The Infinite Machine

by Camila Russo

For Vitalik, the worst part about Calafou was the bathroom. It was an outhouse with a hole in the ground, and which seldom had toilet paper and always had flies. He did his best to ignore the flies, but sometimes he would give up and go to the forest. After that, he would walk another hundred yards to a different place where he could wash his hands. The cold shower wasn’t great, either. He slept on a mattress so thin he could actually feel the ground. But he loved being in the middle of nature. He would take breaks from working on Egora or talking about the possibilities for cryptocurrencies and go on long walks. His narrow, almost fragile frame would get lost between the trees, leaves crunching under his sneakers, as he thought about what to do next. It was the beginning of August and he had been living in Calafou for about two months when Vitalik emailed the university to say he wanted to take a break for one year to work on cryptocurrency projects, earnestly thinking he would go back.