The wind blows through a window, possibly at dusk. A curtain flutters. The curtain’s name is Lithuania.
But how can that be? Why is the curtain the focal point, and who named her Lithuania?
Well, in the room where the curtain flutters, a young woman studies at her desk, which is oriented toward the window.
Who is the girl? a voice asks.
Another voice answers:
She is a young woman, obsessed with geography. She studies her maps carefully, and uses flashcards to quiz herself on the names and capitals of faraway places.
At some point, she picks up a flashcard labeled “Vilnius”. She pauses to think for a moment, maybe somewhat performatively, and looks up from the card before confidently announcing the word “Lithuania.”
There is some confusion, apparently on the part of the curtain. For being as she was, a curtain, her thoughts naturally oscillated between two states: things revealed and things concealed. When things were concealed, this particular curtain hoped they would at some point become revealed. And this “curtain logic” extended to the status of her name.Yes, the curtain knew that she was a curtain, but she recognized her distinction from other curtains, which perhaps had something to do, the curtain thought, with the variety of understated beauty and delicacy that she possessed, which was, to complicate things, enhanced by the wind. So when it came to her name, the curtain assumed that, like everything else, it would one day be revealed, granting her full clarity on the matter.
So it comes as no surprise that when the young geographer looked up from her flashcard -- looking toward that area, that moonlit landscape framed by a curtained window toward which her desk was oriented -- and authoritatively announced Lithuania, she simultaneously and unwittingly became the author of the curtain’s name. For, when it comes to the curtain’s point of view, the young woman was exhibiting all of the signs of the ritualistic naming the curtain had always imagined. In that moment, the curtain thought, her name was revealed.
So that is why there is a curtain named Lithuania.