I couldn’t follow what they said, I could hardly understand anything I was exhausted, and as time passed I grew bored. Mitko moved from conversation to conversation, speaking and typing at once, the screen lighting up regularly with new invitations. As I listened to these men, all of whom lived outside of Sofia, many in small villages and towns, I was struck by the strangeness of the community they had formed, at once so limited and so lively. They greeted Mitko fondly, familiarly, though I would come to learn that he had never met most of them in the flesh, that their friendship was restricted to these disembodied encounters. Most of them existed only as faces, which was all that could be seen of them in a single bulb’s small circle of light. These men seemed all to be speaking from darkened rooms, in voices that were hushed, I realized, to avoid disturbing their families sleeping (it was late now, one or two in the morning) in the next room. I sat in a chair some distance behind him, where I could see the screen without myself falling within the frame. I went to join him, and watched as Mitko began what would be a long series of conversations over the Internet, voice and video chats with a number of other young men. I heard the sound of more gin being poured, then the pressing of keys, then the distinctive inflating chime of Skype as it opened.
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