It’s been a habit of those of us from Georgian provinces that whenever we go back to where we came from, we go with a grand mission of gaining expertise on “what’s going on out there,” but end up gaining weight instead. This last Easter, however, I gained neither. Heavy rains disrupted networking, and the fuss that moved inside the closed rooms distracted from absorbing food. But then, on Monday, the town fell quieter than it was before the holiday. Families rushed back to the capital to avoid traffic, and those who stayed took to cleaning.
That’s when I decided to give it another try. I took a ramble through the small town, overtaken by a strange feeling that the desolate streets would reveal something to me. It was the right instinct: passing by a local stationery shop, I was startled by the sight of a book titled “Carmilla.”