Krzysztof Spadło

Dreamers and the Penitents

KRZYSZTOF SPADŁO

Dreamers and the Penitents

© Copyright by Krzysztof Spadło & e-bookowo

Cover by: Marek Purzycki

Translate by Katarzyna Szuster

ISBN 978-83-7859-090-3

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Wydanie II 2012

Konwersja do epub Agencja A3M

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BEAST OF BURDEN

Today’s July morning was the harbinger of a scorching day. The rays from the rising sun cut the air sharply like buoyant golden strings, and over the azure sky one couldn’t spot even a shadow of the slightest cloud. The fiery sphere was climbing higher and higher over the horizon with each minute, and dealing its pleasant warmth, it reached with jaunty blaze the darkest nooks to offer the world a longed for joy of life.

The roofs of houses, the trees’ leaves, bushes and sweeps of grass, showered in the morning dew, were glittering with thousands of tiny specs, giving out the impression of minute movement. One could be tricked into thinking that somebody, in a miraculous, even magical way, sprinkled the whole area with fine, starry glitter.

The forested terrain located on the city’s outskirts was enveloped with thin mist. Milky wisps hovering just above the ground floated unhurriedly, wandering around shrubbery and boughs, as if wanting to hide their mysteries away from the busybodies’ eyes.

Strzelce Opolskie, still immersed in sleep, was wrapped in all-embracing quiet. The only sign of life was the birds’ morning chirp; although sometimes you could also hear the invisible wing carrying into the air the characteristic rattle of a rushed train, somewhere off afar.

Like any day, the church bells sounded at exactly five thirty, calling for the morning mass, and their sonorous peal resonated nobly across the whole environs. The city’s streets were slowly starting to vibrate with life. People hurried along in different directions to their everyday tasks and duties, a whirr of speeding cars gradually amplified an increasing haste.

Routinely at six, the silence of the prison walls was pierced by the scream of the alarm clock, waking up the convicts.

Here, in a hermetical world, each day was like a copy of itself. The pattern engraved by iron regulations created a monotonous reality. The reality of this world.

It was coming on 7.15 am.

On the prison’s parking lot six yellow-green buses, the property of the penitentiary, stood ready to depart. In each, aside from the driver, were six armed guards and twenty eight convicts dressed in steel-gray uniforms. A moment later, an imposing steel entrance, suspended from above and slotted into tracks below, opened with a loud rasp. The noise of the splayed gates startled a flock of pigeons sitting on the nearby roof. Horror-struck birds sprung up in panic and, nervously flapping their wings, they circled the skies and glided towards the city.

The buses, one by one, slowly drove away, leaving behind a wistful fortress of redemption, and smoothly melted into the world across the other side of the wall. Some of the prisoners, as if they were tourists taking part in an exotic excursion, devoured with their eyes a landscape that was gradually changing over the course of the ride. Others, however, with longer “tenure” than their inmates, were watching with calm, impassive eyes, at the bottom of which lurked sadness and a longing for freedom.

The motorcade split up at the next crossroad. The first four vehicles went straight ahead, and the two remaining ones took right, and having disappeared behind the turning, they scudded down the outskirts of Strzelce Opolskie. Heading towards Krapkowice, after a few minutes of driving, the signs marking up the city borders flew by. Now the asphalt ribbon of the highway coiled up against scenic fields and woods, immersed in the July morning sun. Leaving behind a small village, Kalinow, two miles away, the vehicles turned into a forest road. Pushing down a bumpy route leading deep into the woods, they were embraced by quiet and a pleasant coolness. Here you could clearly see how the trails of sunlight were breaking through the trees’ branches, and finding a bit of space here and there, like daggers they sank in the thick undergrowth. The wildlife was still asleep, held at a standstill. The sound of the engines and the stink of fumes struck that natural peace like a rock in an unbroken sheet of water, and all the animals and forest imps scurried away and hid in the green thicket.

After fifteen minutes’ driving the buses stopped on a small clearing, just before a railway embankment that ran along the forest. The vehicles’ tires splashed with dew shimmered with steel-black shine.

For a few weeks a cheap labor force had been brought to this place. The convicts had been doing toilsome, monotonous work at the renovation of the local railway route. The work itself wasn’t so hard, besides the space, the forest, the immense sky... breathing freely, you could almost smell the scent of longed-for freedom.

The convicts got out slowly, without haste, and arranged themselves in two lines in front of the cars. The guard of the highest rank got onto the embankment, stood astride, glanced at his watch, spat racily and said in a loud voice:

– Alright, bad-asses, it’s eight. We’ll have a break around noon. A short one, true, but we’ll have a break, the hell. Unless you won’t deserve one – he stopped talking for second, and a bitter grimace crawled on his unpleasant face, a grimace that was probably trying to be a smile. With irony in his voice he finished: – So don’t let me go on and on, you know what you’re to do! As for myself, while wishing you gentlemen a nice, pleasant and fruitful work, as always I’m appealing to what remains of your degenerated minds and ask you, let me stress it again – ask! – that you behave nicely and decently, as befits good hillbillies. Amen.

The jailer, clearly amused and proud of his short speech, turned energetically on his heel and added over his shoulder:

– Forward!

The men in prison dungarees moved ahead sluggishly, without rhyme or reason.

The guards standing in a group, a little farther away to the right, were listening earnestly to a story and suddenly burst out laughing sonorously. Chaos, disarray, lack of vigilance, just that allowed a short moment of general disorientation. An opportunity. A one in a million chance. How long could it last? A few seconds? Maybe less? How long? The reaction of one of the convicts walking in the second row wasn’t planned at all. Spontaneity. A primitive sense got the upper hand over the reason. An instinct. The man slowed down slightly, squatted down, judged the situation with a quick glance and darted in a swift motion back towards the closest vehicle. When falling to the ground, he helped his body take a turn and hid behind an inner part of a wheel. An instinct, again. While hiding, he tensely watched the guards starting to form a sprawling line and drawing a slight semicircle, they closed this pathetic procession. Gray gravel dumped on the embankment rustled peculiarly under the walkers’ feet.

His heart was pounding like crazy, he couldn’t control his hastened breath and felt a cold sweat covering his body, inside his skull a thousand exploding thoughts. He dug his fingers deeply into the ground, clenched his jaws until he felt pain, his neck and shoulders seized by a burning cramp. One, two, he made it! He took a breath! He took a few deep breaths and out of the blue, all tension went away on a dime. He had an overwhelming feeling that what he could see now was happening in an unnatural slow motion. The picture reaching his brain reminded him of action shots moving sluggishly. The figures were pacing slowly and it felt to him like ages before they disappeared behind a wall of trees.

He was still motionless. Subconsciously, he waited to see panicked guards coming back within seconds. He imagined he’d hear their furious screams, patter, he’d see faces lusting for blood, blood and humility. He listened. Nothing. Silence. Only the pleasant murmur of the forest.

He crawled unhurriedly towards a free space between the buses. Gingerly, he lifted himself onto his feet and froze like a rock. He held his breath and pricked up his ears. Still nothing. Silence.

“What to do?! What to do?! – scurried through his mind. “Fuck, what to do?! What have I done?! Fuck me! What now?! What now?! No, I have to come back! I have no chance! I’m coming back and that’s it! Fuck! God, I hope it works! I hope it works...”.

Silently, he immersed himself into the green thicket. Now there was no coming back. It’s done! He bet his fate on one card. He was treading cautiously, watchful not to step on some rotten branches or twigs. Slowly, foot by foot/yard by yard, he was moving deep into the forest. He halted. Looked behind. The cars were vanishing behind the leafage. He stood. Stood and listened to any noises that could be a sign of his disappearance being noticed. Nothing. Silence and the woods. He took a deep breath, turned on his heel and sprinted ahead, moving his legs as fast as he could. The crack of breaking twigs under his feet wasn’t leaving him. He used his hands to clear his way across thick shrubs and brambles, which were smacking him like whips across the face and torso. Racing as hard as he could, like a rock sprung from a slingshot, he tore across the wilderness. He ran in zigzags between trees, with long leaps he skipped natural obstacles, not minding the blackberry shrubs tearing his calves – despite him wearing long pants – they were ploughing his flesh. He ran.

The forest undergrowth was changing with each moment. Thick scrubs disappeared, looming behind, so as to come back like a drawn curtain three hundred feet away. Like a wild animal, the man sprinted at a murderous pace and, like a precisely shot bullet, he was flying through green barricades of bushes. He chased mercilessly in pursuit of imaginary freedom. Each breath, each step was like a grand song of liberty. Previous thoughts and doubts were left somewhere behind. “Farther! Farther from here! Forward! Run!”– was all he could hear and all he could believe now. The rest didn’t exist.

Minutes piled onto more minutes. He was already far away. Safely away. He lost a track of time and space, but most importantly, he still had strength left.

He ran. Ceaselessly. He had to run.

From time to time, when he’d have a feeling that fatigue was bursting his lungs and knocking him off his feet – he’d slow down. He’d move then in a slow jog to regenerate at least a bit of his lost strength, to gather up some energy and again launch ahead. Rest was out of the question, a moment of weakness could cost him a lot. He had to struggle with his own might.

The sun was already high up. The forest’s structure had changed drastically. The shrubs appeared only in very small clusters, and the sprawling area was covered with pinewood, scarce tufts of grass and moss and conifer needles, which made running so much easier. Ahead the terrain was turning slightly into soft hills. Running them up, each couple of feet the man was losing his strength and dexterity. However, what an amazing feeling when he reached the top, and then hurtled down with impetus. Still, all that cost him a lot of effort.

Streams of sweat were coloring his prison dungarees with wet stains.

When he was running down again, his feet suddenly got entangled in a web of shrubs. He collapsed face down. The power of the impact bounced his body off the ground, the fall was so abrupt and unexpected that he didn’t have time to react and he tumbled down perilously. At some point he felt his right leg smacking inertly against the hard bough of a tree with great force. He heard the sound of tearing fabric and simultaneously he felt a shooting pain right below his knee.

Ignoring it, he pulled up his leg and clutched the hurting spot with both his hands, as if counting on their miraculous effect, he lay motionless like a stone. He didn’t even budge. With effort, he stifled a scream awakening in his throat, he clenched his jaws and panted furiously to fight off this terrible feeling. Then he fingered something sticky, glanced down and saw a sprawling blood stain. A throbbing pain was jerking his right leg. Only after a few minutes he tried to get up. Slowly, he heaved his body up. Took a few steps. Halted. Pain. He looked around. The terrain was open, he had to hide. Wherever. On his right side, some three hundred feet away, a curtain of leafy trees and bushes spread. Limping, he aimed in that direction.

He tore through the bushes. A little clearing was covered in dry, sun burnt grass. He sat in a shade, leaning against an ancient birch.

MORPHEUS’ STAIN

January 4 (Saturday)

It’s hard to believe the new year’s begun. The sounds of the New Year’s party are still echoing in my ears. It’s good that at least once in awhile a man can forget about everything. Tomorrow’s the last short day of sweet laziness, and from Monday – back to work!

I can only cherish the hope that this year will actually be better than the previous one, and that finally something will change in my gray, monotonous life. Truth be told, if I had a dash of resolution and courage, I wouldn’t count on fate’s whim, but grab life by the horns.

January 6 (Monday)

I’ve taken the same bus route to work for years and every morning I’ve hummed in my mind the lyrics of Janerka’s old hit: “to get up and work, and have, can’t really do it, don’t really want it”. Out of pure curiosity, I watched people’s faces today, and unfortunately, I didn’t see anyone that appeared happy. Grim faces, noses red from the morning cold and dejected looks, in a word: despair. And I, another perfect element, fitting this cheap jigsaw puzzle.

When I think that tomorrow I’ll stand again between the counter and the shelves full of car parts, I want to crawl out of my skin. I’m wasting my life in this mercantile business, if that store were mine at least…Or if I ran some sort of business, maybe then my existence would have some spark. It’s maddening. Everything is contained in a microcircle – work, home, sleep, work, home, sleep, non stop.

I used to have ambitions and will, but for the past dozen years, since I tied the knot, all the plans have faded away, then started smoldering and eventually burned out for good. I’m not a rabble-rouser, I’ve always taken the path of least resistance and have been afraid to take a risk. Well, I guess I believed too much in things that turned out to be evanescent. I thought that family married life, kids and so on would give a man some sort of grand satisfaction, but actually that’s bullshit. It’s just a treadmill. Family life is overrated.

I got snared in my own trap.

I know perfectly that there is no such thing as a dead end. Every problem has its solution. For instance, Adam – he ditched everything and started over. Now the guy’s somewhere far away, leading quite a peaceful life, and I think he’s not going to make the same mistake again. Was it a good decision? It’s not for me to judge his choices. He left a wife, two teenage kids, a large apartment, all his life’s savings and cut loose, just carrying a bag of his own clothes and a sweet sense of carelessness. I guess I envy him the courage.

January 10 (Friday)

Today after work I hit the bar as usual. My spouse doesn’t like when I come back home reeking of hops. As a matter of fact, I don’t give a fuck what she likes or doesn’t like, I have long stopped caring about what pleases her. I am, after all, a thirty-nine year old man, goddamn it, and no one will lead me by the nose like a schoolboy. If I feel like something, I’ll do it and that’s that. The worst part is that she makes such a huge deal out of it. She gets in her babble mode and acts like her whole world has fallen apart. Sometimes I wonder if other guys have similar problems, or is it just me wading in this shit.

A man spends ten hours working his ass off, toils like an ox to earn a dime and he can’t even spend it?! Maybe it would be different if I came back home totally wasted, behaved like a savage, kept everyone under my thumb – but I only had two beers! I’ve never gone there, but it seems like I should put her in her place every now and then. Maybe then she’d behave like a woman should.

January 15 (Wednesday)

I can’t remember exactly who came up with the out-fucking-standing nickname for our boss, but Lardy fits him like a square peg in a round hole. The guy is barely a hundred and thirty pounds and overall he looks like a beanpole. He’s so slight and dried out that even if I (not exactly Sylvester S. or Arnold S.) took a good swing and boxed him once, I’d probably kill him.

Probably one day I will do it, when I stop giving a crap about anything.

Today Lardy took it to the next level, I realize he is my boss and he pays me, and not the other way round, but there are boundaries. He really pushed my buttons today. The gawk knows well I won’t quit this job, because it’s hard to find anything else these days, so he really rode my ass. Such a wimp, a bonehead, only with a vocational school diploma, who managed to hit it big when miracles were on the agenda in this country. A waste of breath.

Maybe I should have a look around after all? Get an easy-breezy gig and come home laid-back after eight hours? Not think about how, the moment I open the door and the kids jump all over me, there should be a quiet doorbell and a refined butler on the doorstep. He’d hold a silver platter in his hands, on top of which there would be a small metal item, an automatic, preferably thirty-eight caliber, with an extra magazine next to it. Bang, bang and silence. My wifey would get some, too, I wouldn’t grudge her a few ounces of lead. Oh, Lardy, Lardy, you old goon.

January 17 (Friday)

I love days full of peace, when my little flock, the three of them go away to my mother-in-law’s.

Thank God, we don’t get along, at least then I can catch a second wind. They’re scrambling tomorrow and aren’t coming back until Sunday evening.

I have everything planned. Saturday afternoon I’m spending with my buddies in The Drunken Bear. I love this lousy joint. The hubbub, clouds of cigarette smoke, stink of urine coming from the forever gaping toilet door – life’s nectar. Even beer tastes here like a goat’s sweat. The dive has its own ambiance.

I have one tiny dream: if I hit the jackpot, I’d throw the bash of the century there! Each regular of that fine diner would be welcome and could drink unlimited amount of drinks footed by me. Only one thing would have to be different for the time of the party – the bar woman. I can’t stand looking at her greasy hair, pudgy fingers tipped with chipped polish, cheap lipstick, two rows of putrid grill. I can’t stand looking at her at all. She’s wild. One time I wondered what her loverman looks like, I’d like to see the champ pounding her.

I’ll spend Sunday reading, listening to music, picking my nose and watching TV. It probably won’t be terribly titillating but at least I’ll have some rest!

January 19 (Sunday)

I rarely can afford to open my diary before ten p.m. I suspect Jolka would gladly leer at those pages. I know that she sometimes writhes in curiosity and asks herself: “What the hell can he be doodling there?”.

No chance. Only I have the key to my metal casket. I remember a few years ago we had an argument about my secrets. Good God, she’s so primitive at times! She finds it impossible to comprehend that everyone has their own, intimate things, which they don’t want to talk about. Probably it would devastate her if I opened the doors of my confessional to her. I’m not ashamed of my thoughts, I don’t disapprove of the words I express them with. Those written pages are a testimony to my soul and I don’t feel that anyone should be browsing through them, even my wife. Especially her!

I’ve been doing this for… hmmm… well, next year it’ll have been nineteen years of refining my joyous output. However you look at it, it’s donkey’s years! Not bad.

Maybe when I grow old and senile, and I’m spending most of my day on the bench by the block of flats, killing time idly, I’ll happily go back to the world of written memories. Only then will I learn how much I’ve lost in life, what mistakes impacted my fate. I already know I’m among the losers, but everything can turn round. For example, one day I’ll follow Adas’s steps, my ex-neighbor from seventeen, and I’ll bet everything on one card, too. Only, besides the clothes, I’ll take my metal box, too.

If someone asked me what I really want, the answer would be simple and exhausted by one word – happiness. I have no idea what is necessary for that but I do know what isn’t.

January 23 (Thursday)

This afternoon we had quite a treat – a priest visiting with a blessing. What a farce. The blackcoat has a serious defect in the headquarters. Of course, Jolka almost had an orgasm. The usual…

Tomek is only five and is the total opposite of Mateusz, who’s twice as old. He’s lively, always bounces off the walls, would happily spend his day playing pranks. A real scamp.

When we were waiting for the clergyman, I showed the little one how to drive away vampires and demons by means of a cross. After that he grabbed the crucifix and running up and down the house, he stopped in every nook, fooling around. Finally he earned a spanking from his mother, and I got an earful on what an idiot I am.

Still, the both of us had a lot of fun.

Before the padre’s visit, the altar boys showed up and crooned Silent Night, like rock stars. It’s a shame I didn’t record their performance. That clip on YouTube would have been a hit. When batman introduced himself, I almost burst out laughing, I thought it was a younger copy of the Father Director. I guess he must have noticed that (evidently, an intelligent one) and said once more: “Waldemar Ryzik” – accentuating his last name. Jolanta’s face turned cardinal’s scarlet.

My faith has nothing to do with the disrespect I feel for the Church deputies. I believe in God, afterlife, that a person has a soul, in the Judgment Day and heaven, but I’ll never believe in a priest. He’s no authority to me. The fact that I don’t attend mass doesn’t lessen my faith. I can pray and I do it when I have the need, sometimes at night I talk to God inside my head and I know that it makes more sense than pricking up your ears with the whole crowd to the Gospel or sermon. Or let’s take confession for a second, a total nonsense! How can you think that a guy is going to listen to your wrongdoings and divulgences, then as penance he’ll give you three Hail Mary’s and everything is supposed to be groovy?

Doesn’t make sense.

IN THY NAME

In Stefan Bremel’s original plans the addition was to serve as a garage, but thirteen years ago, exactly a year after it’d been build, a tragedy happened. Actually, maybe it was better that way? Marianna Bremel had been ill for many, many years, life hadn’t skimped her anguish and instead of joy offered suffering. Finally, they both knew that sooner or later it would have to happen. A malignant tumor slowly devoured Mrs. Bremel’s body from the inside, who every evening probably prayed ardently to God to take her soul painlessly away. Death came suddenly one October night. It sneaked into their house like a thief and kidnapped into its arms Stefan’s fifty-year-old life partner. Things seemed pointless since then, and the garage – even more so.

It was odd, but you didn’t even think what a sacrifice it was to consciously devote yourself to work. Bremel realized that but it was too late. How many times did his late spouse wait for him with a warm lunch, while he was engrossed in his turbines and all that junk at the power plant? How many unrealized vacations, weekends at work were there in his life? How many free afternoons did he spend bent over some written sheets of paper trying to figure out a problem that had nothing to do with his private life? So much had escaped them because of his work. Work that also fulfilled him and was his passion.

The first couple of years after her death were really tough. He couldn’t handle the loneliness, couldn’t take care of himself, he ate poorly and overworked himself. Actually, he wasn’t interested in anything but work and a few hours of sleep. That was all he needed.

His health started to deteriorate and problems came right after he reached the retirement age. He knew it meant a definite end to his professional career, the end of work. Retirement was like an invisible thorn thrust right into his ailing heart.

What was supposed to be a well-deserved rest, an award for all the years devoted to work, was basically nothing more but vast emptiness. He couldn’t comprehend how you could sit idly and wait for God knows what. It was then that he adapted the addition, which was supposed to be a garage, into his workshop. Right now he didn’t know yet what he’d be doing, but he had to do something. Anything. When day after day was dreadfully gray, and each morning and dusk tasted of harsh bitterness, you had to do something so as not to go insane.

*

After a few weeks of retirement stagnation, he finally made a decision. At first the idea seemed utterly crazy, but on the other hand, he actually had nothing to lose. Nothing but time and money. As for the cash, he couldn’t make good use out of it anyway, as his needs were downright minimal. Besides, he concluded that a continuation of the research, which during his professional work remained in the sphere of idle discussions and empty lab chatter, would make a pretty good occupation for such an old maniac as himself. Well, it was true that having at your disposal professional equipment and the help of a couple of sharp heads were completely different than a small, empty space and a lot of zeal.

It was a weird thing, conspiracy theory enthusiasts would surely find some more or less rational explanation, but the same day when he decided to seriously get down to curbing the energy, he was given a partner. Maybe he didn’t have some great college diploma but he was someone who could staunchly wait for effects, and with time he started understanding perfectly what was being said to him. He was a dog. A small, tanned mutt with a friendly snout, short paws and hair. Stefan got him as a gift from his neighbor living on the other side of the street. It was hard to say if it really was a gift or a way of getting rid of an inconvenient problem. Michal’s own female dog whose only job was to guard the household during her owners’ absence had seven puppies out of the blue. Maybe it really was a present. The neighbors knew after all that Stefan Bremel had lived alone for years, and giving him a puppy seemed like a nice thing to do. Yes, that was nice, there was no doubt about it. Maybe at first he was a little surprised, but he was happy. It turned out that he could take better care of the creature than himself. Fido, as this was the pet’s name, had his own bowl, a nook to sleep in, and the best food that a dog could dream of. At least the best food an ordinary, tanned mutt could dream of.

Thanks to Fido’s antics and clumsiness, their days gained some spark. A heart-felt smile appeared on Bremel’s face more and more often. Though the dog did make quite a mess from time time to time, when he got entangled in a web of wires crawling like worms across the extension house’s floor or when he got a ball, and pretending to bark menacingly, he chased after it all over the place. Although he knocked over all kinds of equipment he encountered, he never got rebuked by his owner.

*

A light coming from a two-hundred watt light bulb, loosely hanging from a thick cable in the middle of the room, revealed the curvature of the yellowed walls. It was still light out, but the day only reached the garage workshop through a narrow row of panes set at the top of a wide, wooden door. The door that couldn’t be opened anyway, as a large, rectangular chest upholstered with lead sheets stood in front of them from the inside. On the right, there was a long table, covered up with a heap of some peculiar devices and objects, and bundles of twisted wires meandered everywhere.

– That’s right, Fido – said Bremel who sitting by a table focusedly soldered two little parts together. – We’re going to make it today. Both of us, you and I. Do you realize what sort of a breakthrough it’s going to be for the history of science?

It wasn’t very likely that Fido knew what he was talking about. He lay in a corner, propping his canine muzzle on his outstretched paws and stared ahead.

– Six years, brother, six long years and now we’re at heaven’s gate – he continued. – You’ll be the first one to taste what I guess is the most amazing feeling. We’re going to make it, Fido, we are. Well, here it is! – the man turned around in his chair, looked towards the dog and said affectionately: – Come here, you goofball, let me give you a hug!

Fido got up, stretched out lazily arching his back, and jumped in his owner’s lap. He bellowed with delight in his eyes when Bremel grabbed him by the cheeks and started pulling at them gently. There was no doubt, the dog liked fondling.

– But for that growth on the side of your nose, you’d be perfect. We could make a casting of your profile and sell plaster figurines as a decoration to Silesian backyards.

That was true, Fido had something on the left side of his nose. A light brown, wrinkled callus, the size of a cent, that appeared there almost two years before and actually wasn’t anything harmful. Applying ointments didn’t bring any results, the vet said that he could remove it surgically, though he himself didn’t see any point in that, if, aside from the fact that he had a weird spot, the dog was in a great shape.

– Trust me, my friend, there’s nothing to worry about. Everything will go smoothly.

Bremel came up to the chest and opened a hydraulic manhole. He reached out and moved the lever to the position 0. A quiet murmur reverberated in that same moment, greatly resembling the sound of burning fluorescent lamps. Suddenly a few transparent, rectangular containers lying in a row on the table, filled in with something fluid, but not a liquid, something connoting a colorful, luminescent light. Plastic pipes came out from the top of each container and ran towards the chest, while on the side they were all connected to wires converted into one mutual sheaf whose end was stuck into a metal plug just underneath the manhole. Fido, as if hypnotized, stared at the colorful containers.

Bremel examined once more the spot he’d been soldering a few minutes before, smiled under his breath and whispered:

– No worries, everything will go smoothly.

He got in through the manhole. There wasn’t too much space for an adult. He stuck a brass end of a wire which came out on the right side of a lever into a small, spherical hole. For a longer while he stared at the inside of the prototype, as if he wanted to remember its appearance.

“It’ll be fine, all’s fine” – went through his mind. When he came out, he felt that drops of sweat watered his forehead and temples. The excitement started to increase. One more moment.

– Well, Fido, time to go. It’s only a shame you won’t be able to tell me what it was like.

He took the dog in his arms, tousled his snout, kissed the tip of his moist nose and put the pet into the chest.

– See you… in the future.

Before the manhole clung tightly to the lead sides, Bremel could still hear a nervous barking of his pooch, which clearly got scared of the darkness prevailing inside the chest.

He approached the table and activated a narrow, oblong keyboard, whose design resembled a high-tech calculator. It only had one row of keys which showed digits from zero to nine, a little switch sticking out and a backlit screen along the keys. Bremel didn’t really have to check with his notepad to type in the coordinates, which he had inserted so many times before, but today was different. The likelihood of any error had to be ruled out. The slightest mistake would have disastrous effects. Bremel thumbed through the pages of his notebook and typed in the main data. He glanced at his watch – it was coming on 5.15 pm. He felt an urge to increase the time, of what he called, energizing, but why tempt fate?

Ten minutes. That’s what he’d assumed before and he stuck with it.

An array of digits glistened with a yellow light against the black background. He took out a stopwatch. The other lever located under the table remained like a guard adamantly at the position 0. He leaned over. He released the stopwatch with one hand, with the other, he lowered the stick to position E. It was on!

A grim murmur resounded and a hum of generators vibrated, the fluorescent marvel boiled in the transparent containers. “Go, go! Yes!” – he shouted in his mind. He stood motionless like in a narcotic trance. He felt the shirt sticking to his moist back. The stopwatch’s second hand was making a fluent circle. The energy expansion should last exactly three minutes. Everything was on the right track. He glanced at the stopper, two minutes and fifty seconds. He turned on his heel and was about to run out of the house when he heard a quiet crack and noticed a smudge of blue smoke rising above the keyboard. The yellow digits went out! The menacing murmur went silent with a drawn-out sigh. Everything halted instantaneously. A panic and a sense of defeat snatched him abruptly and pierced his body with an ice cold shiver. His heart was pounding like a crazed bell. The pulse in his temples seemed to be blasting his skull. Completely immobilized, he froze, staring into the space with an astounded gaze. It was short seven whole seconds!

Hurriedly, he opened the flap of the energizer’s chest. All he saw was the whiteness of the walls paved with polyurethane foam and could feel a slight metallic taste. It was empty! Fido, unaware of his fate, was now crossing the oceans of space-time.

A BOY WITH A CAP

It’s Friday today. That atrocity happened on Wednesday, and since then I haven’t been able to control the shivering of my hands. Last night I was haunted by nightmares. What insanity, something like that has happened to me for the first time in my forty-year life. I can’t explain this to myself, if I tried telling my wife what I’ve experienced, she’d look at me with disbelief and conclude furiously that I was either trying to scare her or I was taking some stuff, and going crazy.

I won’t tell anyone.

Never.

All I want is to forget one thing – about a boy with a cap.

It was a late Wednesday afternoon. The October sun leaned towards the west, a bloody glow painted across the sky, and, as usual at this time, the center swelled with congestion.

I’m not a short-tempered guy, it’s hard to phase me, but there are certain situations when quite groundlessly, I experience an inner frenzy. One of them is exactly driving through traffic. When I wade imprisoned in a line of vehicles, which painfully push ahead according to the lights’ cycle, I’m starting to rave.

That’s what happened on Wednesday.

I know that my impatient tapping against the steering wheel won’t change anything, that glancing ahead and wondering: “why, the hell, aren’t they moving?!” is futile, that all those swearwords said in a half-whisper won’t work like miraculous spells letting me dash freely ahead.

You have to do your waiting.

So I was stuck in that nightmarish line, some music seeped from the loudspeakers, and my thoughts glided. I was trying to focus on something more sublime and forget that I was moving at the pace of a funeral procession. The setting sun reflected in the rear-view mirrors, at times, when I tilted my head too much to the left, the light’s reflexes burned my pupils with a scarlet ardor.

I scanned all those sad buildings, billboards devoid of character, weary faces of the passersby on the sidewalk. Some people seemed as if only their bodies had remained there, in this disheartening world. They resembled moving shells, mannequins deprived of awareness and abandoned by souls.

I like watching people, sometimes you can notice many striking things.

A green Golf right in front of me rolled ahead slowly. Instantaneously, I shifted to the first gear and followed it. I don’t know how much we’d managed to cover – maybe twenty yards? Not more.

At least that.

We crawled ahead in stop-and-go.

After awhile, I managed to pick up a reasonable speed. Fewer stopovers, more driving. The lights before the overpass were already within my sight. I was doing OK.

The red digits of the electronic clock on the dashboard showed 5:53 pm.

By 5:58 it was already perfect. The pedestrian crossing, the lights above the road and only a few cars in front of me.

Great!

A pleasant feeling when you regain good spirits.

I looked to the left. I had to glance over as a vivid green light of a large ad in the shape of glasses was screaming for attention. It was located exactly on the corner of the building where the optician’s was.

“Let’s get going.

It’s about time!”.

I peeped to the right. There was a boy on the sidewalk. He was wearing dark jeans, a purple fleece zipped to his chin, and a baseball cap pushed almost over his eyes. He couldn’t have been more than eleven. Slight, thin, stooped and hunched, as if he were cold. His hands deep in his pockets, and that peculiar cap. Cherry-red with some emblem in the center. Probably a little too big. At least it seemed that way.

That youngster drew my attention for a short while.

He intrigued me.

I even know why. It’s not how he was dressed, there wasn’t anything unusual in his clothes, anyway, he looked like a million kids his age. He struck me because I have a son who could have been his peer. For a second, I wondered if such a kid should be roaming the streets on his own. Maybe I am oversensitive but I believe that eleven-year-olds are still featherbrained, besides today the lonely wanders of such striplings can’t be safe. Anyway, you hear all that terrible news. For a fraction of a second I thought the boy was looking at me in the corner of his eye. He made a slight gesture, as if shaking his head, he didn’t even slow down, walking in steady paces ahead.

We were both going in the same direction.

Suddenly, I heard a loud sound of the horn behind me, a driver of a burgundy truck almost riding my taillights was even more in a hurry than I was. He rushed me by flickering his lights.

It was true, I stared off, it had already turned green. To apologize, I flickered my emergency lights back and with a light spurt, I bolted ahead.

The street was slightly dropping here, hiding in a short but very dark tunnel under a railway bridge.

Over twenty yards away there was a crossroads and another traffic light. I switched on the turn signal and started curving to the right.

A sharp turn, exactly ninety degrees.

You needed to be extra careful here, a lot of accidents had happened on that bend. It was a sort of danger zone in our city.

I was doing a safe speed. There was a crowd of people ready to rush to the other side of the road. When I was passing them, I thought I saw the boy there whom I had noticed some three hundred yards before! At that moment I realized it was not possible. Even if he had sprinted there, it would have been implausible for him to cover that distance. I couldn’t look back to check it. Anyway, what would I have to prove to myself? That it was an illusion? That I confused the kid with someone else? I grumbled something under my breath and focused on driving the car.

I still drove in a line of cars, at least now everyone rolled ahead at a decent pace.

Another turn, this time to the left, then a straight shot ahead.

I reached for a cigarette. Exhaling a cloud of smoke from my lungs, I rolled down the window a little bit. I have no idea what I was thinking about, probably what was going on at home, what was for lunch, what I’d be doing that night, what movie I’d watch.

The third crossing was me. I took my foot off the gas pedal and turned on the right indicator. I was getting ready for the bend. For whatever reason my eyes glided along the left side of the road. I know, it sounds absurd, but there was the boy in a cap leaning against the corner of the building, gazing at me. The same boy I passed miles away! I felt my hands grip the wheel in astonishment, crumpling the cigarette’s filter tip, tensing my hand muscles, not even knowing why! I was lucky not to have slammed on the gas pedal! I managed to finish the turn, though my arms turned into hard logs. I fixed my eyes on the rear-view mirror. The kid was still there, looking at me. I know he was staring at me, I sensed it, I could feel that look. I pulled over to the edge of the road, stopped the car, turned on the emergency lights, switched the gear to neutral and pulled the handbrake. The engine was working in a stead rhythm. The boy’s silhouette reflected in the mirror. There was something hypnotizing about him, and I felt my back getting moist with sweat. An insane pulse was throbbing in my temples, a heat wave ran through me from head to toe, I couldn’t control the shivering of my knees and I don’t know what would have happened if the cigarette flame hadn’t burned my fingers. That painful stimulus made me look away from the mirror. I put out the stub in the ashtray as soon as I could and twisted my head backward.

I scanned the place.

He was gone.

I cracked the window and took a few deep breaths, after which, not turning the engine off, I got out of the car.

It was warm out, almost summery. The October wind gently frolicked in colorful leaves. Its breaths enveloped my body; I seemed to be cooling off. I investigated the landscape for awhile, absurd thoughts galloped through my head and I’m not sure what I counted on. I ogled in all directions, the city’s noise was reaching my ears. The street where I was parked was a quiet one, there was little traffic there, it was more probable to encounter a passerby rather than a driving car.

I can’t say how long I stuck around there.

I sat behind the wheel and lit another cigarette.

I felt like an idiot.

I tossed the butt through the cracked window and look ahead. The asphalt road was straight all the way. It looked like a tunnel between majestic tree crowns growing on each side. Some faceless passersby walked down the sidewalk, unhurriedly, a woman pushing a baby carriage, a couple of teenagers holding hands, on the other side two elderly ladies, a girl with a white plastic bag behind them, and a little farther a man walking his dog on a leash... An ordinary and common view.

I was trying to get a grip. A paranoiac situation.

Just to make sure, I glanced in the rear-view mirror again. The building’s corner was where it used to be. No one leaning against it.

I took another deep breath and started slowly ahead.

I’m not the kind of person who can’t pay attention on the road. I follow all the regulations, mandatory and prohibitory signs, of course, like anyone else, I can make a mistake, but I observe the speed limits on the city’s streets.

I was dashing down an empty street. The clutch, the next gear. I was already thinking of being home. I saw trees’ leaves jigging in the wind, far ahead a person was crossing the road. And then it happened! He showed up out of nowhere – the boy – just materialized!

Not farther than a yard away from the bumper of my car!

Just the two of us.

I jerked my body, pushing against the back of the seat with all my might, at the same time slamming on the brake. I clearly saw his face; it was devoid of any expression, his eyes hidden in the shade of the cherry-red cap, his mouth didn’t even twitch. I know it all took no more than a few seconds, but to me it seemed like forever, the world took a halt, time stood still. I shut my eyelids in terror, my arms were stiffly clutching the wheel and I only waited for the characteristic thud to happen, when speeding steel meets human flesh. But instead, I felt the vehicle stopping instantly, afterward there was just a hollow cough of the engine and one deep yank. The engine choked and died. When I opened my eyes, I saw something... uncanny! The boy stood right in front of my windshield, looking at me. He was integrated in the car’s hood.

The laws of physics exploded into fine dust.

All the theories about matter turned out to be a lie.

The boy was sunk to his crotch in my car’s body!

Maybe it’s just a minute detail, but I did see a part of his body casting a shadow on the hood, and his figure itself reflecting in the shiny surface of the graphite paint! I realized that what I was seeing couldn’t have been an illusion!

I remained in the same position in which I was braking. I still pressed my right foot in the floor, my knee was almost bending in the opposite direction, the fingers clutched the rim of the wheel, my arms were straightened to my elbows, and my back thrust in the seat. I must have looked like a live wire. What’s more, I couldn’t move. As if each muscle of my body had frozen in a tense cramp. I gaped for breath, there was a humming in my ears drowning all the other sounds. The boy looked into my horrified eyes. He took his hands from the pockets of his fleece, raised them to the level of my face and started approaching the windshield which separated us. He was closer and closer, near enough that a milky disc of breath should have appeared on the window pane but nothing like that materialized on it. I wanted to flee from the car, but I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even budge. Besides my brain, which registered all the condensed sensations of fear, and my eyes that kept watching, the rest of my body was completely paralyzed. Dead.

I felt like a creature devoid of its outer sheath, I was a phenomenon robbed of its own existence.

I saw it, I did, the boy’s face deprived of any expression and two almost childlike hands touching the pane. They were nearly leaning against it but the glass wasn’t really an obstacle. He started pervading it, and then what happened was just as unreal as the figure rising from the car’s hood.

His fingertips touched the glass layer, and then sank in it as if it were an unruffled sheet of water. I know he had a body. I saw it. But when the transparent barrier stopped being an obstacle, so did his body. Parts of his hands that peeped inside the cab looked like a glued mass of gray smoke and mist. Long, taloned fingers seemed as if the slightest gust of wind could have made them disappear, vanish, scatter in the air... The rest of his hands, though, which stayed out, looked quite normal. Human.

A horrific scream tore out in my brain.

EYES

You have only one pair of eyes –

a popular saying.

My issues with eyes started around four years ago. Out of nowhere, some subdermal crap appeared on my right upper eyelid. There was also a little bit of swelling. Touching it, I could feel a slight lump under my fingertips. Actually, it didn’t bug me at all, it didn’t irk me, didn’t hurt... in a word, everything seemed harmless enough to let me ignore the problem. I can’t remember now how long I’d had that defect but at least half a year!

Back then, I even had a few laughs about that swelling. First, I didn’t pay any special attention to it, but with time I noticed that the people I talked with noticed my tumid eyelid after awhile and asked the same question all over again:

– What happened to your eye?

I even caught myself waiting for those words when I spoke to someone. It was a shame I didn’t measure the time after which the question was asked, at least I’d know whose curiosity was the strongest.

It’s quite possible that I’d have this thing on my eye til now if other symptoms hadn’t showed up. Overnight, the THING started reminding me of its existence. I’d wake up in the morning and have problems opening my eyelid, my lashes alongside the lid were stuck together with a little caked, oily, stringy mass the color of rotten yellow. This also went for awhile, until I finally decided that it was about time to visit the optician’s. I hate going to the outpatient clinic. I treat it as punishment. To make it worse, they have those asinine procedures there, it’s a waste of breath. First, you go to the GP. You register, stand in lines and lose half a day to get a referral to the specialist. Then another show. You register and hear that the closest date is, for instance, Thursday next week, 11.30. Well, what can you do. Play along, that’s all.

It was my turn. The doctor touched that THING, watched it and asked how long I’d been walking around with it, nodded her head with pity and wrote a referral for a procedure. Then she treated me to a lecture about neglecting your own health, which was rather in a bad taste, and summed it up with the popular saying: you have only one pair of eyes. On that occasion, she checked my eyesight. And then it turned out I needed glasses. She wrote out a prescription. I won’t lie, it got to me a little bit.

I shoved the subject of glasses under the pile of things to do – first, the procedure.

I visited the hospital’s ophthalmic ward. A doctor of the posture and appearance of a butcher had a look at the referral.

– Ha! We have a “goldfish” – he seemed amused. – Wait in the hall, please. We’ll get rid of it in fifteen minutes.

I sat by the wall, crossed my legs and wondered what the hell he meant by a “goldfish”.

They sat me in a large armchair. The back of it reclined almost all the way down, putting me in a nearly lying position. Three people bustled around me. They put something underneath my chin, set some plastic foil screen, which dropped on my neck like a curtain. Suddenly, a row of blinding lights blazed up. Their glow made me squint. I heard a female voice:

– We’ll administer a local anesthetic shortly. I’ll roll out the upper eyelid, pull down the lower one and hold it, try not to blink. It’ll burn a little.

She did what she warned me about, and then I felt a slight piercing. No, it wasn’t a shot, almost at the same time there was a characteristic hiss, similar to what a sprayed deodorant does. In the corner of my other eye I saw a hand wearing a surgical glove, and a glass vial in it. Instantaneously, I experienced a ripple of acute pins and needles gently spilling to my cheek, temple and superciliary ridge. Around a minute later I had an overwhelming feeling I didn’t have that part of my face, as if that section turned into an artificial shell. I lay motionless, blinded by the streams of light coming from the lamps. All I could do was listen.

I concluded that, besides me, there was a doctor, a nurse and I guess some young, fresh quack. For sure fresh, as their conversation shoved my diseased eyelid to the rank of a circus exhibit.

– Oh, can you see here? A textbook example – that was the voice of the man who had previously admitted my referral for the procedure. – A central sclerosis and a visible spilling to the sides. The lymph gathers in the dome, its excess squeezes in subdermally and spreads radially. That convex grain is actually called a “goldfish”. Our task is to scrape out that bijou, drain the root, disinfect the wound, and let the body deal with rest. That’s all. Nurse, tools.

“Tools!” – panic screamed in my mind. In every hospital in the world that word sounds awful. I heard metal instruments being set on the table to my right, on the level of my ear. That sound can be achieved if we insert a few knives and forks into a steel pan and shake them a little. The sheer memory sends a shiver down my back. The crunch, the friction – never more! Although... who knows? Equally lousy, but at a different pitch, was the sound when the doctor started scraping off the rolled out flap of my eyelid. Actually, I can’t decide which sound was more rotten.

I’m not completely sure but it seemed that the device which was husking my “goldfish” looked similarly to the one used for getting rid of warts. When I was a child, I had one. It formed in a weird spot, on the sole of my right foot. Hmm, is it possible that the right side of my body was more vulnerable to these THINGS? But that’s not the point. I remember that the device resembled a miniature ladle, whose rounded edges were razor sharp.

The anesthetic worked miracles. No painful sensations, only the aural ones. I’d call them fleshy. Yes, fleshy is a good word, appropriate for that sound. When the doctor was done, the gentle fingers of the nurse rinsed my eye with some solution, and then made a perfect dressing.

– In about two hours the anesthetic will start wearing off – the optician said, writing out a prescription at the same time. – It will hurt a little. Tomorrow, please, come to the clinic to have your dressing changed. Here – he handed me the slip – It’s an ointment prescription. Twice a day, morning and evening, roll out your lower eyelid and gliding along, squeeze out a thin line of the ointment. That’s all. Goodbye – he finished with a glued on smile.

– Goodbye, and thank you.

It was as he said. Two hours passed and it started hurting. Even a lot. I felt my eye swelling. I filled in the prescription, the next day I had my dressing changed and I used the ointment as directed.

For almost two weeks I looked as if I had earned a punch from our Endrju. I mean that Endrju who in his day was a sensation in the heavyweight of professional boxing, who was also called the Great Hope.

So, for those two weeks after the procedure I was walking around with a black eye. Or actually skulking. Cloudy weather and myself in sunglasses. Embarrassing. Some claim that I have an aggressive expression on my face, but it’s only appearances, that’s my charm, personally I’m no fan of fights or scuffles. I can’t even remember the last time I got into any brawl with the use of fists. I do remember, though, the last time I got a beating. It was nearly twenty years ago. What was it about – I have no idea, but I do know I got my ass whipped.

*

The swelling and the bruises were coming off of my eye. Time flew by. Weeks, months, years...

Over the days passing by, my eyesight got worse and worse. My vision impairment slowly and systematically began to deepen. I started having problems reading. It didn’t matter if it was a newspaper, a book, a flier, a product label, each small font dissolved before my eyes. To read anything, I needed to adjust distances, in order to get focus. It started to be more and more irksome with time.

*

A few weeks ago I bought a book. I don’t have too much free time during the day to sit down and get immersed in reading in peace. I enjoy reading, when I’m surrounded by peace and quiet, and I have this kind of comfort only in the evenings. The kids go to sleep around 9 pm. Bartek sleeps alone in the room by the kitchen, and little Kubus with my wife in the middle room (Kubus is a year and a half but he still likes to have a drink from his momma’s boob). I, on the other hand, have the space at my disposal called the large room. I’ve encountered the terms living room or salon but I simply call it large. A sofa, a coffee table, some plants, a stereo, a dresser, a forty-two inch Philips TV set, three remotes (one for the tuner, the second one for the TV, and third one for the stereo) and my humble self. Well, the TV is huge, panoramic and so on... I bought it two years ago (maybe my subconscious was already communicating to me that I should get a type of a movie screen as my eyesight was getting worse and worse). So, in the evenings, lying in bed, if I’m not watching some dumb movies, I read. My latest purchase from the bookstore was almost two hundred fifty pages. I should have gone through it in a week. I started reading. Suddenly, it turned out that after wading through a few pages, I could forget about the rest. Despite my efforts, the letters would blur, and finding focus took me more time than the reading itself.

One evening I decided it was about time to get a computer eye test, buy decent glasses and start living with an extra pair of eyes.

When I told my spouse about the idea, I heard:

– Aren’t you exaggerating a bit?

– No, I’m not, dear – I replied. – After all, I am thirty five, I’m getting old and such disorders are age-related – I like annoying her with arguments like that. Women are creatures who would love to stop time at some period of life and forget about years going by.

*

In the era of today’s commercialization and services each consumer has immense choice. Obviously, you won’t reinvent the wheel, but there is stiff competition between companies and there only a question of service remains. It’s an insanely important factor, as who doesn’t like to be treated like a big fish, someone who’s welcome? And who can provide that if not the shop-assistant?

As it was coming on Christmas, I decided to deal with the subject of my eyes in the first days of January. I only had to decide about one issue: glasses or contacts. The latter had always been a little too... synthetic for me. Somehow I couldn’t really trust those little discs fitted on the pupils. Glasses were glasses, besides, the looks tend to change; they may even add grace and appeal to some people. Of course, I was a realist and I knew that some wire framed glasses wouldn’t make me a target of female admiration, but on the other hand, I didn’t really have that mindset. For me, glasses were a slight manifestation of individualism and character. Even sunglasses.

*

The holidays went by in sweet laziness, I spent the New Year’s at home with my family. We made a toast at midnight and could boldly face the fact that we were a year older. I decided that at the age of thirty six I could start wearing glasses.

I first scoped out the city’s streets. I found six stores with accessories for everyone who wore something on their noses or eyes. In each spot there was a tag with the information that they did computer eye tests. Glancing at the shop windows, I took that chance to familiarize myself with the current trends in the world of glasses. Frankly speaking, nothing took my breath away. All the frames followed one fashion, flat and generic. I felt that I would have problems finding the right style and color.

On Tuesday January 7th I had a less busy day at work. Since I am my own boss, I decided to leave a little earlier and get the whole eye exam done. I’d never hung around opticians’, so I didn’t have any idea what it was like. Just before my leaving, my buddy, Michal, showed up. As always, wearing his inseparable leather jacket (at times it seems that this jacket has grown onto his skin). We chatted for awhile about silly things, he actually popped in to get me out for a beer. I said no. One thing was that I was going to drive, but also getting an eye test when you smell like a brewery didn’t seem like the best idea. And most importantly, it was winter, and at that time of the year I’m not crazy about the golden hops drink. Michal decided to accompany me.

Store NR 1

It was coming up on 3.45 pm, when we arrived at the optician’s, which was the first one on the route. Yes, they were doing eye tests that day but the doctor hadn’t shown up yet, and to my surprise the line had already been forming. One guy and a woman with two noisy kids. Counting that each patient would spend in the office around ten minutes, and the optician would show up about 4, I knew it wouldn’t get in before 4.30.

I hate waiting. I backed out.

Store NR 2

The clock’s hands showed 3.55. An amiable lady behind the counter informed us that the doctor was on her way and would start the tests in a few minutes. The whole extravagance was that there were no other people!

– I’d be interested then – I said. – We’ll just go out to have a smoke.

– Of course – the lady responded with a radiant smile.

It was cold outside. The frost hadn’t let go for a few days and nothing indicated it was going to thaw any time soon. I like winter, that’s true, but I hate being cold! I can’t stand it when my fingers grow stiff and I feel my ears get hoary, while the tip of my nose changes into a purple-red pompon.

Michal quit smoking a long time before. When he made up his mind about kicking the habit, I bet him he would smoke before the end of the year for sure. We made the bet over a bottle of Finland. It’s quite decent vodka (as far as the fiery water can be decent), I, for example, don’t have a hangover after it, and it’s a huge asset, that’s why I think it’s a pretty good choice. And even though Michal still isn’t smoking, of course I won. Actually, I’d forgotten about our bet, and he, sucker, spilled the beans himself. Some time before he was telling me about a hardcore party he was at and got talked into a cigarette. When I heard this, it illuminated me instantly. An alarm ring sounded in my head and my memory was back. We laughed our asses off at each other. If you think about it, that was quite the material for an anecdote.

We were standing in front of the entrance, exactly on the corner of the building. It was a January dusk, and there was a vivid green ad in the shape of giant glasses above our heads. When I was finishing my cigarette, an obese woman (wearing glasses!) went past us and entered the door. That was the doctor.

Awhile later, the beaming assistant invited me to the back. I was disgruntled, I hoped she’d take me to a separate room where I would be tested by someone in a white gown, and where I could tell the doctor freely about what was ailing me. And what there? Crap. The back-end the size of a john, some ridiculous curtain, and everyone present in the store could here what I was saying. I had that fucking test, paid thirty five zloty and I left with a distaste in my mouth. I didn’t even feel like browsing any frames there. Run, Forest, run!

Store NR 3

That was a sort of an impulse – I had a hunch the diagnosis I’d gotten was not completely true. I decided we should go to another optician and if the conditions were professional, I would get tested again. Another thirty five zloty wouldn’t make me a beggar, and at least I’d be sure.

It was past 4.40 when we reached the next place.

Well, that was it! Clean, neat, nice smell, pleasant, no lines. The lady that was taking care of clients took me to an office between floors. Spiffy tiles, paneling, a spacious room and an elderly doctor in a white gown. That was what I’d expected.

– Take a seat – she pointed to a leather chair. – How old are you?

– Thirty six – it was funny, I contemplated her question for a few seconds.

– What’s ailing you?

– I have difficulty reading. That’s probably the main reason why I’m here.

Then the procedure looked similarly to the one in the back-end of the previous optician’s. The woman adjusted a large, rectangular device to my face. I propped my chin on the support and, as if it were binoculars, I looked at some black mark integrated in the yellow background. It was clear and then it was blurry. Then I read out letters from a board, and then she put some freaky thing on my eyes and changing the lenses, she asked which one was better. At the same time I was holding a cardboard pad with prints of fonts in different sizes and looked at the text, when she indicated. I had the slip with the previous test’s results in the inner pocket of my jacket. I decided not to confess to it yet, to be able to compare both diagnoses.

The doctor finished running the tests, sat behind her desk and started explaining my ailment. It was what I’d suspected. With age, we start suffering from farsightedness. It’s supposed to be normal. Some are lucky and it doesn’t concern them, others, however, like myself, get that defect and need to learn to live with it. It wasn’t supposed to be anything serious, but I needed to take into account that the impairment might have deepened. And such diagnosis didn’t sound encouraging. In a word, I needed to take care of my eyes, after all, we only have one pair.

It’s true, I’ll admit it, I’m a supporter of conspiracy theories (the ones on the global scale). I’ve always thought that the accounts of people who have taken part in some event reach altogether a certain threshold, and then, not knowing why, start diverging. It’s odd, but it’s true. Although maybe it depends on the point of view which we carry around with us, but that’s not the point.

I knew it was going to be this way, I was sure I’d get two diagnoses. I held a conviction they wouldn’t be identical.

Of course, I didn’t spare myself the joy and informed the doctor about my previous exam. I was under the impression she felt a little uneasy and I dare say that was the first time she had been put in that sort of situation. I’m ten billion per cent sure she hadn’t had a patient like me before. She started explaining herself a bit (to my delight), but clarified that both diagnoses moved around the permissible orbit of tolerance.

All in all, it turned out that I was going to wear positive lenses. Plus one on the left eye and plus one on the right eye.

I paid thirty zloty (scandalous!) – a more amiable office, professional approach and a lower price! I was a little shocked. The kind of shock that was worth five zloty. I thanked and left.

That store was open til 6 pm. I glanced at my watch, it was past 5.15.

Michal loitered between the counter and the lit cabinets. He pretended he was browsing the frames.

– So? – he asked.

– It’s cool, I know what I need now – I replied.

A shop-assistant materialized out of nowhere next to us with her lovely smile, the kind that says I’ll Do Anything to Pawn Stuff Off.

I explained to her what interested me, but I also noted that we could talk about lenses or plastics only after I had found suitable frames. We started picking through innumerable numbers of designs. I knew it would be a problem. I simply knew.

I stood in front of a large mirror, where I could see my whole figure and tried on all the frames the assistant handed me in. The golden colored ones I rejected on the spot.

– I’m looking for something black or chrome – I hinted.

After a quarter of an hour, I concluded that chrome or black were actually the colors that couldn’t co-habituate with my face. Gold was completely out of the question. A different color entered the game, though, that suited me perfectly. Antique brass. That was something. The color was accepted, only the matter of design remained. Finally, I tried the kind of frames the seller absolutely adored (it’s good that I’m not vulnerable to cheap compliments). Actually, they weren’t bad, but they still weren’t the ones I could share each day with. They lacked... individualism. Nobody knew, besides me, that I wasn’t going to buy any glasses that day. I noticed that Michal was getting a little impatient and bored, and the nice shop-assistant found herself in a spot where the client had the upper hand and the first signals that it was going to be just browsing started reaching her.

To clear up the tensing ambiance, I said:

– You know what, I’m very fussy. I work in the trade myself and I have contact with clients, too. Some can be really awful... I won’t deny I’m one of them.

– No, not at all – she tried denying.

– Alright – I know it’s not nice but I interrupted her. – Let’s focus on the frames. Will you be able to find something in the sixties’ style, something with character? I’d like my glasses to have a rock-and-roll vibe.

She looked at me astonished and replied she wasn’t sure what I meant.

SMASH HIT!

A vast complex of oblong ground floor buildings in the city’s suburbs was surrounded by perfectly trimmed sheets of wavy metal; only on the seams could you see the glisten of the nickle-plated clinches’ semicircular heads. The fence itself was painted a matte blue. Along the fencing ran a row of soaring street lamps, which each evening burned with a bright yellow light.

It was coming up on noon. The April sun smiled with a glaring shine against the impeccably azure sky. A fragrance of wonderful freshness hovered in the air. The bushes, shrubs and trees gushed out cascades of delightful green. The spring wonder was unraveling.

A black Citroen C5 glided down the wisp of an asphalt road from the north. The car stopped at a parking lot in front of blue fencing. After awhile, three men dressed in well-cut suits started towards the wide gate. They represented the biggest chain of supermarkets in Poland. A task rested on their shoulders to find a suitable trade partner and conclude with them a profitable cooperation agreement. It was them who on behalf of the company ran Serious Business, which brought Serious Money.

The men had already had an opportunity to meet the company’s owner awhile before, but their previous meetings had taken place in secluded law offices. The trade agreement had been signed a few weeks before, the first shipments had reached the seven most strategic sales points, the promotion campaign was underway, and the goods were selling themselves. Today’s visit was a pure formality, almost a courtesy. Appropriately, such behavior was a seed, which could yield crop if it came to further negotiations in the future. And since the demand for the assortment was beyond their wildest dreams, such a perspective loomed on the business horizon. The gentlemen in suits were outstanding experts in their trade. They were characterized by crystal professionalism and they made up an unbeatable team. Their visit today was aimed at getting exactly one piece of information, they expected an answer to one or two questions – if they could count on a delivery increase, if so, how serious would it be, estimating in per cents against the current agreement.

The conversation with the company’s owner was of a casual and friendly nature. The visitors had a cup of coffee, the one driving refused, but the rest made a toast with a glass of premium cognac. Actually, they weren’t interested in the production process, but the circumstances required that they have a look at the plant’s presentation and listen to a few words.

They had to admit, the company being in the hands of one man was huge. They paced slowly between the rows of buildings.

It was so warm outside that they took off their jackets.

– The whole process starts in this spot – an older, gray-haired man said, pointing to a building with the sign INCUBATORS. – Let me explain briefly. Well, over there we have a colony of worms which offer us their delicate fiber. Without going too much into detail, the process is almost identical to the one with silkworms. I’m sure you’ve heard about them... – he looked at them with a smile. – The difference is that our insect survives and works in the most spartan conditions. We, however, took a step further and created an artificial environment, almost a perfect one, to achieve the optimum efficiency and free breeding. It’s ensured by appropriate temperature, lighting, a certain humidity and a limitless access to food. These creatures are, let me say, very intelligent, if you can claim that about worms – he laughed. – Just imagine, gentlemen, that they regulate the size of their own population. And though they’re very fertile, nature endowed them with a grand feature, almost unheard-of anywhere else! They breed, adjusting to the conditions in which they have to make do. Isn’t it fascinating? They live shortly. Maybe time goes by differently for them, but in our reality, their existence is exactly a week.

– And what do you do with the ones that die? – another man asked.

– Nature is sometimes cruel, our worms devour the dead ones of their species – he explained in a few words.

The men glanced at each other with a distaste.

– And what do you feed them?

– Well, that’s a good question. I’ll say this: they’re carnivorous.

Surprise was painted on the men’s faces.

– We cooperate with nearby butchers – the guide carried on. – We buy from them what can’t be used for anything else. With these pipes – he waved his hand – we suck the ready fibers to the so called Spinning Mill.

That amount of information on the subject of insects was completely satisfactory. Anyway, the owner, Mr Maciej Kipa, had never said more than that about his worm. This time he also wasn’t going to do that. The remaining part of the story, the whole truth had been his secret for years. Even his wife didn’t know these facts, in any case, it was such a long time ago. Almost a quarter of a century had gone past since then!

– In the Spinning Mill – he continued – our machines cut the fibers and they’re sent with these tunnels in the form of a homogenous belt of an appropriate thickness – he pointed to the glass and aluminum constructions – to the Hardening Station. Here, in the first place, the carpets, as we call the the fiber belts, undergo the first processing. Using, among others, diluted resin solution, they get soaked. That process takes place in special vacuum and pressure chambers, where they are at the same time rapidly dried out and cut to the basic size. Prepared in such a way, the carpets go to cutters. There they are trimmed to the actual sizes, and then they move on conveyor belts to the presses, which give them their final shape. As you probably have noticed, each product is characterized by an appropriate shape, which, I can assure you, even after years’ of use doesn’t undergo deformation. The last cycle of production takes place in the Sewing Rooms. A simple matter, but the most significant one, as for the presentation of our product. I lay great stress on it so the esthetics of the trimming is according to the European standards and matches the taste of our clients. Here we pack the goods and from here they reach the warehouses, and from there the vehicles, then the sales points from which they go directly to the buyer – he finished his dilation with a proud, radiant smile.

– Mr Kipa, I’ll be honest – one of the men said – what I see makes an unbelievable impression, but I mostly admire your idea. If you could, do tell us how it occurred to you that you could produce comforters, pillows, cushions...

– Ha ha – the gray-haired man laughed heartily. – It’s no mystery. Once, ages ago, in the communist times, I worked at the Institute of Light Industry. Our department dealt with implementing new technologies. We already had at our disposal the regulasias megnolis, that is our worm and its “product”. We were trying to use the fibers for a whole spectrum of various goods, but the lack of suitable equipment limited our possibilities. The fibroid’s colony, as we commonly called the worm, was kept alive all the time, though. Overnight many things had gotten complicated so much that the target of our research ended up a decoration. We kept the worms in a specialist incubator, it wasn’t big, maybe the size of a typical desk. It stood in the corner and didn’t bother anyone. We fed the fibroids – he fell silent for awhile, looked at the men and said. – I guess I veered off the topic a bit, didn’t I?

– No, not at all, Mr Kipa, go on, it’s a very interesting story – the second man resorted to a proven technique. A small, innocent compliment sometimes awoke limitless honesty. The story was actually interesting, but Mr Maciej Kipa hadn’t been born the previous day and knew that it was safer for him to keep his mouth shut. On the other hand, that version of events was, first of all, authentic, secondly, known in some circles, thirdly, he’d never denied that part.

– I’m glad I’ve managed to interest you. So we would feed our regulasias using the fibers it produced for various purposes, sometimes they would substitute ordinary wash cloths. Then my career at the Institute came to an end, I got an offer for a better-paid job and I left. That was in the second half of the eighties. And though my further life path veered in different directions, my colleagues from the Institute still kept the incubator in the corner of the room with a little colony of the fibroids. I’d already had my own company, well, that’s too big of a word, I just ran a small business. I anchored in the clothing industry, employed a few people, we sewed clothes. It was actually a typical manufacture and took place in the building where the office is right now. Eh – he sighed with a murmur of nostalgia – when I think of those days, tears well up in my eyes. One day my colleague from the Institute called. We talked about how I was, how he was, so many years had gone past, you know how it is, when someone who you haven’t seen in ages gives you a ring – he reminisced not really caring if they knew. – Until that acquaintance told me that the department where he’d worked was undergoing the first phase of a liquidation, that he had to look for a different job and so on, and even that the company needed to get rid of the incubator with the fibroids. The Institute cut down on the costs of maintenance and their department was unlucky enough. A crazy beginning of the last decade of the twentieth century. We chatted a bit more, nice talking to you, take care, and that was it. I remember as if it were yesterday that the same day I started thinking about the fibroids. I reacted immediately. I showed up at the Institute the next day. I knew the director personally, he agreed to see me, we talked and I offered to buy the incubator with the content, of course along with all the rights to employ the useless fibers. I offered a ridiculous sum of money, he said yes enthusiastically. It took five days to finish up the formalities. The times had changed, anything went on the market, open borders, someone could simply become an owner of an incubator full of carnivorous maggots. Already when I was an employee at the Institute, the research had shown that the fibers where completely safe for the human body. And that was the main reason why I decided to purchase the regulasias colony. Exactly that day when my acquaintance called, a plan was born in my head. It was like an inspiration, a vision. The concept involved sleeping bags. Quilted sleeping bags, large, small, medium ones, any size. I invested in the fibroids breeding. Month to month we had better and better results. We didn’t use any hardeners back then. The business was booming. After that came loans, further investment, a selection of suitable people, ideas, projects, and of course patenting, further investment, a wonderful, receptive market and now I have, what I have – he stated with unconcealed pride in his voice.

– Impressive, very impressive – the tallest man said. – but we have one more question of a different matter. Mr Kipa, if our company would like one day to buy larger quantities of your product, would that be possible?

An alarm signal resounded in the mind of the gray-haired man.

– Gentlemen, anything is possible. Let’s move to my office – he replied, pointing to the blue building.

*

DAY ONE

The last Monday of April exuded a joyful glee of spring since the very morning.

The production rolled at almost a double speed.

The long May Week was starting on Wednesday (of course, not for everybody). And for those days off some supermarkets were preparing their price surprises, smashing hits! A break at work was a good opportunity for family shopping, which in Poland had become almost a fashion and a way of spending your leisure time (soon that would probably become another tradition).

A serious shipment was due the next day. Thousands of pillows and comforters were to leave Maciek Kipa’s factory by noon, so as to end up on Wednesday in the largest supermarket chains, in special booths taking up the extensive store space, and begin conquering the market.

At 10 pm the third shift of workers took over the watch and duties.

Everything was going according to the usual scheme in the Spinning Mill. The fibers’ carpets went to the Hardening Station, and from there to the Sewing Rooms and the Packing Station and in the form of a ready product, to the warehouse.

The facts were that a few times during the day something strange was going on with the ventilator, which sucked out the fibers from the Incubators at stand #3. The failure had been reported, but somehow none of the maintenance men were keen to fix it. They claimed they’d send someone soon, and that they were busy with something else at that moment. No one knew the truth, though. What was certain was that an employee named Witczak had his birthday that day. He was on the afternoon shift, smuggled some vodka on the factory’s premises and left a bottle to the ones on the night shift to have a drink for his health.

It was a few minutes before midnight when the ventilator at #3 screeched and halted. The person operating the machine immediately switched off the voltage and reported the malfunction. The overseer sent a man to fetch one of the maintenance guys. Around three minutes later an authorized employee began to fix the failure. He unscrewed something, checked it, replaced something and concluded that it was OK. He turned the voltage back on. The ventilator wings fizzed with the right sound but they didn’t suck out the fibers.

– Nothing’s moving, there must be a jam in the tunnel – the man who tampered with the machine stated. He gave a short order to the overseer: – Go and check.

When he came back a moment later, it turned out that the assembler’s diagnosis was right. A tangle of fibers matted in the transparent sleeve.

– It needs to suck harder, and when the ball pops out, set the usual flow.

– Alrighty.

The man by the ventilator took off the casing and found the screw that regulated the passage. He inserted the tip of a cross-ply screwdriver in its notch and gently turned it to the left. The engine picked up power. It sucked with more and more force, sucked harder, kept sucking... A deflection of pressure was growing in the Incubators despite the partial blockage in the tunnel, the fibers were being swept up by an invisible current. It yanked. Suddenly the tangle of fibers fell on the Spinning Mill’s conveyor belt like a spat out pit. Right behind it landed a few single specimen of regulasias megnolis. The maintenance man slowed down the power of suction, set it in the right position, screwed the lid back on, put the seal on and concluded.

– It’s gonna work!

After a short break the production picked up where it left off at its pace. Midnight struck.

DAY TWO

Before six am the warehouses were chock full of goods. Among myriad comforters, pillows and cushions a few pieces of tiny, slimy maggots found their temporary home. They left the factory’s premises before noon and sped some place in the world in burgundy trucks’ trailers with canvas that said Dewilski-Trans.

When exactly a quarter was left til 3 pm, Barbara cleaned up her desk and slowly was getting ready to leave. The perspective of Modern Europe’s Longest Weekend had a soothing effect. A few days of sweet laziness were on the menu.

The last day of April was simply magnificent. It was warm, green, it smelled beautiful! The radiant disc of the golden sun glistened in the middle of the sky, the park looked like one huge, blossoming bud, all the benches along the cobbled alleys were taken. Spring. Spring everywhere. It made you want to live!

Barbara rolled ahead with slow steps. She walked unhurriedly, strolling down the street, and the folds or rather tires of fat around her hips jiggled like half-set gelatin. Although she enjoyed that weather, this sort of air didn’t do her good. She felt her groin becoming wet, and drops of sweat forming on her temples and chin. At some point she took out a packet of tissues from her purse and wiped her face. The white blotter immediately soaked in her natural moisture.

Heading downtown, she watched the shop windows. A few times she wanted so badly to come inside, but when she remembered what kind of aroma she gave off, she changed her mind.

An advertising folder was lying on the door mat in front of her apartment. This was one of Barbara’s favorite brochures. Bending over for the colorful print was quite a challenge.

Gasping for breath, she sat, well, she spilled over the kitchen stool. She stretched out her swelling and hurting feet. They looked funny, as if they had no ankles at all on the sides; they resembled spongy rollers. She looked around her place and actually felt like a snack, but having smelled her own stink, she thought she’d better wash up. She entered the bathroom, took off her shirt and bra, and dumped them in the laundry basket. The nipples of her soggy breasts were at the height of her navel. She hung the skirt up on a hanger next to the bathrobe and slid down her gigantic underpants. Her buttock looked like the rounded up edges of pickle barrels, the limp part of her abdomen dropped down and hid somewhere underneath her pubes. Barbara reached out there with difficulty. She touched herself and somehow out of the habit, she smelled her hand. “Yuck” – she summed up the smell. She opened the warm tap water in the sink and started washing up. The face, the neck, under her armpits, then she set a plastic bowl on the floor, stood over it in astride and washed up her crotch. She patted her body dry with a terry-cloth towel, applied antiperspirant in some places and put on fresh underwear, which had been drying out since the day before on a string stretched above the tub.

She came back to the kitchen. Took out sausage, cheese, mayo, yoghurt, herrings, a pot with stewed fruit from the fridge, reached for the bread from the knapsack and finally had a seat. She spread the newspaper on the table and having a bite of everything, she sank in the advertising offer. On the first page it said in large print:

SMASH HITS!

You’ve never seen it before! Insane prices!

Amazing bedding that will suit any pocket!

A pillow 20 x 30 inches – for only 9 zloty!

A comforter 70 x 85 inches – for only 17 zloty!

Promotion is valid between 1 – 5 May!

See you in our store!

In small print they added that the goods didn’t deform and the assortment had a safety certificate, and so forth.

The magical word PROMOTION worked miracles on Barbara. In her subconscious it was encoded as a key to fulfill expectations. She always bought products with that writing. Gobbling up her food, she thought that she’d make a supermarket trip the next day.

DAY THREE

The first May morning was promising to be lovely. The weather was delightful like the sweetest memories.

It was past 9 am when Barbara headed for the supermarkets arcade, which was located not even seven minutes away on foot from her apartment. Crossing the road, she noticed the parking lot had already been swarming with cars. An unsettling thought overcame her that maybe she was going to be too late. The previous day she’d already decided that she’d buy the 9 zloty pillow. After all, the amount was simply ridiculous! She quickened her step.

A pleasant coolness enveloped the gigantic pavilion. Barbara, pushing in front of her a four-wheel trolley, aimed in the direction where the signposts with the writing “PROMOTION” guided her. An enticing, female voice sounded from the loudspeakers, someone encouraged the clients in a tempting way to purchase the items from the series “SMASH HIT!”. Yes, when Barbara saw that place where the advertised goods were lying, everything seemed clear. Now she was convinced that people followed the discount catalogs, too. A crowd was occupying huge, wire baskets filled with pillows and comforters. Everyone was putting them in their carts. After awhile she also managed to elbow her way in their vicinity. She took a pillow hemmed with a colorful cover and started feeling it attentively. Indeed, the filling inside responded extremely well. Besides, it was pleasant to feel. She looked carefully if the seams running along the edge of the fabric were in good shape, if the product wasn’t by any chance faulty in any spot. She grabbed the pillow and moved away with her back, making room for the others. Excited sentences were reaching her ears:

– Marek, let’s get the whole set, for this kind of money! – one woman said.

– Maybe let’s get pillows for the kids? – a different one spoke.

– Darling, look, it’ll cost us thirty five zloty – another one was getting excited.

Barbara rode between the dairy aisles. “Uff” – she exhaled with relief. It was much freer here. “Look at those people! Savages!”. She turned her cart around and slowly started ahead.

Rolling between the shelves full of goods, she savored the look of the assortment. She touched some products, read the information on the labels, evaluated them in her own way, put them back and waded ahead. She spent a little more time in the food section and of course she didn’t fail to get a few things. Some fish, cheese, meat, sweets, frozen meals, something spicy. She needed to remember, though, not to go overboard, because she had to drag it all home on her own. She finished her visit in the store around 2 pm. Probably the shopping would have gone on for much longer but Barbara’s head started to throb and actually she was starving.

A satisfying meal and an afternoon nap turned out to be the best remedies for her migraine (as she used to call her headaches, she had picked up that term from the Latino soap operas). Naturally, she tested her new purchase during her nap. The pillow that wasn’t supposed to get deformed. It was true, when she took it in her hands, it turned out it kept its shape and fluffiness.

That evening she spent like any other ones for the past twenty-something months. She ate and watched TV. During the movie, which started at 8.10 pm, she lay on her right side, with her head propped on the pillow. A few times something itched inside her ear, just a normal sensation of itching. Happens to anybody.

A quarter past 11 she turned off the light and went to sleep.

DAY FOUR

Barbara was one of the lazy sleepy heads. Sometimes on days off work she wouldn’t get up until noon. But it was different that day. She woke up exactly at 7.10, actually a pain in the right ear woke her up. Located more deeply in the skull, it radiated unpleasantly to the upper part of her eye and jaw. Somewhere in its inner section she could feel a clear, warm pressure. Moaning, she shielded her ear with the palm of her hand, hoping it would help. When she got up from bed, she teetered. For a second she thought she was going to collapse to the floor, the world was spinning before her eyes. With an unsteady step, she headed for the bathroom. She stood over the sink, propped herself against its edge and looked in the mirror. She concluded she didn’t look too good. Circles under her eyes, a little swollen eyelids and lips – and that matte glow hidden in her hazel irises. She felt weak and tired. And, to make it worse, that intense headache. A thought that a cup of coffee would surely help her crossed her mind.

She put the kettle on and sat by the table. After a few moments she had the impression that the snare of pain was moving towards her occiput and sinuses. It was the first time she’d experienced anything like it. It was worse with every second. “I need to take some pills”. She got up and opened the cupboard where she kept a box with medicine. She found a full packet of painkillers, recently advertized on TV. She took out two tablets and swallowed them, drinking some flat mineral water from a plastic bottle. She poured water in her coffee cup and sugared her drink.

– I should lie down – she mumbled to herself.

She set the coffee on her bedside table. Gasping and wheezing, she located her obese body on the unfolded couch. She glanced at the clock’s hands. She got up twenty minutes before and she was feeling more and more lousy. She reached for the cup. She took a small sip and sniffed in deeply the pleasant aroma. At the same moment she felt the acute pain moving towards her nasal septum, almost starting to block it. She inhaled the air with effort. She wanted to put the coffee back but she nudged the armrest with her elbow and all the hot contents with the grounds spilled onto the comforter. She kept sucking on gulps of air with her nose, as if she wanted to draw the matter to her lips and spit it out. It was a sort of exhaustion for her face muscles, a peculiar pressure began to form inside her skull, when suddenly somewhere deep in her right ear she heard, or rather felt, a phlegmatic burst and a wave of piercing warmth. Right then she sucked through her nose so hard that from its upper part a ball of something slimy came off and fell directly into her throat. Momentarily, a gagging reflex occurred and part of the clod went to her mouth, while part of it flowed down smoothly into her stomach. Simultaneously, she pressed her ear with her hand and felt the presence of fine threads on her tongue and palate, completely as if she had eaten a spoonful of cut noodles. Reflexively, she bit that something with her teeth, felt the tiny lines pop and spread a bitter aftertaste. Before she spat out their flecks, she moved away her hand from her ear and saw that her palm was all covered with blood.

– Aaaaah! – she screamed with terror and with the power of her voice the white, oval threads fell out. When she noticed them, she began spitting to get rid of the matter. She was panic-stricken, jumped to her feet and like a dazed elephant headed towards the bathroom unsteadily, knocking off all the white goods she encountered.

THE REBELS

– The express train from Kudowa to Cracow, the estimated time of arrival 8.20 pm, will be delayed by around thirty minutes – the nasal voice of a woman, devoid of any emotions, flowed from the station speakers. It sounded the same at every train station.

A few people frozen to the marrow waiting on the Prudnicki platform scurried unhappily towards the waiting room. Some man cursed racily. What else could they have expected? On November 1 all means of transport ran late. Not only was All Souls’ Day once a year, not only did whole masses of people cover Poland up and down to pay respects to their late family members, PKP had to treat them to the surprise of delays.

During the day the weather wasn’t too bad. True, it was windy – and how – but the November sun shone and nothing indicated that around six pm it would start snowing fine fluff. The weather’s parabola could really play tricks. Completely unprepared for it, the atmosphere let snowflakes fall to the ground, but the moment they touched it, it immediately transformed them into raindrops. Within not even half an hour the landscape was coated with a gown of moist melancholy. Actually, you couldn’t really imagine that day would look any different. It had to be miserable, gray and depressing to emphasize the spiritual ambiance with grief and reflection.

The gloomy dusk wonderfully enhanced the scarlet glow hovering above the cemetery. You could perfectly see the halo of thousands of candles from the station and smell the tangles of paraffin smoke rising into the sky. Although... maybe it wasn’t just smoke? Fog thickening with every moment accompanied it.

– The express train from Kudowa to Cracow, the estimated time of arrival 8.20 pm, will be delayed by around forty five minutes. We apologize to the passengers and must inform you that the length of the delay may change – the woman with a clip on her nose, hidden somewhere in the building’s walls, passed again the bad news to the passengers. A few people got up from their seats and headed for the exit, taking out packs of cigarettes from their pockets and messenger bags.

Each minute the mist was becoming more and more dense. The night and the white curtain were bleaching the world of colors, and the train station slowly started to resemble a godforsaken corner.

For the ones who used the railways only to get from one place to another, the sound of the braking wheels from an unannounced train wasn’t a sound you paid attention to. But for the ones on duty, the traffic orderly and the station personnel something like that was truly astonishing.

– What the hell! – a middle-aged man wearing a railman’s uniform said and jumped up from his chair. He looked out on the platform from the staff room.

– Did they announce anything? – he asked dumbfounded, standing in the doorway. Two women sitting inside looked at each other and shrugged in silence.

– I can’t see anything – he continued, not paying attention to the lack of response to his previous question. – Did you hear what I heard? Baska, get through to Nysa, maybe they had a mix-up?

He went outside and headed down the platform in slow steps. He was straining his eyes, but in that fog there was no way he could possibly see anything, even the lights of the station’s lamps needed effort to pierce the matte curtain. All that was even stranger as he was under the impression he could hear the heavy gasp of an engine, but he couldn’t pinpoint which direction the familiar sound was coming from.

– So, what did they say? – he asked, leaning in the doorway.

– Nothing was coming.

– And Nowy Swietow?

– The same.

– Come with me on the platform – he nodded towards the woman. – Can you hear?

– Hear what?

– The engine. Listen carefully...

She raised her eyebrows and replied after a short while:

– It’s cold. I hear nothing.

The railman looked her in the eye and waved his hand, as if he wanted to ask her with that gesture if she was at least sure she was alive. They both got back to the staff room.

The locomotive’s lungs panted, spitting clouds of smoke from it pharynx. Three wooden cars with open doors stood behind the iron horse with some people sitting inside. It was true, the machine’s sound seemed sort of absent. That mini-train in general looked very suspicious, taking into account that it stood on the track which practically hadn’t been used for years and actually led to nowhere. The tracks were covered with a thick layer of rust, the ground between the sleepers was overgrown with thicket whose rotting arms entwined the moldy wood.

Suddenly a sweaty and coal-dusted face looked out through the locomotive’s window.

– Hey, what’s your problem?! How much longer?! – it was a male voice and it definitely didn’t sound like any language in the contemporary world.

Only silence replied. Someone croaked in the back car.

The engine driver jumped to the ground. He couldn’t have been more than four feet, unless he was standing on his toes, and he tottered, as it was typical for midgets. He was wearing ragged clothes, his shirt’s sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and his tangled, disheveled hair made his already big head appear gigantic compared to the rest of his body. He tread lively and energetically, spreading out his arms, as if he wanted to show the whole world how dangerous he was. When he loomed out of the mist and was passing the first car, a few voices inside burst out with derisive laughter. Seething with fury, the dwarf stopped in the middle of the dump.

– How much longer are you going to mess around? – he blurted out through his clenched teeth.

A young man was lying on the wooden floor. A few others were kneeling next to him. All of them were dressed scruffily. There was something gloomy about their faces, something that sent a shiver down your spine just looking at them. Though they looked like normal and fit people, each of them heaved a hump on their backs under their clothing. Whatever that was, it surely resembled a hump. All of them appeared to suffer from the same ailment. Exactly down the length of their spine, they had a cylindrical bump between their shoulder blades. It was astounding, but sometimes one of them could move that deformed part of their body like an accordion bellow. Maybe that was just an illusion caused by the light of the oil lamp, which swayed like a pendulum’s tip, hanging on the side on a massive peg.

– We can’t stay here forever! – the grimy creature drawled out.

– Quiet, Gammor, go back to the boiler! – a robust blond guy growled at him with an overbearing voice. – When the time comes, I’ll give you a sign.

The midget turned on his heel hesitantly and headed back, throwing swearwords under his breath.

– Rall, tell me what it feels like? – the one lying down said with effort, you could hear he was suffering.

– Don’t worry, Solan – the person replied and took his hand in a friendly way. Rall’s eyes wandered off, sliding over the staring faces and a heap of various weaponry, wallowing all over the car. – Fear not, your soul will find peace soon. We’ll meet again before too long.

– I know – he whispered. – I know, but what is it like? Please, tell me before I go.

– It’s wonderful – some other man said. – So wonderful you’ll never forget those days full of peace and freedom, far away from your destiny.

Suddenly the body of the person lying down started glowing with a vapid, orange light. It was becoming more and more intense, and the colors transferred smoothly from pink and red to purple. Before the halo turned bright blue, Solan looked longingly at his friend’s face. Then his figure burned with a fiery gust for a moment, his body turned into shimmering dust which rose into the November night and disappeared into the sky.

No one said a word. Each one present had already experienced that, some even more than once. They thought about Solan and asked themselves: “When will the blessed time come for me again?”. The ones sitting in the remaining cars must have thought the same, but no one knew why it happened the way it did. All that mattered was they were given a speck of kindness.

The blond who previously scolded the engine driver, leaned out and shouted:

– Gammor! Let’s go!

The steel wheels turned a few times in place and the train moved full steam ahead. The air was pierced by a horrific whistle and the mysterious convoy sped through the night and mist. The last car was still rolling on the rusty tracks, when the locomotive entered a sunbathed plain, and at the same time scraps of dirt torn by artillery missile explosions hit it.

– What on earth is going on here!? – the railman jumped on the platform from his warm duty room. He looked watchfully around and ran down to the ramp. Now he was sure the sound was coming from that direction.

– There’s nothing there – when he came back, he said towards the women who looked at him with great surprise. – What? You really didn’t hear anything?

They glanced at each other again and shrugged, smiling oddly under their breath.

– The delayed express train... – the long-awaited announcement flowed from the speakers – is pulling on track one, platform one.

After awhile the station emptied out. The rhythmic clatter of the wheels moved farther and farther, until it went silent.

*

The Sisters of Notre Dame’s Provincial House in Opole had one room on the building’s ground floor that served as a chapel. Its dwellers said common prayers and masses there. The place wasn’t big but it freely held two rows of wooden benches and a small altar, always surrounded by vases of beautiful smelling flowers.

The spots on the benches were taken according to the rank of functions fulfilled. The last rows belonged to the young and freshly accepted Sisters, who enticed by their vocation, devoted themselves entirely to their missions, and one of them was: “to care for the abandoned, neglected and crippled children”.

– … and the lost souls – intoned the celebrant.

– Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord – a chorus of almost thirty nuns dressed in smooth ash-gray frocks sounded in a whisper – and let perpetual light shine upon them, may they rest in peace, amen!

On the sides of the altar stood burning candles, whose dancing flames lit up the obscurity of the chapel. The clock on the Opole town hall struck 10 pm.

For a few minutes there was silence that rang shrilly in the ears. Mother Superior raised her hands to show the rest they could stand up. The women gathered in the room silently headed for the exit in twos.

– Barbara – the elderly prioress spoke to a young Sister in the doorway – put out the candles and change the flower water.

The accosted woman obediently nodded her head without a word. The nuns’ cortege receded down the narrow hall, where the sound of their steps was muffled by a burgundy carpet rolled out on the wooden floorboards. The Lord’s handmaid closed the door behind them, flicked the light switch and turning on her heel, she headed for the altar.

She looked ahead at the large painting of St. Teresa figure surrounded by a group of children, at the foot of which lay flower bouquets. On its sides, oblong stained-glass windows hid behind their back the blackness of the night. She was exactly midway when suddenly the light bulbs glowed with double force and died. It gave the woman a start. Out of nowhere, streams of glaring light fell through the windows. The nun was standing in the exact spot where the wide trails met, burning with the power of a million suns. An invisible gust knocked the woman down, who fell to her back. Her body, trembling, rose in the air. The robes swelled up like yeast dough at the height of her hips, the fabric started to tear, pressed out by the bulging stomach. A picture of divine ecstasy painted on the face of the young Sister. The candlewicks shot up bright, buoyant flames. The ripped flap of the narrow frock bore her naked breasts and stomach, whose skin rippled gently. As if there was a living thing inside her. The expression on the young nun’s face didn’t change for a second. She was joyous. Joyous and radiant. She was giving birth, hovering above the floor in the rays of the golden light. Everything halted when a newborn lying on the ground between the woman’s open thighs gave out its first scream.

The powerful, unnatural sound of the newborn’s cry resounded and sped down the corridors of the building by 5 Maly Rynek Street. A door banged somewhere, then a patter of running feet and after awhile someone shouted:

– Back to the rooms!

Mother Superior and three other equally aged nuns, wearing nightgowns were approaching the chapel.

– Stay in the corridor! – she ordered, pointing to one of her companions. – Don’t let anyone sneak out of their room!

Three ancient matriarchs burst into the room where the baby’s cry was coming from. An astounding sight appeared before their eyes.

– In Heaven’s name... – one of them whispered with terror.

They came a little closer. The young nun lay in front of the altar. Her frock was torn, her thighs and knees were smeared with blood. Between her open legs lay a newborn whose umbilical cord sank in its mother’s womb.

– Holy Spirit – the dumbfounded prioress made the sign of the cross. – Easy, easy, just stay calm – she whispered, anxiously tightening her interlocked fingers.

– Look – she stammered out with great amazement, pointing to the melted candles and wilted or actually dried out to the last drop flowers.

– Celina! Take care of the baby, cut the cord, wrap it up in something and hide it! Anna...

– My God! – she interrupted her. – She... she’s dead.

– Quick, there’s not time. Anna, notify the bishop. Straightaway! Tell him everything you saw here.

Mother Superior sped out of the chapel.

– No one leaves the rooms! – she blurted out, passing by the nun left in the hallway. – Is that clear!?

“Good God, what a scandal!” – it went through her mind, when she was changing in her office. – “She wasn’t showing at all! What to do? What now?”.

She sat on the chair and propped her elbows against the oak desktop. She couldn’t gather her thoughts for a longer time. Reflexively, she took out a bunch of gray folders from the wardrobe. She knew well what the solution would be but there was nothing else she could do right now.

At exactly 11.20 pm a man who had the greatest authority over the Opole Church entered her office assisted by two elderly clergymen – Bishop Rudolf Morsz. He was a strapping man with cold eyes and a noble look. He was only forty but thanks to his adamant ambition he quickly climbed the rungs of the ecclesiastic hierarchy.

– What is going on here!? – he yelled out from the threshold. – Where’s the body!? Where’s the baby?! Have all the residents’ files ready!

She felt cold sweat washing her the moment she saw him. She had known him, but never before had she had a chance to experience his anger. She’d heard from others that he could be strict and ruthless, after all, he yielded authority which couldn’t possibly be objected to. The authority that needed to be respected and honored.

– She wasn’t showing? – he asked when they entered the chapel.

– She wasn’t pregnant – the leader of the congregation replied in a terrified voice. – Father, look at those candles, at those flowers. Something... happened hear, something...

– Sister, what happened hear should not have happened. How can I know that it isn’t some kind of a conspiracy? Well?

– But...

– I won’t accept any naive explanations, is that clear? I’ve already had enough worries for today. I can see what’s going on here. What about the baby?

– It fell asleep – a nun named Celina said, standing at the back.

– Boy or girl?

– Boy.

The bishop took his men to the side and gave them a brief instruction.

– Bring a blanket – he said towards the women.

After awhile the priests wrapped up the dead body in a woolen cloth and carried it out the back door. There was a lot of space in the trunk of a navy blue Passat. The camouflaged corpse fitted in there without problems. When they dealt with the body, Sister Celina showed up, carrying in her arms the newborn bundled in a sheet. The baby boy was fast asleep, completely unaware of its fate. Its skin was covered with stains of dried up blood. The men got in the car without a word, one behind the steering wheel, the other with the baby on the back seat. The engine whirred quietly and the car rolled down the sleepy street, disappearing behind the corner. The old nun looked at the lights of the vanishing vehicle with eyes wet from tears. She’d been alive for too long in that far-from-perfect world, in the schemes where compromising was not an option. She knew that the Church had to be... immaculate.

During the ride down the empty streets of Opole drops of fall drizzle splashed against the windshield of the navy blue Volkswagen. The car stopped at a quiet side street. The lights of the lamps, like little moons, glistened in the dark. For a longer while the men sat intently watching the area. It was quiet. Quiet, dark and calm. No movement, no passersby nor lost strollers. The priest in the back quickly took off his black cassock. Now he was wearing jeans and a brown turtle neck. He got out of the car, once again looked around and when he was completely sure, he took the sleeping baby in his arms. The sheet’s glaring whiteness was striking. Well, a slight negligence. Even professionals could sometimes make obvious mistakes, it was worst, though, when you paid too high of a price for small faults. The man, ogling in all directions, started with quick steps ahead. He knew perfectly which way to go. Somewhere afar the whirr of an oncoming car reached his ears. The hardest section which he had to cover was crossing the lit road. He stopped in the shade of a building across the street. It was close, damn close and it would be a shame to mess that up. In front, some fifty years ahead, there was a red sign which read: “Opole Public Orphanage”. He looked at the windows of the neighboring buildings. He waited one more moment and ran towards the barred doors. He lay the newborn in front of it, rang the doorbell and sped back. He could hear the barking of some mutt behind him. Now it didn’t matter if anyone saw him, even so, what could they do?

*

THE DIGGERS

Kerm and Birdy were real friends. Friends with a capital F. Maybe they didn’t even realize it but whoever watched them had no doubts about it. That invisible, sensual and spiritual bond between them was powerful. Probably their attachment was also influenced by the fact that they were both only childs. They were also connected otherwise – they were born the same year in the same hospital, their parents were good friends and neighbors. They lived in the same block of flats in the same gray district, in an equally boring and drowsy town. As newborns, Kerm and Birdy ended up in the same nursery, then kindergarten, primary school – the same class, adjacent desks and finally high school – once again: the same class and adjacent desks. Everything duplicated on the huge reel of the giant photocopier of life. Even passions.

Since the early days the boys had a common hobby – digging in sand. As toddlers they were active in the sandpit at the neighborhood’s playground. Shovels and sand. The moms sat on the benches in a clone’s shade and chewed the fat while the little ones kept drilling. Dirty, smeared, with sand under their fingernails, in their hair, but how much joy was it when they came across an old, rusty bottle cap! During the first years of primary school Kerm and Birdy kept digging but in a different sort of way (still always together). On the other side of the street a new block was being built, new family nests that were supposed to be finished in the vague future. In the afternoons, when the workers would leave the construction site, almost all the boys from the neighborhood would converge – like voracious locusts to a maize field. They played cowboys and indians, hide and seek, tag, the more bored ones thought of practical jokes to make the life of the workers a misery. One time a steam shovel came and a huge ditch was formed during the day where the sewer system was supposed to run. To the construction workers’ surprise, the excavation was perfectly filled in the next day. The foreman was said to get so furious he threw his helmet to the ground so hard it cracked in half. Then someone from the co-op came up with the idea to get the kids a metal carousel on the playground. A resolute team showed up, brought a large carousel, dug a hole, set it and left. In the evening Kerm, Birdy and a few other smart-asses got down to work. In the morning the new facility was uselessly laid on one side. The co-op people attempted fixing it three times, and the boys repeated their operation three times. There was no fourth try. The carousel went two blocks further and it’s been there til that day.

Kerm and Birdy had other sand interests, as well. They kept looking and digging in order to find something, didn’t matter what, some relic, as long as it belonged to the past. The juvenile imagination suggested dreams of discovering the unknown, of hidden away treasures, of chests filled with gold, of jugs full of priceless coins.

In their teenage years, the boys moved with their digging to a forest behind the estate. But it wasn’t the same! Now it was no amateurism! Their professionalism relied to a large extent on them using actual firefighters’ shovels! Before they managed to get them, they had collected cans, cardboard and empty bottles for over a month, which they later exchanged for hard cash at a scrapyard. They spent it on the obvious purchase in a sporting goods store.

Their idea of digging in the forest was a peculiar one. Group-packs were formed in the neighborhood, some shot hoops, some collected stamps, others glued models, and there were those building dugouts in the forest. The gang’s cult place of meetings. Masked, well camouflaged, surrounded with mystery and the highest rank of el secreto. The youngsters went through their first forbidden initiations there, they’d have one beer per four, smoke their first cigarettes and play cards for cash. There, quite by accident, blood was spilled for the first time. It was just innocent fooling around. Birdy scared Kerm for fun with the blade of his shovel, and the latter one wanted to duck. That was a mistake. The edge hit him right on the chin. Warm burgundy blood splattered out profusely from the sizable wound. Unfortunately, he ended up needing surgical help. Seven stitches. A few weeks went by before the wound closed up for good. Kerm didn’t hold a grudge, it was only a stupid accident after all, but he did tell him this:

– Fuck, Birdy, I won’t be able to grow a beard because of you!

*

When the boys went to high school, the shovels landed in cellars. It wasn’t the same joy as before, besides it wasn’t really becoming. But everything changed when they met Ginger. Ginger was a very colorful, interesting persona. Ginger had a passion. Ginger collected old stuff from World War II. When he invited them to his place, the boys almost went nuts. He had a sizable collection in his house, starting with magazines, through photos, documents, books, to rusty machine guns’ barrels, helmets, medals, uniform buttons, etc. But that was nothing! A truly humbling collection was located in the cellar. Old, moldy, weather-beaten anti-personnel mines and shells! Their sight curdled the blood in their veins, some of them still had fuzes. It was hard to believe what would happen if...

– But, gentlemen, keep your fucking mouths shut, mum’s the word! Got it? – Ginger said.

They promised that they wouldn’t squeal to anyone...

*

The July sun slowly glided across the azure sky. The day had been hellishly scorching since morning. Kerm, Birdy and Ginger were sitting on a park’s bench sunken in a chestnut’s shade. The air was enveloped with holiday carefree.

– Man, Ginger – Birdy said. – Tell us, how do you find those places where you can come across something?

– You know, here’s how it is – Ginger responded drowsily with his eyelids closed, he didn’t even bother to lift them up. – There are buddies in my class from neighboring villages. You know what it is like in the country, they always keep some junk, clutter, old stuff in the attic. All you need is to egg them on a bit and the next day a fella brings you something priceless, he, he – he croaked slyly. – But check this out...

– What’s up?

– I don’t know how much truth there is to it, but one hick told me something curious right before summer break. Well, a few miles from here the woods stretch out just behind his village. They say the German army was stationed there during war. Some bunkers, the ruins of a building, there were supposed to be some warehouses there. But I don’t know if it’s all true, doesn’t matter, I’ll pay a visit there anyway. Also, a rumor has it that there is something evil there – the boy went silent and spat ahead.

– What do you mean, Something Evil? – Birdy asked, slightly intrigued.

– I’d like to know myself, amigo, simply something evil. That hick was telling me he’d never been there. He didn’t even see that place. He’s not allowed to go there. Actually, everybody in the village is forbidden to go there.

– That’s bullshit – Kerm said with distaste.

– It’s no bullshit, kitten, I’m telling you what it is – the boy reached out to his pocket for cigarettes. – I don’t know how much truth there is to it, I’m only telling you what the dude was blathering about. Comprende, bumpkin?

– Stop blabbing and give me a smoke – the youngster with a scar on his chin said.

– Padre – Ginger carried on – a tiny bit of tolerance didn’t kill anyone. All I’m doing, moron, is passing over a legend, a myth, a fib, whatever you call it. Do you get it or is it too hard for you to comprehend? They say that towards the end of the war, and I’m saying again that it’s only a le-gend! – Ginger drawled out – the Fritzes brought a large chest to the forest and a dozen prisoners for labor – he dragged deeply on the smoke. – And they say that no one left that forest. Ever. Not the Krauts nor the convicts .

– Seriously? – astounded Birdy asked.

– Shit, padre, I’m telling you that “they say”. I don’t know what really happened. But I guess it’s worth checking out that place. What do you say, ladies? – he giggled.

The light’s reflexes shimmered between the trees’ green leaves. A car with no muffler sped down a street close by, and right after it, a large burgundy truck. A family with two little children strolled down an alley on the right, slightly farther away two elderly ladies, on the left a bunch of screaming kids ran ahead. Two young guys walked the opposite way, they must have been talking about something unpleasant, at least their faces indicated so. When they were passing the bench the three bored youngsters were sitting on, scraps of conversation reached the boys’ ears:

– ...yes, but since he got back from that lonely trip, he’s been acting weird. Something must be done about it.

– What does mother think about it?

– Mom thinks that if not together, then one of us should take care of the company...

The little town throbbed with its own pulse on that warm July afternoon. People faced problems of all kinds, some spin plans of a journey, others enjoyed their freedom or tackled serious obstacles.

Everydayness drifted ahead.

*

The date for the grand expedition was set on Saturday. Kerm and Birdy had their bikes, and Ginger... had a problem. He didn’t have a vehicle. But as they say, if you want to, you’ll find a way. They arranged one. True, it was almost a twenty-year-old collapsible with small wheels, but it was better than nothing.

It was past 2 pm when the boys got to a dirt road sunken in the shades of branchy trees.

– You know – Birdy said pedaling slowly and slightly gasping for air – I love that sight when a road turns into a green tunnel.

– Yeah – mockery lurked in Kerm’s voice – Hey, Ginger, did you hear what a romantic we have here? – both of them cracked up.

– Screw you, losers!

– Alright, alright! – Ginger shouted. – Pause, orchestra. A stopover. It’s insane, I have no strength to keep spinning my flippers.

They halted. Some of them took out cigarettes, they lay their bikes aside and sat on the edge of the road.

– Ginger – Birdy said suddenly, drawling out – aren’t we going to get lost in that jungle by any chance? Anyway: do you know exactly where it is?

– Easy there, cowboy – he replied. – As long as there is a road, no one’s getting lost. The hick said that you need to turn right at the eighth intersection, and then straight all the way and...

– And how many intersections have there been? – Kerm asked, interrupting him.

– If I can count OK, two.

They talked for awhile longer trying to guess what they might be able to dig out as long as they find THAT place. Birdy and Kerm were prepared for that possibility – they took their shovels so well-served in their early youth, while Ginger, a veteran and an old collector knew that it was pointless. Digging? Where? In which spot? He concluded that they might be digging, but in their noses.

Tangles of cigarette smoke floated in the air and created fantastic, bulging forms where the sun permeated the leaves. Blissful silence enshrined them.

Some time later they reached the eighth intersection, turned right and kept going ahead. The road was uneven, a strip of tall grass grew in the middle, and a hard, compressed tract ran on the sides, like a railroad, paved with the remains of some gravel and stones. The back wheels of their bikes kept bouncing on small bumps. The forest rustled gently, gusts of wind swayed the tops of tall pine trees. The bushes warbled, in the distance a woodpecker’s patter resounded, every now and then some frightened bird would soar into the air, anxiously flapping its wings.

The road turned acutely to the left, there was a collapsed tree across the way right behind the turn. Probably no bigger vehicle had driven that way for a long time. The boy overcame the obstacle and started riding. That moment Birdy shouted:

– Hey! Check it out – he pointed ahead.

Pieces of brick poles loomed before their eyes on both sides of the road. All three of them accelerated as fast as quickly they could move their legs. Everyone wanted to be the first one there. Ginger had no chance at all on his old collapsible with small wheels.

They stopped by the poles. The sight was amazing.

– There must have been a gate here – Ginger said, touching a rusty iron spindle sticking out of a brick. – It looks like a hinge.

The boys laid their bikes on the grass, took out their shovels and slowly, looking around curiously, started ahead. Remains of old buildings hid here and there among branchy bushes and tall grass. They weren’t big, some were no taller than a few feet, moldy, chipped, overgrown with dark moss in more shady places. There were also a few reinforced concrete blocks.

THE LUCKY MAN

After three weeks of carefree bliss I ended up in my office again, in the same leather armchair, at the same familiar oak desk. Frankly speaking, I didn’t have it in me to spend that day working. Damn it, I employ teams of people, don’t I, so I should be able to get them to deal with all the issues. It should be enough that I focus on the organization and make some decision from time to time.

I didn’t even peep in the office. The employees knew I was in, and I wasn’t going to watch them polish their extemporizing just because I was there. I’m no fool, I wasn’t born yesterday. I know what things look like.

Mariola, the head of the entire office and my trusty secretary in one (to be honest, my most reliable assistant), brewed me some coffee and brought the monthly report. I’ve been working with her for several years, she’s managed to get to know me quite well. Though our professional relationships aren’t as formal, we still refer to each other “Sir” and “Mrs”. Sometimes I feel she has all the information about me there is, and more, she may know me better than I know myself.

– I guess you’ll be very busy today, sir – she said.

– I guess so – I said. – Don’t put any calls through, please.

– Of course – she replied. – That’s understandable.

I saw the gray clock on the wall slice away the passing minutes. With every moment I had a more overwhelming feeling it didn’t make any sense. Maybe it used to, about twenty years ago when I was starting to build my empire, but not now... Now I was reaching the conclusion that all those years were like a sprint. I heard the firing of the start and I sped ahead. A chase for a better tomorrow, for a more comfortable life. True, I managed, but the question is – at what cost? Today I’m quite sure that I’ve lost too much for one lifetime. I do have money, a prosperous company, a new car, a large house, an old dacha by Mazurian lakes, so what? What’s there to be happy about? One day I’ll go in the dirt, anyway. There’s always been only work, work, and more work, once in awhile a vacation in exotic countries. Vacation? What kind of relaxation is it when you can’t stop thinking about business? How many times have I gone for a walk with my wife, she wanting to talk about anything, about life, art, new furniture, and what did I do? Well... Forever planning how to invest, where to accrue wealth, what to buy, how to limit the expenses. And so on, and so forth. How many evenings have I spent simply sitting in front of a TV or under a tree in the yard? Without exaggeration I would be able to count those moments on two hands. Willing and ready to act 24/7. How many days can you go on like this? Finally, it caught up with me. Bad moods, pressure, heart palpitations and a whole bag of pills. The worst part was that I couldn’t slow down.

If I were a reasonable man, if I could afford to think that no money can buy health, I would have slowed down. After all, every now and then I heard that this or that guy ended up in the hospital. Their ticker couldn’t handle it, the stress, stomach ulcers or some other nasty things. I simply assumed that it couldn’t possibly concern me. I thought that anyone employed by someone else was a loser, a leech without a speck of imagination. I viewed them with disdain, evaluating their needs as minimal. What could they possible need? A woman, vodka and slacking? Eight hours at work and home. Passions, hobbies? – that was a waste of time for me. What mattered was fruitful action. Cash. Climbing the social ladder, satisfying material needs and first of all, some sort of power. My aims revolved around those subjects.

Today, when I look back, I can’t even remember my two boys growing up. Not to mention that I actually don’t know much about them. Daddy was good, he made money and instead of hanging out with his sons, he bought them expensive toys, erecting a taller and taller wall between them. I don’t even know what their interests were. For me it was obvious that when they’d grow up, they’d take over the company, and I’d finally have a rest. And what? They both live their lives on their own account. Neither of them is even thinking of running the company. One is an unfulfilled writer and a journalist, the other loves computers. Neither of them even considers making electric roller blinds and garage gates. I still hope that I won’t have to sell my clutter. Maybe one of my sons will be smart enough to run the business and still do whatever gives them satisfaction. We’ll see. I’ll have enough strength for a couple more years. I really didn’t fathom it would be that way.

When I was a child, I didn’t apply myself to studying. There was always someone worse than me and I clung to that thought like white on rice. It took me a lot of time to turn my sight towards the go-getters That banal truth rendered so obvious. My parents used to say: “Don’t look at the idlers, catch up with the more ambitious ones”.