Vlaspatta Karamazov

Debut today, 17h Brasília Time (GMT-03): https://youtu.be/WNUHszTuf9Y

...

The apartment didn’t smell like her anymore. Not quite. The vanilla was gone—chased out by disinfectant and the stubborn miasma of reheated leftovers. Her toothbrush was still there, yellowish bristles bloomed like a dried dandelion, half-bent towards the mirror. He had tried to throw it out once. Couldn't.

He stood at the stove, blinking against the epileptic flicker of the overhead light. When he opened the cupboard and reached for the bowl, something tightened in his chest. White ceramic. It was slightly scratched now. But intact. He rinsed it slowly. With reverence. Like washing a relic. Or a wound.

They had picked it together, back when small decisions felt like commitment.

The chicken hit the pan, sliced in cubes with almost resentful precision. He stared at them for a moment, the way one might stare at a corpse that looks too peaceful.
Garlic, onion, yellow mustard, cheap ketchup... No champignons. Not out of defiance—just forgetfulness, maybe. Or muscle memory. Or quiet grief.

As the cream bloomed into the mixture, thick and soft, he inhaled.
Stopped.
Then muttered:
"Chicken has no right to smell like that."
He didn’t know what he meant. It was too rich. Too nostalgic. Too much her. His hands tightened around the spoon like he could squeeze the emotion out of it. Then—came the blizzard of straw potatoes on top.

He remembered a time—some birthday or another—when she had teased him for calling it "strogonoff." "It’s stroganoff," she’d said, grinning behind a wine glass. "Not when it’s Brazilian," he’d replied, "Do your chicken taste like war crimes and vodka, by any chance?". She laughed until she hiccupped. That was the thing. It had always been their joke. Not some Russian nobleman’s. Theirs.

He turned off the flame. At that exact moment, the door buzzed.

That morning, she had messaged him: "Can I come over? Just talk." No emoji. That had to mean something.

She stood at the threshold like someone visiting an old life. Shorter hair. The same old coat. Her eyes scanned the bowl in his hands before they met his.

"You made it," she said.

"I didn’t know what else to make."

They didn’t eat at the table. Not this time. They walked instead, without direction. Him, carrying the bowl like it was fragile, like it mattered—her, staying just close enough that sometimes their arms brushed, only to shift away a moment later. The sky was slipping from gold to bruised violet. The city hummed, unaware.

She broke the silence. "You still say strogonoff?"

He snorted. "Brazilian rules."

"Right. 'A different species. Like comparing a grizzly bear with a capybara.'" I'm still haunted by that sentence."

He smirked. "You remember that?"

She nodded, looking ahead. "I remember everything."

They turned the corner by the old bookstore and stopped.

Two dogs—shaggy, unapologetic, both male—were violently copulating in the middle of the sidewalk. One aggressively humping the other in that ridiculous, primal way dogs have—shameless, undisturbed by the world watching. One panted like a man possessed. The other barked in time, like punctuation in the antinatural act.

They both froze—then, tried to step around the scene without making a show of it, but in the shuffle, the bowl slipped from his arms.
Time slowed.

The bowl arced through the air in slow, indifferent grace—and landed squarely atop the dogs with a wet, obscene slap. A chorus of yelps followed. Sauce flew. One dog bolted, trailing creamy streaks down the street like a war survivor. The other rolled, dazed, licking the Brazilian cream from its flank.

The bowl lay upside down. Split. Steaming. Desecrated.

She covered her mouth.

"Is that—"

"Don’t," he warned.

"—the strogonoff bowl."

She burst out laughing. Really laughing. From the diaphragm. No irony. No reserve. Unsteady, then unstoppable. She laughed with both hands pressed to her face, eyes wet, nearly smearing her makeup and voice cracking before it found its strength. He laughed too—shaking, breathless, from from his core, full-bodied. The kind of laughter that tastes like salt. Neither bent down to retrieve the bowl.

When they calmed down, she wiped her eyes. "I brought dessert," she said, raising a plastic bag she'd been clutching tight. "Mango. Like you used to like it. With the crosshatch."
They sat on a crooked bench by the empty city park, steam from what once was the bowl still curling in the distance. They didn’t talk much. They didn’t need to. Her shoulder touched his, then shifted away, then settled again.

She tilted her head.

"I’m not staying, you know."

"I know."

"But I’m here. If that makes sense."

"It doesn’t."

She smiled. "Yeah."

The sun slipped lower, spilling rust and rose across the sky. The ruined bowl steamed softly on the gravel, a monument to some forgotten rite.

The strogonoff bowl was sodomized, but at least she is back...

For now.

5 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 170

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Vlaspatta Karamazov

Absence wounds with longing, but presence wounds with impossibility, for to be near what one has lost is to suffer the nearness of what can never again be possessed.

A sequel nobody asked for, but that shall come anyway.

The strogonoff saga returns. (WIP)

2 weeks ago (edited) | [YT] | 284

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Vlaspatta Karamazov

FINALLY! I FINALLY DEFEATED THE DEMIURGE (College) AND WILL REACH THE PLEROMA (Graduate), AFTER 4 YEARS OF IMPRISONMENT.
Remember the many video promises made? They have yet to be fulfilled. The man here will return to the life of a respectable human being.