it to register. “The clever ones always know when to tidy up before company arrives.”
She smiled at the baby, then at the room in general.
“Not that you have anything to worry about,” she added, laughing softly. “Everything here is always so… proper.”
Yuri chuckled, lifting his cup. “That’s true. Lena’s like that. Always prepared.”
“Duh… that’s why I keep the broom in the soup drawer,” Pickpock offered, entirely serious.
They all laughed. Lena didn’t.
She met Anastasia’s gaze as the older woman turned toward the coat rack. The look lasted only a moment… too short to be noticed by the men, too long to be innocent.
“Well,” Anastasia said, “I’ll let you get back to your quiet. Don’t want to disturb the baby’s dreams.” She touched the cradle once, then walked toward the door.
Pickpock followed.
And just before she stepped out, Anastasia turned. “You’re a good mother, Lena,” she said. “Really. You’ve done so well... with what you’ve had.”
The door clicked shut behind her. Lena stood still. The baby shifted once and went silent again.
Yuri reached to clear the cups. “Odd mood tonight,” he said.
Lena didn’t respond. The candle flickered on its own and went out.
The morning was overcast. A thin layer of frost still clung to the windowpanes, cracking as it warmed. There were no voices in the street, only the steady sound of footsteps and the occasional scrape of a broom against stone.
Two men in wool coats approached the building. One held a satchel tucked under his arm; the other kept a clipboard close to his chest, its papers bound with twine. They walked with purpose but without urgency. Their hats were pulled low, their faces unreadable. When they reached the entrance, they stopped. One checked a line on the form, while the other studied the building number. Neither spoke. Then they stepped inside.
They climbed the stairs without speaking. The building was still.
On the third floor, they stopped outside Apartment 3B. One of them raised a hand and knocked—twice, evenly—then waited. No response. He knocked again, this time with more force.
Still nothing.
They glanced at each other. One stepped back and gave a subtle signal. From his coat, a narrow tool appeared, and within seconds, the lock gave way. The door opened without resistance.
Inside… the apartment felt undisturbed. The air retained some warmth. A shawl hung on its peg. The cradle had been straightened, and the kettle on the stove sat slightly open, as if recently used. Drawers were closed. Nothing appeared broken or overturned. It did not look abandoned, but it no longer felt lived in either.
One man began to move through the room, checking drawers, peering behind the curtain. The other stood near the stove, staring at the space above it. The wall was blank, but the outline remained… faint, clean-edged, and just a little lighter than the rest. Whatever had hung there had been taken with care.
There was no food on the counter. No candle. No icon. Nothing that would draw attention.
The man with the clipboard scribbled a few lines:
No resistance. No contact. No trace of faith-based materials. Subjects appear to have vacated with intention. Possibly warned.
He underlined the last sentence, tucked the page back into the satchel, and stepped outside. The other man followed. The door was left ajar behind them.
The knock would come the next morning, but by then, the apartment would already be empty.
The decision had not been made in haste. It had taken shape quietly, over days… through small observations, a few shared glances, and the slow gathering of certainty. But it was the visit from Anastasia that made it final.
That night, after the lamps were lowered and the building had gone still, Lena moved through the room with care. The baby slept against her chest, his breath slow and steady. She wrapped the icon in linen and placed it near the shawls. Yuri stood at the window, watching the alley. There were no footsteps outside. No voices.
“She came to say goodbye,” Lena said.
Yuri didn’t look away from the glass. “You’re sure?”
“She smiled,” she whispered. “Not out of kindness. It felt like the end of something.”
He was quiet for a moment, then nodded.
They began to pack. Only what was needed—cloth for the child, a bit of bread, three small coins. Lena reached above the stove and took down the cross. She held it for a moment, then folded it into her coat, before quietly opening the front door and tiptoeing down the hall.
The chapel was hidden behind the textile depot, where the walls wept in summer and froze in winter. The priest lived in the back, behind a door no one knocked on unless they meant it.
Father Mikhail opened before they arrived. He was older than he looked. His cassock was patched with uneven thread, and his fingers bore ink stains. But his eyes were sharp and watchful. He said nothing when he saw the child. Only stepped aside.
“There’s not much time,” Yuri said.
The priest nodded. “No one has much time anymore,” he replied.
He pulled a drawer from the desk and unfurled a worn paper… creased, smudged, part map, part memory.
“Go west,” he said. “Through the laundress’s courtyard. Keep left at the canal path. There’s a farm out near Belovka… good Catholics. They won’t ask questions. They’ll know who sent you.”
Lena gripped the icon. Her knuckles were white. “And after that?”
Father Mikhail looked at her deeply.
“After that,” he said, “you vanish. Like Christ into Egypt. Like the saints who hid in tombs. You will not be seen… but you will not be lost either.”
He reached for a jar marked shoe polish and uncorked it. From beneath the lid, he drew out oil… fragrant and anointed the baby’s forehead.
“You are not leaving the Church,” he said. “You are carrying it with you.”
Then he turned to Yuri, laid a hand on his shoulder. “You must not hate her,” he said.
Yuri closed his eyes. “I know.”
“No,” the priest said softly. “I mean it.”
Lena reached for her husband’s hand. He took it. “Thank you,” she said.
Father Mikhail didn’t reply immediately. He only drew the sign of the cross in the air. Then whispered a prayer
“Arise, O Lord! And let Thy enemies be scattered, and let them, that hate Thee, flee from before Thy Face.”
Then he opened the back door.
Snow had just started to fall. And the city did not notice as three souls slipped through streets and allies… deep into the darkness that enveloped them…
Narcissism doesn’t always look like arrogance. It often appears careful and composed, even virtuous. But what drives it, is fear… of being dismissed, overlooked, forgotten. At its root is the belief that the unguarded self will be rejected.
People who don’t participate in the performance are simply disruptive and dangerous. They remind the narcissist that something real still exists…
There is no clear way to oppose this evil directly. Most who try are broken down by it. But a few begin to withdraw.
Not to escape danger, but to protect something… something they cannot afford to lose.
Some evils don’t unravel through confrontation. They wear down on their own, exposed over time by their inability to nourish or sustain anything… they need a host, they need a participant!
But, again, this is not new. Our savior faced trails more serious than these… he showed us how to persevere… and how to triumph over evil:
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry.
And the tempter came and said to Him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’
But He answered, ‘It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”’
Then the devil took Him to the holy city and set Him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to Him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “He will command His angels concerning you,” and “On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.”’
Jesus said to him, ‘Again it is written, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”’
Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’
Then Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! For it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.”’
Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.”
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