Cross ❌ stitch pattern

 

Violets

The pungent smell of the city hung in the air. The smell of clogged gutters, the rotting vegetables of the nearby Marche du Nord, and the omnipresent pestilence that had afflicted Marseille for months.

He walked down a tiny street. Only the dark blur of his face was visible beneath his hood. He gazed at the "new" Marseille, contemplating the changing landscapes.

Crosses were painted on each door, signifying that someone infected with the plague was in the house. Every few moments, carters passed him, carrying bandaged bodies ready for cremation. Loud singing and the occasional sob of the flagellants came from the area around the Place de la Chapelle.

He was looking for her. He was looking for that scent from four months ago. Delicate violets mixed with jasmine and a hint of musk, which he loved most. He didn't know what she looked like, because the scent only touched his nostrils, but he remembered the scent with incredible clarity. Four months earlier, he had wondered how to find her. He knew that if he got rid of all the unnecessary odors, he would eventually reach her. If only he got rid of this filth, this repulsive substitute for the beauty that was the city and its inhabitants.

He released this rat in the busiest part of town.

He stood on the other side of the street and looked at The chaotic path of the small creature. When the rat disappeared into a hole in the baker's wall, he smiled to himself with satisfaction. Two days later, the first cases were detected, and the plague began to take its toll.

A bright glow emanated from the fires burning outside the city. He walked in that direction, humming to himself. Suddenly, he caught the delightful scent of violets, which slowly grew stronger and more distinct. It changed into a musky scent, and after a moment, it became a wonderful feminine scent. He glanced nervously around, but there was no one nearby. He first noticed her hand, beckoning him around the nearest corner of the stone house.

Dazed, he followed the sign. He turned right and stumbled upon her. The scent overwhelmed all his senses, sending his heart pounding loudly. She wrapped her arms around his neck and gently sought out his lips, then sank hers into them. She parted her lips and slipped her small, wet tongue into them. The kiss seemed to last forever, perhaps much longer? They began to embrace each other more tightly, and he sought out her bare breasts beneath the thick linen fabric. They were cool and slightly sticky with sweat. His hand traveled lower and lower until it found the small slit between her legs. He slid his hand deeper, into the warm cleft. She began to breathe faster, and she directed her last breath directly into his ear. He shuddered against her body. He began to undo the strap-on, and when he did, his impressive penis revealed itself. The girl wrapped her bare thighs around him, and he thrust into her aggressively, like a hungry animal stalking its prey. She became even wetter, and he even more passionate. After a moment, leaning against the wall of the house, they found their own rhythm of rapture, one that pushed them both to the brink of pleasure. The girl trembled throughout her body, approaching the inevitable climax of love. He pushed himself even deeper into her, completely, and now they both forgot themselves for that brief moment.

A moment later, they were straightening their clothes and smoothing the rumpled pieces of linen. They hadn't exchanged a word, didn't know each other's names or whether they would ever see each other again. As they stood leaning against the wall, he asked,

"Do you know it's me?

" "I know.

" "I wanted to know what violets taste like. Now I know they're sweet.

" "You taste like death." "

Have you ever made love to death?"

"No. Will I live now?

" "Yes.

" "Can I go now?"

- Goodbye.

And the girl left into the red glow that spread over the city?

Sara

"..."

He walked through the forest, not knowing exactly what was happening to him. Blood was streaming down his temples and neck. He'd barely reached the road and was about to take out his cell phone to call an ambulance... He didn't make it. He fell, hitting the ground hard.

He'd been lying there for about fifteen minutes before Sara found him. She'd just returned from the police station... Someone had snatched her purse while she was shopping. Fortunately, she hadn't found anything important in it... Nothing important to anyone else. For Sara, that "something" was of paramount importance.

Now, seeing this unconscious, bloodied man, for the first time in hours, she distracted herself from the purse and its contents. She wanted to help him somehow. She checked his pulse... It was there, but very weak. His breathing hadn't stopped either. She decided to revive him... It didn't work. For a moment, she didn't know what to do. Run for help? What if she didn't make it back in time? Maybe she should look in his pockets for his cell phone? No... she couldn't. She couldn't just go through other people's things like that.

As she pondered what to do, the stranger moved his hand. The girl noticed with relief that he had also opened his eyes.

"Can you hear me?" she asked. The man only blinked. Sara decided to take him to her house. He wasn't far, and the wounded man had already regained consciousness. She helped him to his feet, and they slowly, unsteadily, walked down the lamp-lit path.

An older woman, but quite pretty for her age, opened the door. When she saw Sara and the stranger at the door, a look of surprise mixed with terror crossed her face.

"What happened, daughter?" she asked.

"I found him unconscious... Help me put him to bed."

Her mother obeyed without question. Later, Sara tended the wounded man and sat with him until he fell asleep.

The next morning, when she brought him breakfast, the man was already awake. He lay there, somewhat dazed and surprised. When he saw Sara standing in the doorway, he became slightly startled.

"Good morning," the girl said. "How are you feeling today?

" "What happened to me?

" "I have no idea. I found you near the forest. Remember? Don't you have any family I could tell? They're probably very worried.

" "I don't have any family here...OH GOD!" The man suddenly jumped up and tried to get up. His head hurt so badly that he lay back down, his eyes fixed on the worried Sarah.

"You could have a concussion, or something worse!...But what are you doing! Lie down!" the girl screamed. The stranger tried to get up a second time, but again in vain.

"Can you tell me how it happened...I mean, how you ended up bleeding on the road?

" "It's him! It's all his fault! His!! And I trusted him. Like my own brother.

" "But what is he like? What are you talking about?

" "He tried to hurt my family!" he shouted.

"Easy. Maybe we should call the police." Sara had wanted to do this for a long time. The nearest town was about 30 km away, so there was no point in calling the police (who wouldn't have come anyway) or an ambulance. Now, however, the girl felt like everything was starting to spin out of control. She didn't know what to do. It was all so strange.

"No police," the man said calmly. He seemed to have calmed down a bit. "By the way, I haven't introduced myself yet. Marcin Spodowski.

" "Sara Hanecka. Nice

to meet you." For a moment, the young couple simply stared, alternating between the painting on the wall and the ceiling. They didn't say anything. The silence was broken by the girl's mother, who had just entered the room.

"I brought something to sweeten the mood," she said, smiling. She set the plates of cake on the table and left.

The man stayed with Sara for a few more weeks. He felt a bit embarrassed to be the one to take care of her and the rest of the family, but whenever he wanted to leave, they'd get angry and beg him to stay. And that suited him perfectly. He really liked these lovely people, especially Sarah. Not that he'd immediately fall in love... They'd just become friends. And Sarah decided to do everything she could to help him...

A short crime story with a moral

When Inspector Edward was told he'd be working with a journalist, he felt a tender pang in his chest. He'd worked in the criminal division for ten years. In all that time, he'd never had to babysit anyone, certainly not some writer from a commercial station. He was presented with a fait accompli. In this case, the police were desperate for publicity. Therefore, they resorted to media assistance.

The next day, Karol Edward saw the massive figure of a short, dark-haired man who, from a distance, gave off the air of a second-rate journalist.

After exchanging pleasantries, Edward immediately got to work. He hoped Editor Dudek wouldn't keep up the pace.

The police had been investigating this man for six months. Initially, it was about illegally trading in expensive cars. Miedziański had a track behind his house where illegal car races were held, and occasionally, there were fairs. The man swiped license plates and issued false papers. And that's how he made a living. When Edward was last there, a Doge Viper was standing on the track. Because of this Doge, Miedziański was in over his head.

Doge was supposed to sell for the very reasonable price of 300,000 złoty. The buyer was, of course, a setup. He went to Miedziański's house to make a deal. By a stupid accident, he found himself in a dark room. Suddenly, he felt something sticky trickle down his face. He found a light. He looked up. The ceiling was composed of pieces of human skin sewn together. In one place, the seam had split. Blood seeped from beneath the skin. The ceiling was a skin mattress filled with blood.

The envoy fled Miedziański's house as quickly as possible. When it occurred to him that his visit to the "leather chamber" wasn't necessarily a coincidence, that he might have been some butcher's intended victim, he was shocked. Now he lives a peaceful life as a plant in a madhouse.

Miedziański disappeared with his Doge, his wife, and the mistress to whom the house was registered. The hole in the ceiling was patched. It remained as evidence.

Alfred Miedziański was a man suffering from persecution mania. After buying himself a mistress, he decided to finish off his wife, who, according to him, was planning an assassination attempt on her husband. This discovery, or rather this delusion, was a blow to Alfred's heart. To pay the killer, he had to sell the car that was the apple of his eye. There was also the moral question – Alfred loved his wife as much as the car. He felt safe only in the arms of his mistress, with whom he decided to elope.

When Miedziański discovered that the buyer he had let into the house was from the police, he packed his mistress into the car and disappeared. Having sold the car for almost twice his initial price, he decided to end his relationship with his wife. However, she vanished like a stone in the water.

Inspector Edward planned to reach Miedziański through his wife. Unfortunately, he didn't realize that the happy couple had fallen apart. There was still the matter of the mysterious mistress, whose origins were unknown, what influence she had on Alfred, and what her place in the "slaughterhouse" was. She was the only person the police could capture—both the racetrack and the house legally belonged to her. Law enforcement had nothing on Miedziański.

Just when Edward's arms were buckling under the pressure of work, unexpected help arrived. One day, that obnoxious journalist, Dudek, announced that he had an interview scheduled with Miedziański, and if Edward wanted, he could go with him.

A week later, Edward, Dudek, and Miedziański were sitting in an apartment rented especially for the occasion. Dudek began a talk show:

"You are considered one of the richest men. How do you feel about this role?

" "Why did you break up with your wife?"

"Your passion for cars is well-known. Tell us a little about it.

" "Why did you sell your beloved car?"

"What's the story behind the so-called 'leather room'?"

"My wife has very high sexual expectations, and as a loving husband, I try to meet them," Miedziański replied calmly.

Edward ran out of the apartment, overcome with nausea. A few minutes later, Dudek appeared, complaining that his colleague couldn't keep up with the pace of work. He had Miedziański's statement recorded on his tape recorder. The loving husband and lover said he didn't know the whereabouts of any of his women. Everyone knew he was lying, but no one was able to extract the truth from him. When the police raided the apartment, Miedziański was gone.

A few weeks later, the police discovered Miedziański's mistress. During a fit of mania, Alfred declared that it was not his wife, but his mistress, who was trying to kill him. He turned her over to law enforcement. An investigation against her began. She already bore enough blame. Recently, new evidence had emerged.

Doge's buyer took his new car on a trip. After a few kilometers, the vehicle began to break down. When the mechanic disassembled it, he discovered human organs crammed into various nooks and crannies. It was a work of art, the product of the precise hands of the creator of the "leather room"—Alfred's lover.

What won't a man do to please a woman...

Meeting with the mystery

It was almost three o'clock ship's time when I saw her, just below Sirius. She couldn't escape the Dog Star's luminous embrace for a long time. The minutes passed, and the tiny dot, though almost imperceptibly, continued to grow. After a while, it stretched slightly, like an egg. I was familiar with this slow transformation and knew that a lot of time still remained before it was complete. For lack of a better plan, I decided to descend to the lower level and examine old star maps.

On the way, the main computer, in the voice of my favorite singer, informed me that in half an hour a descent maneuver to the system's equatorial plane would begin – I carelessly ignored this warning. After more than twenty minutes spent among hologram maps projected in the air under the light of blue and green lamps, I figured my destination must be clearly visible. Without a moment's hesitation, I shut down the program and, deep in thought, hurriedly exited.

I was climbing the stairs when the walls and floor began to tremble slightly. I guessed the ship was already "down." I quickened my pace, mentally cursing the broken elevator I hadn't had time to fix before the voyage. I was already on the second level when I noticed I was getting heavier. This surprised me, as I had a really good G-stabilizer. I hadn't taken five steps when the ship suddenly began to rock violently. For a few moments, I tried to move while standing, and only when the first aid kit door, suddenly opened, scraped a thin edge across my eye, did I give up and, seeing no other option, continued on my way, almost lying down, which wasn't any easier. Finally, I crawled to the stairs and, gripping the railing with both hands, began to wonder what had possessed me to move from the control room. The shaking stopped, and I could continue.

The ship rocked again as I entered the control room. Luckily, I managed to jump in and strap myself into my seat. Breathing a sigh of relief, I tried to gather my thoughts. We must have passed a sizable asteroid belt, because it took two minutes for everything to quiet down. The screen turned on automatically, and before my eyes appeared an impressive, dark golden crescent, with three gleaming rings of ice and rock. It was Beta Hydri 1—the system's only planet.

The two inner rings, less than a thousand kilometers wide, seemed like a thin spiderweb thread entwining the gas colossus in apparent stillness. My imagination suggested that if even the slightest gust of wind were to occur (which, of course, was impossible in a vacuum), both loops would ripple and dissolve like a dream.

The band closest to the planet glowed with a pure white luster, unlike its neighbor, which took on a delicate rose hue as it approached. The third, outer ring seemed enormous compared to its companions. Observations I made several years ago indicated its width was close to thirty-two thousand kilometers. It also differed in color. It began with an inconspicuous pink, like its neighbor, but quickly whitened, and at the other edge, it became saturated with blue, darkening with each kilometer. From a distance, it looked as if it were slowly thinning and fading into space.

As I approached the pink gap—as I called it because it lay between the second and third rings—a shapeless black spot began to appear on the edge of the latter. I saw it only briefly, as moments later I descended below the planet's equator. Clouds swirled in stripes, moving in opposite directions, across its disc, bathed in the glow of a blue sun. Here and there, playful swirls disrupted the harmony of their motion, and the largest of these hurricane-like beasts, the local equivalent of Jupiter's "Red Spot," emerged from the shadow zone.

I was flying at a very slow speed, barely a dozen or so Machs, appropriate for the circumstances, as the surrounding planetary vacuum was thick with rock and ice debris. The rings on the unlit side were impossible to find, and only a few glimpses of starlight betrayed their presence high above the ship.

When the blue rays of a nearby star struck me again, I noticed a dark rocky mass above my head, the same one I'd previously observed on the other side of the rings. The ship sped upward, and before I knew it, a flattened purple ellipse appeared on the small side screen, previously black. I was there.

For a long moment, I gazed at the ravines and craters that adorned its surface, familiar to me from previous visits – there were a few new impact scars. I photographed them and described them in detail. I had always been curious about the circumstances of their formation, but any hope of ever delving into this mystery was, unfortunately, completely unrealistic.

I was supposed to go to the mess hall because it was already nearly five o'clock and I hadn't eaten since breakfast, but I preferred to satisfy my craving for peace and quiet. I couldn't experience them at the Institute, but here I had them in abundance.

Instead of this trip, I probably would have wasted my time on some three-star orbital rest station if it weren't for my sadly deceased college friend, Marck Greentown.

He was a talented planetologist and was predicted to have a bright future, but his career was suddenly cut short by an accident. He was part of a team exploring new systems and conducting reconnaissance of a distant rocky planet when, a week before they were supposed to leave, the research base was wiped out by an unexpected meteor shower. It was a big deal at the time.

I had last met him a year and a half earlier at the Interplanetary Astronomical Conference organized by the Federation of Jovian Moons. He showed me several images of Beta Hydri 1 taken by a mining team working in that system a quarter of a century ago. Their primary target was the small, underdeveloped planet I was orbiting, orbiting the gas giant alone. After a while, the operation was abandoned because the cost of transporting the ore proved too high.

The system received renewed attention ten years later during the "Colonization Revolution." The idea of ​​establishing settlements on the local asteroids quickly fell through when scientists' pessimistic predictions about frequent and difficult-to-predict dust and rock swarms affecting an area extending many astronomical units from the central star were confirmed. The system was deemed hostile, and no one has visited it since.

***

After lunch, which I ate at six, I went to the miniature observatory located on the top floor. I wanted to examine Hydria's chromosphere and the violent prominences characteristic of this young star, but the computer informed me of several stray comets. They were about to collide with the gas planet. Not wanting to miss this rare spectacle, I rotated the telescope lens so I could observe them closely.

After ten minutes, I spotted the first one. It wasn't very large. However, its long, thin, spiraling tail added to its charm. Close-ups revealed its delicate structure, immersed in a luminous green haze. I pondered this sight for a moment and would have missed the moment of her "death" if it weren't for the computer, which, in its soprano voice, practically sang the news of a slight course change. Suddenly sobered by this trivial news, I finally managed to capture the moment.

I waited fifteen minutes before I saw the next ones. They appeared in a whole pack, so bizarre that I was stunned. There were over three dozen of them; huddled together, they orbited each other, leaving behind a common tail, long but remarkably sparse. Sure, I'd seen many similar systems before: binaries, triples, maybe even quadruples, but not forty! The entire intricate structure centered around the two largest masses moving in the core of this "thing." Much smaller ones whizzed outside, orbited by even smaller ones, truly microscopic by cosmic standards. I gazed at this cosmic oddity and only regretted that it had to rest amidst the hurricanes of Hydri 1.

Among them was one very different one. If it hadn't been part of this interstellar pack, I wouldn't have even suspected it of being a comet. Its shape resembled a long spindle. I was amazed that in close-ups, not even the smallest scratches or craters were visible on its surface. Moreover, it maintained the same position constantly (changing it only when threatened with collision with another body). However, there was no trace of engines or shield generators that could have identified it as a ship. Nothing but a smooth, snow-white surface.

The front of the group was almost touching the atmosphere when the unforeseen happened. Instead of engulfing its companions, the quasi-comet made a sharp turn, hurtled at full speed toward the terminator line, and disappeared, obscured by the planet's shield.

As a radical opponent of the SETI III program and the search for alien intelligent life, I found myself in a bind. I hurriedly searched through computer catalogs of starships. The computer gave me the closest approximation, in shape and size, to a model of a rocket launched into space by the Soviet Union at the dawn of the early information age, a very long time ago. I could only imagine two explanations for this situation: either I was going crazy, or I had just had a photographically documented encounter with the product of another civilization. The first theory was difficult for me to accept, as it was dangerous, to say the least, to lose one's mind five light-years from the nearest human settlement. The second, though contrary to my previous views, unexpectedly quickly took root in my imagination. As a result, however, the most incredible visions opened up before me. The stars I gazed at time and again no longer seemed like safe havens for thought, because the further I looked, the stranger worlds appeared before my eyes. I would have lost myself completely in the compulsive imagination of projecting luminous sparks onto the planets I encountered in the sky, and creating intelligent races and civilizations on them, if my attention hadn't been caught by a small flash, very similar to the directional beacons placed along busy interplanetary routes. Another, slightly longer flash appeared in the first gap between the rings from the planet. Five seconds later, it reappeared between the second and third, and after another thirty-five seconds, it repeated for the final time at the outer edge. I examined the spot carefully. For a moment, I saw nothing but the blackness of space. Over time, a faint outline began to emerge, marked by the light of a nearby star. It slowly filled in, and finally I was certain – the stranger had returned.

He slowed for a moment, then turned and, accelerating rapidly, sped towards me. I watched, frozen, no longer knowing whether it was real or just an unreal, dreamlike mirage. It passed me by a few hundred meters, but at such a speed that even the external cameras didn't register a thing. I quickly turned the telescope's tube. It continued flying, another thousandth of an astronomical unit. It took a mere eight seconds. Then it veered again, flew beyond the planet's shield, and moments later emerged on the other side. And when it had traveled another hundred and fifty thousand kilometers, it turned back toward me. Eight seconds later, having covered the same distance for the third time, it was right next to me.

I sat for a long time, unsure what to do next. On the small side screen transmitting images from outside the ship, I could see its elongated, snow-white hull. It was still flying two hundred meters away. It looked as if it were waiting for a response. The thought occurred to me to try radio contact. I sent a short message, but not even the slightest ping of a response broke the silence. I tried again, but again in vain. So I decided on more radical measures. Since the ship I'd borrowed from the Institute, it had a full range of research equipment, including a beamer of a, b, and c rays. I pelted the white ship with all of them, in various configurations and with varying intensity, but it was just as fruitless as the previous attempt.

I was about to give up when it suddenly dawned on me. I had been orbiting the planetoid since the stranger's appearance. Aside from my signals, which he clearly hadn't picked up, the stream of ionized particles extracting you from engines he didn't have, so it was hard to imagine he knew their purpose, and the active shield he miraculously managed without, nothing distinguished me from some abandoned wreck or perhaps even, in his eyes—if he had any—a mere hunk of iron space rock. So I had to move in a way that would clearly define who I was. A seemingly simple task, in the face of the acrobatics the newcomer had performed, began to become complicated. After a moment's reflection, I decided it would be best to repeat the feat on a different scale. I commanded the computer to prepare for the maneuver, and I ran down the corridor to the control room.

In the room filled with screens and monitors, I familiarized myself with all the scenarios the computer had prepared for further action. I selected the most effective one. I set a few more flight parameters, confirmed everything, and the autopilot went to work.

The triangle I had drawn in space was an almost perfect miniature copy of my white companion's handiwork. As soon as I resumed my previous course, the alien suddenly moved sideways, moving several hundred kilometers away. Then, it made a series of movements, marking several polygons, each perfectly formed, against the background of the stars. Some of them were repetitive, so I assumed it was some kind of writing, specially prepared for such an occasion. After a moment's reflection, I decided that I couldn't do without consulting the SETI 3 database. I looked with distaste at the monitor, which was about to reveal the secrets of an organization that, not long ago, had inspired contempt and laughter in me. I slowly lowered my hand and pressed the transparent yellow button, which immediately glowed with a faint, dim light. The monitor lit up as well. Strings of words, combinations of numbers, large and small photographs, and images scrolled across it. Finally, everything stopped, and the screen was filled with a comprehensive list of all kinds of alphabets and languages ​​developed by cosmolinguistics specialists. It took me fifteen minutes to find the one about writing using geometric shapes. However, none of them proved entirely effective. After combining several that individually yielded some results, I managed to decipher the riddle, albeit somewhat imprecisely.

The stranger asked me where I came from. In reality, I was born on a small asteroid – a satellite of Alpha Centauri II – but I should have said I came from Earth. However, this created a problem. There was no way to translate the name of the Blue Planet or its location. I pondered this for a long time until a rather original idea finally struck me.

I drew two circles in space, one inside the other, with their centers at a single point. I also marked two lines intersecting at right angles at the heart of the resulting figure. It resembled a crosshair, in the center of which an observer in the stranger's position would see the Sun. I waited a moment. He replied in several characters, some of which, however, I failed to decipher correctly.

The exchange of information lasted a long time. We mainly inquired about the level of development of various sciences. It was astonishing that he knew the answers to all the questions I posed (though not all of them were decipherable), while I had to almost constantly say "I don't know," drawing the same triangle as at the beginning, but in the opposite direction. This increasingly worried me, because if he deemed our civilization underdeveloped, it could even end in war between the two races, with the inevitable extermination or conquest of the Humans. While this may seem like an exaggerated fear now, at the time I felt that the fate of billions of beings was at stake. I hurriedly searched for a question that would give me an advantage in at least one field. Mathematics, physics, astronomy, chemistry—he seemed superior in everything. I was ready to concede absolute superiority to him when, quite unexpectedly, from the confusion of my thoughts, I grasped the last question, one that still held a shred of hope. The alien was a rational creature, so I allowed myself to assume that curiosity drove him to acquire knowledge. This desire for knowledge is partly expressed in philosophy, encompassing issues that defy unequivocal resolution, containing a fragment of each science, so that it would appeal to both the hopeless romantic and the physicist or mathematician.

The risk of answering any question in this field was 50%, so it was worth a try. I quickly typed the first sentence that came to mind: "Do you exist?" Enter. A brief moment of waiting for the translation. Enter again, and the ship was hurtling through the void, drawing character after character. It stopped and returned to orbit. I stared at the main screen. The white one didn't respond for a moment, then drew a triangle like the one at the beginning, signifying "yes." My last hope was gone. I wanted to turn off all the monitors and retire to my cabin in helpless anger and despair, when with a last, sad glance, I saw the stranger writing again. I slowly raised my head. One more line, he was finished. I stared in disbelief. It was a triangle, but different from the other one, the opposite. Before I could even think, he began drawing again. Another "yes," then "no," and again, and again. He didn't stop at all. He kept accelerating, drawing larger and larger triangles. He couldn't decide, like a machine, which he wasn't, because the shapes were no longer precise, and the variation in side lengths seemed completely random. Finally, instead of triangles, a widening zigzag began to form. I saw the white one for a few moments more, until it diminished completely and disappeared into the blackness of the sky.

I sat down, no longer knowing whether it was good or bad. Fears and their denials still simmered in my mind, but I felt a surge of evening peace approaching. I gazed at the starry sky, the million-year-old suns that had surely brought civilizations into being with their life-giving warmth, silently observing their blossoming—victory over the limitations imposed by the Universe—and their twilight—slow agony or sudden decline.

Only after some time did I begin to understand the force of the blow I had dealt the stranger. Somehow, evolution had robbed him of the ability to ask himself questions like that one. They didn't exist for him until someone else posed them. If so, it could mean that we too share a similar gap in consciousness. Nature hadn't given us the final piece in the puzzle of knowledge, the key to omniscience insidiously eroding the foundations of existence. These were difficult issues, and fatigue increasingly entangled me with its thread. Finally, as I nearly reached the heart of the mystery, sleep flooded my mind like a wide river, purging it of the last dying sparks of thought, left over from a tiring day.

It was four o'clock when the computer roused me from sleep. "Unidentified object on collision course. Distance two million kilometers. Velocity 299.99 thousand kilometers per second. Autopilot inoperative. Cause of malfunction unknown," came the message, hummed, of course, in a soprano voice. I immediately rushed to the helm. I jerked it violently toward me and to the right. I turned and was already flying toward the rings when a bright explosion illuminated the main screen; it was Him, the Stranger. He had struck the asteroid, tearing it into shreds of cosmic dust, the cloud of which rapidly expanded in all directions. I watched in horror, knowing I wouldn't have time to escape. I was about to activate additional shields when suddenly one of the speeding fragments struck the port side. The jolt threw me across the control room. I hit my head on something hard and lost consciousness.

I woke up several hours later. The ship was flying high above the equatorial plane. I stood up slowly and looked around the control room. The autopilot light glowed a pale green. The gaseous Beta Hydri I had long since disappeared from the screens, and only its parent star still dominated the sky. I turned off the smaller screens and, with another wave of drowsiness, sank into a deep armchair. As I fell asleep, I felt completely at peace. I was returning home.

NO ROBOTOL NEXT

It was 11 a.m., the beginning of the day for Unemployed. Another nightmarish morning. Time stood still. There was nothing, no hope, no normalcy, no life. The unemployed being emerged from the cemetery, into a mindless reality. He walked like a puppet. Unemployment had a strange quality of attracting all the worst. He was like a magnet. Perhaps its specific scent, or perhaps this unrefined, unconstructive Being, caused all the trash and filth to cling to it. When mosquito season came, human beings felt safe in its surroundings. Fucking female mosquitoes bit him mercilessly. His blood had a scent and taste that even the horseflies, who adored him and swarmed him during the rutting season, could detect. Unemployment had come to terms with the fact that someone had to be needed. Even if it was just food for the stronger. When he fled from sentient beings into the forest, there was no place where he wasn't surrounded by all things filthy: worms, spiders, flies, carrion-eating vermin. Unemployment is Nobody, unemployed until he's dead, only moving.

He sat on a bench in a small park. He watched children playing in the sandbox, looked at their smiling faces. For mothers full of gratitude for them, for husbands who, through hard work, give them money for clothes, bread for entertainment, who, when they come home, get a warm meal and the joy of a night's sleep. The unemployed man liked sex, but for him, it ended in his hand. Fuck, how different. How distant, so virtual, this can't be reality. For the unemployed man, there is no reality; there is only the passive area surrounding him. The Unemployment Zone. Berobol's world. He lit a cigarette. His brain choked. The whore is smoking again. Instead of a little something to eat, he buys cigarettes. And my oxygen is mixed with the Mendeleev periodic table. How can anyone think that? It's impossible. This fucking smoking will end when I give him a warning stroke.

Someone was walking. Someone is more than unemployed. Someone walked by. He knew Bezropol. He was a member of AA, a club where alcoholics recover. Bezropol wasn't an alcoholic, he never had a tendency to drink. He didn't like this kind of state. Flashback. Something worked. At the beginning of Bezropol, he had moments that still reminded him of humanity. He wasn't so degraded, though the same thing was already taking effect. He drank out of regret, loneliness, boredom, lack of prospects, friends, acquaintances, hope. He drank like never before, drank like never before, drank like never before, drank like never before. He ruined himself. He returned home. The woman-wife, seeing him, knew how to react: normality, you fucking scum, scum, drunk, you fucking unemployed, you worm, get the fuck out of here, you're nobody, you're gone, you're just a lousy bastard. And he just wanted to sleep, just sleep. Then, for the first time, he felt the word "Unemployed"—he didn't hear it, but he felt it physically. It hurt, it was sharp as a razor, it was a word that stripped him of his dignity. He wanted to sleep. To lie down and sleep. He didn't do anything, he didn't strike, he didn't respond.

He wasn't drinking. He was getting his ass kicked out of grief. Every healthy man should do that once a year.

How a woman and her state of consciousness change when a Berobolstwo shows up at her door should be the subject of scientific research.

A week had passed since drinking. A vigil at the door. A postman to the unemployed. What the fuck could that be? He remembered those moments. Since then, he associates the postman with fear. He went to the post office to answer the call. A summons—what fucking summons? To the commission for solving alcohol-related problems. It's a joke. Yes, it's definitely a joke. No, it's not true. Real stamps, official paper. A warning. In case of failure to appear, the police are available. The beginnings of unemployment are terrible; the turn of events is surprising for everyone. He went. City Hall. Room, 1st floor. Queue. Tramps, whores, company that was unacceptable to him then. Now it is. He's even lower than them. A committee of six people enters. He knew them all. He helped a few of them. They looked at him. They no longer knew him. A complaint had been filed about his habitual alcohol abuse and disruption of family life. The unemployed man asked who the author was. It was a secret. He didn't know what to say. The events had happened before him; everything was happening as if without his involvement. He knew how much he drank, he knew much more about the committee members than about himself. He saw they were members of a clan. He knew and saw how drunk people pissed in public places. What the fuck was going on here? He didn't have the energy to talk, to translate, to discuss. He used to be good at arguing, he was pretty good at it. He had the gift of persuasion. The commission was a fucking drunken commission. Now he was an unemployed drunk. They'd try to get a report on him. He was as helpless as a mouse spinning on a toy in its cage, over and over again. He wanted to leave. He couldn't stand the fucking hypocrisy. He wanted to puke, just puke, just puke. He was referred to a psychiatrist.

He'd never been to a psychiatrist. Within the limits of his rational mind, he thought that maybe this visit had one upside: some medication for depression. Psychiatrist. A fucking doctor for nothing. A philosopher, a dimwit, a mind explorer, a fucking Dr. Freud, only at the end of his life he considered his entire doctrine of psychoanalysis and dream research to be ghastly bullshit. He sat fat, swollen, and wearing glasses behind a desk. He sat. He didn't even look at Unemployed. He had a report from the commission. How much do you drink? Once a year. How long? One day, an evening. What the fuck kind of questions are these? What do you drink? Vodka. Did you vomit after drinking alcohol? It happened. Like a normal person after a salad. When was the first time you reached for alcohol? I don't remember, in college, maybe in your senior year. Like 99 percent of people.

End of interview. You're addicted, the psychiatrist stated. You're supposed to be attending therapy with the group I run. What? You're fucking joking. Do you hear yourself? Please calm down. Do you think 90 percent of Italians and French are also alcoholics? They drink gallons of wine every day. Please leave. Unemployment set in, and the nightmare continued. So he became an alcoholic. He became one against his will, despite not being one. Then he learned that the psychiatrist for every drunkard referred for therapy receives money from somewhere? From a commission. Clan, fucking clan. The mechanism worked. The downgrading began. The deletion of a person. The unemployed man remembered it all clearly. "Wife," the word, ceased to have value; it became synonymous with evil.

The AA guy was walking along, remembering him from the group. He'd only been there once.

His wife—how could he have been so mistreated? It was possible. Unemployment ended her husband's career when he lost his job. And he loved her so much at one point. There are all kinds of wives. His happened to be a teacher—a catechist, a teacher of children and God's youth. For God's sake.

UNEMPLOYED MORNING.NO ROBOTOL

The morning woke him to the roar of nightmarish trucks. He lived near the ring road. Opening a window meant poisoning his respiratory system. But what did it matter? Unemployment was Nobody. And he knew it. The sun's rays were blowing his mind. He didn't have a hangover. He hadn't had a drink in ages. The headache had become an inseparable part of his existence. He opened his eyes. Monday. Another nightmarish day. Fucking boredom. Fucking job hunting. "I don't have the energy," he always said. He was tired of browsing job offers, browsing newspapers, surfing the internet. It had always been the same—for several years. He didn't even know how long he'd been unemployed. Everything was messed up: dates, times, employment certificates. He stared at the ceiling. White. A spider sat in the corner, staring at Unemployment. I wonder what a spider gets out of looking like that. How many legs does it have? he thought. Fuck, if I had that many legs, I'd get a job in a circus or at the zoo. Hmm, it would be better to beg outside the church as an invalid. I'd put my RUM book open on the unpurchased prescriptions for limb atrophy and glance at the plate. Yeah. Fuck, that spider has it good. He eats who knows what, flicks some threads, and has everything in his spidery anus. I wonder if he thinks? What does he think? Or maybe pure Being. Eat, shit, breed, and sleep. The unemployed knew this without one thing – he didn't breed. Shock. Some truck exploded with a sound like a jet plane, making the windows shake. How did he know he was going to a jet plane? He used to watch TV, Discovery. The unemployed had a TV when he was Somebody. Fuck, you have to get up. Drink some coffee and do something. What does it mean to do something? For the unemployed, doing something is doing nothing. Getting up like that, or he'll actually have limb atrophy. Brain atrophy is already underway. At least he needs legs to look presentable in the coffin. He put on the kettle. "Do I still have coffee?" He opened the cupboard. There it was. He begged it from a priest friend. The priest sometimes helps the unemployed. He poured a lot. He likes strong coffee. He waited for the water. He envied the priest for being a priest. Damn, they had so much money. School pay, parish priest pay, Christmas carols, funerals, weddings, fuck. Why didn't I become a priest? Women? Ha ha ooo. The unemployed man smiled, women? - once, condoms fell out from behind the priest's books. What's the problem? You can fuck, and then what? What then? - confession to another priest. The priest had a Nissan Primera, poor priest. Fuck, why am I not a priest? He poured water over his coffee. He turned on the radio. Before seven. He looked at the dirty windows. People were going. They were going, going, going. They were rushing to work. Some fast, some slow, some hungover, others high, they were going to work in offices, in asparagus processing plants, in carpentry shops. They're going to the fucking... because they have jobs - he heard the answer in his brain. His brain spoke to him. The unemployed man spoke aloud and his brain responded. A friendship between two morons. But what a lasting one. He sat by the window. Good coffee will give you a kick. It will stimulate you to think. For fuck's sake, thinking - said the brain, unemployed man, you are fucking existence, existence doesn't think, existence exists, hee hee, the brain is satisfied with itself, what a metaphor I've created.The unemployed man knew it was the caffeine that had messed with his neurons and triggered the electrical short circuits. How did he know? He saw and heard it on TV, on the "Health and Science" channel. When he was Somebody, he had a TV. Yes, I had a TV. The unemployed man thought for the second time today about when he had a TV and was Somebody. Another sip of warm, good coffee. How did these people get jobs? That's the question. Berobol knew how to ask questions. He'd graduated from college once.

UNEMPLOYED. Dear.

The unemployed knew how to ask questions. Sometimes even his mind wondered where he got such knowledge. But this ability to ask questions wasn't his strength; on the contrary, it was a terrible flaw. Hamlet also asked questions, the effect is well-known. The unemployed knew that asking questions didn't lead to a job. After all, what employer wants an unemployed person who asks questions? An employer who wants to bring about their own ultimate ruin. Employer, what a beautiful word. It has such power, magic, strength; behind that word lies life, smiles, happiness, dignity. The unemployed man pondered, staring out the window. And people were rushing to work. Some he knew, others he didn't. He had a moment of doubt, whether to leave the house or stay. Or maybe try? What the fuck? Slitting his wrists? I won't mess up the floor, a heater with a broken cable to the bathtub? I won't be telepaced until I shit myself. Drugs, yes, drugs are the best. I fall asleep and don't wake up. Do I have any drugs at home? He opened the cabinet where he kept various things. What is this? Hello C, Polopiryna S, and this? Magnesium. His brain listened to these unemployed people's speculations and began to whore himself, wondering if unemployment had the strength to do this, and when to start intervening. His fate was inextricably linked to the fate of unemployment. The end of unemployment meant the end of his brain. He didn't want to lose what was most precious—what constantly brought him to an orgasm of oxygen, blood, constant flows of delicate currents. Oh no, this was too good to lose, and he was lucky—there were no drugs.

Outside the window, the human traffic slowly faded. And another latecomer. She works at the city hall, issuing passports. He knew her; he'd been there once, when he was Somebody. He needed a passport, and he remembered the coffee mug with the words "Friendly Office" printed on it and the huge queue at the office. Her pace was rational—one applicant per hour.

Whenever he was in the office, it felt like he was watching a slow-motion movie, sometimes "Stop" frames. He liked it all—the balanced, distinguished art of holding a pen, the timbre of her voice, as if from a theater stage, deep, supported by the diaphragm. The unemployed man knew that work in such institutions was exclusively for clans. And he wasn't a clan member. Okay, no drugs, he had to go.

Every time he went outside, he experienced an extraordinary experience. On the one hand, joy and hope for success, on the other, a nightmarish trauma. Each time, he felt human eyes on him, their piercing eyes, contemptuous smiles, the wide berth they gave him. Unemployment reeked of unemployment. It exuded a distinctive odor recognizable to humans. The smell of sweat combined with eye secretions—once called tears—were now just drops of his own salt. He wore four-year-old jeans, a five-year-old hip-hugging jacket, and shoes from Biedronka (a discount supermarket chain) that his retired mother had bought him. He walked hunched, his head tilted toward the sidewalk; it was best not to look up. He knew every paving stone, every patch of grass, every curb. He had traveled this road for years. He even knew which dog shit was fresh and which wasn't. He knew its distribution on the lawns. Unemployment, contrary to appearances, had taught him many things. He knew how to respect a dime, how to be silent, how to ignore what others didn't care about. The sun was shining. But Bezropol knew that the sun shone differently for him than for others. Solar realism. For him, the weather was always bad; the sun's rays penetrated his skin like needles, stinging, the falling rains biting with the force of unemployment attracting the stench from the surroundings. The weather was a constant pain. His eyes had long since stopped perceiving the colors of their surroundings. He saw everything as if through a filter like a theater spotlight. And it stung like hell. He walked. Meetings with friends were the worst. He had acquaintances. Acquaintances? Not that that's a bad word. He recognized beings who recognized him. Once, they were acquaintances, friends, colleagues. Every time he saw someone—some familiar being—he wanted to hide, cross the street, take a shortcut between the apartment buildings. But he was also very lucky; they usually refused to talk to him, only bowed their heads discreetly as if in greeting. They themselves were afraid that none of their acquaintances would notice that they knew Bezjobol. He liked that. The safety of the lack of conversation. He noticed one man. That's how he remembered him when he was Someone. He helped him many times, gave him errands, honestly, the guy needed help. This being was kind, polite, and cheerful; she even drove him around in her car. She showed up at Unemployment's place at every good opportunity. He remembered that. They were on first-name terms. A thinking person noticed Unemployment, nodded, and quickened his pace as if afraid Unemployment would accost him and ask, "Have you heard of any work?" Unemployment knew he ran a construction company. Unfounded fears. Unemployment was a leper for people like this great human being, and Unemployment realized it. He wasn't worthy of talking to someone like that, he couldn't. He was at a different level of development. He was at rock bottom. And you can't rise from rock bottom. You can't bounce back. Those who say you can, how the fuck is that possible, are talking nonsense.Does the unemployed have springs in their shoes? How can moths and stones rise from the bottom of a river? Only an excavator will pull them out, maybe the river current? But where the moth goes, the moth goes down. Fucking stupidity. The unemployed went. He went to the Career Office.

Unemployed Career Office.

There are various peaks. The peak of rudeness, the peak of stupidity, the peak of impudence, the peak of power, the peak of pain, the peak of peaks, i.e., the shit on Mount Everest, but there is also the peak of cynicism – the Career Office for the unemployed. What is an office? A place where you can ask for a decision – most often unsuccessfully or at an unspecified time of issue. The unemployed have already known weather relativism, and this is time relativism. In the office, he and you are. He has the power, you don't. He can, in an instant, with a single signature, delete you for life. Delete you, and you will be deleted. He is all-powerful. He is God on earth, an official, the chosen one, the superior's anointed. And HE was in the career office. The Career Office. Whoever came up with that name should be put under the gallows. A barbed wire noose should be placed around his neck as painfully as possible and a handle pulled from a hole in the floor. Let him tremble and stagger in spasms like Judas. Gallows should have been allowed to stand in the Fourth Polish Republic. Career Office for the Unemployed. But if it existed, it must have been necessary. The unemployed didn't argue whether it was necessary or not. They didn't have the strength for such reasoning. They knew it was irrational, but they didn't need commentary. Why? The Career Office is a beautiful office. Magnificent glass doors, a beautiful large hall, a break room perfectly equipped for office staff, a manager's office, new furniture, computer cabinets, two conference and training rooms. The restrooms were locked. The unemployed won't be cramming new toilets, Mrs. Manager. The only advantage he got from the Unemployment Office was that he could read the press for free and browse online offers. That was the office's advantage. There were only two newspaper headlines, half the pages were unavailable online. It doesn't matter, we build illusions. The unemployed's lives are made up of illusions, and they know it well. By building illusions, we build a sick hope. Why do the unemployed need hope? That we—we—are needed and money is needed for us. He remembered these words from some training session. The unemployed used to be "Someone"—he trained. The place was a mecca. The unemployed sat down at a beautiful new club table. He picked up the first title and turned it over to the offers. It was a service. Like in church. Touching such a newspaper, he could imagine the offers waiting for him. He could see the queue of employers who wanted him. He imagined that whoever placed them there had placed them thinking of him. He opened each page with reverence, scrutinizing every tiny print with his eyes, swallowing the words, swallowing the verses, swallowing the sentences, swallowing the newspaper, swallowing his tongue, his thoughts, "We're looking for, we're hiring," He swallowed it and choked on it, nothing, nothing, nothing. Nothing for him. Nothing. Reality returned, unemployment and nothing, nothing, and totalitarian unemployment. Fuck, how it hurts, how it hurts. He loved watching them, the chosen ones in the office. He always stole glances at their work, imagining he was there in their place. There were three chosen ones. An office like this requires such staff. The manager,A woman in her early 30s, ugly, horrible, and disgusting. Her voice screeched. The deputy manager, a young, chosen one from Ostrynów, constantly stared at his GG. And she, a specialist, young, thin, hopelessly made-up, with massive acne, staring at singles websites. The chosen ones, anointed, they are the Holy Trinity. The Holy Trinity. Whenever he went in, the manager would browse the latest IKEA offers online, and there wasn't a moment when she wasn't talking on the phone at taxpayer expense about dresses, fucking shoes, and sanitary pads. husband, food, lipsticks, perfumes, shops, fuck, fuck, fuck, and she talked, talked, and ... He wondered this question, but his brain wasn't stupid. His brain had long since stood on its veiny legs quite firmly... Fuck, you can't be anointed. You see unemployment, there are mountains and there are valleys. There are worms, single-cell bacteria. And they are beautiful, proud, they in beautiful suits and costumes, in beautiful shoes, leather bags. They are unemployed, and that's how it should be. The brain got so worked up about itself, he spoke so beautifully today. He was proud of himself. You're fucking there, you can't even see it this low. And you see them because they're high up. Reach where the eye cannot reach, break what the mind cannot break. And Bzerobol reached, reached, but didn't reach, broke. He broke, broke, but he couldn't break. You see, you can't even reach out and break. The brain had already become entangled in its own thinking. The brain was already tired. The demons of the everyday life of unemployment had awakened. The unemployed had left the table; today, the internet wasn't working. Strange, in their rooms, it worked for the unemployed, but it didn't. That's how it should be, the brain snapped. That's how it should be. And so it was. He left through the same glass door he'd entered through, not touching the glass, pulling his sweater over his hand so as not to stain the doorknob with the smell of unemployment. He left and felt like crying again. He forgot what crying was, he had no tears, he had no more tears.Perfume shops, fuck, fuck, fuck, and she talked, talked, and ... He wondered this question, but his brain wasn't stupid. His brain had long since stood on its veiny legs quite firmly... Fuck, you can't be anointed. You see unemployment, there are mountains and there are valleys. There are worms, single-cell bacteria. And they are beautiful, proud, they in beautiful suits and costumes, in beautiful shoes, leather bags. They are unemployed, and that's how it should be. The brain got so worked up about itself, he spoke so beautifully today. He was proud of himself. You're fucking there, you can't even see it this low. And you see them because they're high up. Reach where the eye cannot reach, break what the mind cannot break. And Bzerobol reached, reached, but didn't reach, broke. He broke, broke, but he couldn't break. You see, you can't even reach out and break. The brain had already become entangled in its own thinking. The brain was already tired. The demons of the everyday life of unemployment had awakened. The unemployed had left the table; today, the internet wasn't working. Strange, in their rooms, it worked for the unemployed, but it didn't. That's how it should be, the brain snapped. That's how it should be. And so it was. He left through the same glass door he'd entered through, not touching the glass, pulling his sweater over his hand so as not to stain the doorknob with the smell of unemployment. He left and felt like crying again. He forgot what crying was, he had no tears, he had no more tears.Perfume shops, fuck, fuck, fuck, and she talked, talked, and ... He wondered this question, but his brain wasn't stupid. His brain had long since stood on its veiny legs quite firmly... Fuck, you can't be anointed. You see unemployment, there are mountains and there are valleys. There are worms, single-cell bacteria. And they are beautiful, proud, they in beautiful suits and costumes, in beautiful shoes, leather bags. They are unemployed, and that's how it should be. The brain got so worked up about itself, he spoke so beautifully today. He was proud of himself. You're fucking there, you can't even see it this low. And you see them because they're high up. Reach where the eye cannot reach, break what the mind cannot break. And Bzerobol reached, reached, but didn't reach, broke. He broke, broke, but he couldn't break. You see, you can't even reach out and break. The brain had already become entangled in its own thinking. The brain was already tired. The demons of the everyday life of unemployment had awakened. The unemployed had left the table; today, the internet wasn't working. Strange, in their rooms, it worked for the unemployed, but it didn't. That's how it should be, the brain snapped. That's how it should be. And so it was. He left through the same glass door he'd entered through, not touching the glass, pulling his sweater over his hand so as not to stain the doorknob with the smell of unemployment. He left and felt like crying again. He forgot what crying was, he had no tears, he had no more tears.And they are beautiful, proud, in beautiful suits and costumes, in beautiful shoes, leather bags. They are unemployed, and that's how it should be. The brain got so worked up about itself, he spoke so beautifully today. He was proud of himself. You're fucking there, you can't even see it so low. And you see them because they're high up. Reach where the eye doesn't reach, break what reason can't break. And Unemployment reached, reached, but didn't reach. He broke, broke, broke, but couldn't break. You see, Unemployment can't even reach and break. The brain has already looped itself in its own thinking. The brain was already tired. The demons of the everyday life of the unemployed have awakened. Unemployment got up from the table, but today the internet isn't working. Strangely, in their rooms, it worked for the unemployed, but it didn't work. That's how it's supposed to be, his brain snapped. That's how it's supposed to be. And so it was. He left through the same glass door he'd entered through, not touching the glass, pulling his sweater over his hand so as not to stain the doorknob with the smell of unemployment. He left and felt like crying again. He'd forgotten what crying was, he had no tears, he had no tears anymore.And they are beautiful, proud, in beautiful suits and costumes, in beautiful shoes, leather bags. They are unemployed, and that's how it should be. The brain got so worked up about itself, he spoke so beautifully today. He was proud of himself. You're fucking there, you can't even see it so low. And you see them because they're high up. Reach where the eye doesn't reach, break what reason can't break. And Unemployment reached, reached, but didn't reach. He broke, broke, broke, but couldn't break. You see, Unemployment can't even reach and break. The brain has already looped itself in its own thinking. The brain was already tired. The demons of the everyday life of the unemployed have awakened. Unemployment got up from the table, but today the internet isn't working. Strangely, in their rooms, it worked for the unemployed, but it didn't work. That's how it's supposed to be, his brain snapped. That's how it's supposed to be. And so it was. He left through the same glass door he'd entered through, not touching the glass, pulling his sweater over his hand so as not to stain the doorknob with the smell of unemployment. He left and felt like crying again. He'd forgotten what crying was, he had no tears, he had no more tears.

UNEMPLOYED. CHRYSANTHEMUM.

The tears streaming from his eyes were probably the only sign he was alive. Dead bodies, after a while, when the worms have eaten them, don't get any. But he did. So he fucking existed. His brain thought, "I'm alive." It's OK. Unemployed left the office. The sunlight hurt again. Head down, the starting position. Where to go? What to do with my time? I can't afford bread again. Unemployed thoughts always revolved around fixed points. Hope perfidiously built up by them, food, and sleep. Nothing but nothing in return... hmm. That's all. So he walked to kill time somehow. He knew where he would go. There were places where Unemployed felt good. He sat on a bench by the street. Cars were driving. They were driving. Where do people get cars? So nice. Where do they go? Why do they drive? He looked at the vehicles. They fucking have cars because they work. They have wives and families who love them. They have jobs. Unemployment, so they have cars. My friend, the brain, intervened in the dialogue. You'll never have that. Even the homeless are better than you. You know why? Because they don't know shame. And you are a shame. Not only a shame for being unemployed, but a shame for others: for your mother, a pensioner, for your father who disowned you, for the children you fathered because you couldn't support them, for the wife you once had because you couldn't support her. You are a huge SHAME. Unemployment, a shame. Even an imaginary number is worth more than you.

He stood up. What the fuck will looking at cars like that gain him? Nothing. There was a place where Bzrobol felt good, the only place where he was among his own kind. Where there was no life, where every breath was death. Where there was nothingness and one form of regret: regret for being alive. It was a cemetery. He liked going there. He didn't have many human qualities left in him, but liking something so much. He liked going to the cemetery.

One thing distinguished him from those there. They were dead corpses, he was a living corpse. And he regretted, like a damn regret, that he was no longer with them. He was so jealous of them, so jealous that they were there and he was here, that they didn't have to do anything, that they weren't there. He was there and he was gone. A jobless being. He sat on a bench near one of the mounds, a grave dear to him. His grandmother lay there. His beloved grandmother. He was born exactly in 1900 and lived to be 86 years old. She saw him grow, saw him cry, saw him fall in love. And then he saw her lying in a coffin in the cemetery chapel. She alone was close to him. Flowers stood on the tombstone. Chrysanthemums. There was no wind. Grandma, can you hear me? The flowers bowed. Grandma, my dear grandma. The dialogue between Unemployed and Grandma always lasted at least an hour. Of course, to the rational brain, it had little significance. The brain tolerated his obsession with flowers for purely practical reasons. Unemployed was bullshitting, so Unemployed lived as he lived, which is oxygen.

So everyone is happy. In this place, Unemployed often returned to the past. He thought back to the times when he was Someone. He returned home to where the children were waiting, smiling, two little angels, and dinner was cooked. Fuck, it's been so long since he'd had a normal dinner. Besides, what does normal even mean? He knew his place in the Darwinian hierarchy and knew that this was his normality. Unemployed is unemployed. That's how you light candles. He went to another grave, took a candle, moved it, and set it down. He stole, he simply stole. But is it theft to give someone a little silver? Is it theft to take a few pennies from the church basket for newspapers to buy bread? Is that theft? Is it a greater sin to starve to death?

Part I: Self-portrait

You're reading the story of a boy who wanted to be a writer. He sat on a windowsill on a dauntingly beautiful April afternoon, his face reflected in the glass opposite, split in half by a white cigarette. A symmetrical, banal face, intelligent, banal eyes and features, distorted by the occasional springtime allergy cough. If there were nothing but this spring, this April, no matter who we attribute this beauty to, everything would be fine. Cafes scattered throughout his beloved city, crisscrossed by streaks of women, skirts, skirts, scissors of thighs, semicircles of hips.

In his hand, a book, read hastily, unnecessarily, because he doesn't want to be a reader. He searches for his place on the other side of words. He hammers, whines, feigns indifference so that his dignity, which is slowly beginning to feel cheated, won't abandon him.

Autumn, winter, allergies, summer. He dilutes his irritation with a cigarette, which in turn fuels his cough. He examines his arms, sculpted at the gym, his muscles, yet toned with each successive cigarette. A pack of Marlboros, Marlboro matches, an ashtray on the windowsill. Marlboros. He pours the ash onto the edge of the windowsill, only to realize a few seconds later that an invisible spring breeze has cleaned up the mess for him. He should be moving forward, completing missions scattered around the city. But he'd like to be a writer. The next day resembles a computer game, running around the city, running errands. Unfortunately, without a weapon in hand. The only form of rebellion he can muster is riding the tram without a ticket. Poznań heroism.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the sun streams through the window. His face ages with each passing second; he thinks he can feel it. He feels the smoke dancing around him, lulling his tissues, paralyzing his cells. The smoke flows through his veins, filling his healthy, pissed-off body. Time to get back to his apartment, to deal with someone else's words; he has to commit them to memory. He'd like to be a writer, though.

It's embarrassing to admit it, isn't it? How can you say out loud that you "would like to?" It's so humiliating. It's hard. You have to sow quietly, under the cover of darkness, pretending you don't care. And wait for someone to tell you at dawn that it's grown beautifully. But the only thing that grows at dawn is a section of the chisel with which the future of the species is carved. You carve in dark abysses, you cut through the expanse of cobwebs, anonymous as their owners. The censorship will cut out this fragment. The censorship sleeps in the reflection on the other side of the window. He seems determined, he provokes, he attacks, but he condemns himself for it. Inside him sits a Jesuit, a servant of his own frustration, a man who, no matter how many tailcoats he puts on, will never look human.

Spring doesn't work. It's overrated. Good for poets and fabric softener ads. Not even for writers anymore. Which he is not, but would like to be.

The sun slowly retreats behind the old, tired tenement house. The reflection disappears, and those small eyes become transparent, like his whole face. Finally, they stop watching him. Now only time is watching him, lost and yet to be lost, people who see him and already know everything.

A kid in a tracksuit is peeing against a wall. He thinks no one sees him, but a boy sitting on the windowsill does. The guy finishes and, at the same moment, casually tucks everything back into his pants. He walks away, but we know his underwear is turning a nasty yellow. Apparently, it doesn't bother him. The boy who wants to be a writer feels superior. He was watching him when the other guy couldn't see him. Just like you see the kid in the window now, but the kid can't see you. Do you feel superior? Look around; maybe someone is watching you right now and knows exactly who you are, who you want to be, but you're afraid to say anything. The boy in the window wants to be a writer. Maybe it's funny—he smiles to himself, too, even though he can no longer see the reflection in the window. He feels he's being ridiculous, and all he can hope is that he's not pathetic. That same hope remains for you and your hidden desires. Maybe you also live under the illusion that everything isn't written on your face. That the tissues that make up your skin, asymmetrically interwoven into your features, don't form words, silent, unwanted confessions. Unwanted, because there's always something to hide.

The child climbs down from the window and stubs out his cigarette. On the fading April afternoon, the glances exchanged on the street slowly fall into the chasm between what we desire and what we want to say about ourselves. How good it is that people so rarely look at each other.

Puppet theater

What am I doing here? Why exactly did I come here? I guess I've outgrown my secret, unrequited crush? I guess... I remember back in elementary school, when the object of my immature love was my English teacher. I studied and got good grades just to see the smile on her face. It was so childish that I laughed silently at the memory. But that was a long time ago. I can't stoop to such behavior now. And yet I did it. Why?

Before my eyes was a girl who seemed to be the answer to my questions. I knew virtually nothing about her, except that she was a pretty brunette and worked at the Stasiek pub. A girl like many others. And yet, something drew me there, to that place, a place I wouldn't have visited if I hadn't happened to be passing by and recalled a certain story from a few days earlier.

Yes, two, maybe three days. It was an ordinary summer-autumn evening, one of many spent anywhere, no matter how, as long as with whom. I sat by the fountain and chatted with Radek. It was 7:30 p.m. People were constantly passing through the cobblestone streets of the old town. It seemed their sole purpose was to block my view of the Museum of Modern Art, which always made me laugh when I looked at it. I don't know why. It was a little mystery.

Music from nearby clubs flowed around me. The gray mass of passersby eventually thinned and took on color. From it emerged the silhouettes of beautified, extravagant young women who, without makeup, would have looked younger than fifteen, gelled-up hustlers, then a more elegant crowd – men in their thirties accompanied by younger women, visiting exclusive establishments. Finally, security patrols appeared on the streets. A lazy half-moon, surrounded by stars, rested in the thick, dark sky. Nightlife was beginning.

We sat there, waiting for the rest of the company, chatting about everything and nothing, when suddenly he approached us. A mysterious brunette woman. She handed us leaflets and said with a permanent smile,

"We invite you to the newly opened pub 'Stasiek', it's around the corner."

Then she went off to haunt other people. Out of boredom, or perhaps out of simple curiosity, we glanced at the paper gifts and tossed them into the bin next to us.

When I was walking to the store on Thursday evening and saw the word 'Stasiek' burned into a wooden board above me, I remembered this probably meaningless story. And I asked myself: why, having passed this way a dozen or so times—perhaps an exaggeration, a few—had I not noticed this "newly opened pub" before? Ha, good question. I'll think about it someday. If I feel like it.

In my mind's eye, I pictured a pretty girl who probably didn't remember me, just as I hadn't remembered her a second ago. "I wonder if she'll be here today," I thought. It didn't occur to me then that she didn't have to work there at all, just hand out flyers. I turned the doorknob and walked in.

My first impression was average at best. The smoky interior, the almost iconic wooden tables, the barely perceptible lighting, supposedly designed to create the right atmosphere, the rotten green and gray decor. All of this evoked memories of similar establishments frequented by underage high school students, rightly hoping to be sold alcohol. There weren't many people. A group of five at one table and a young couple at another.

I walked up to the bar without feeling anything, and surprisingly, I saw her. I couldn't help but recognize her, even though I couldn't remember a single detail about her appearance. Besides her brown hair, of course. In such situations, I simply explained that my subconscious was associating the current image with the one from a few days ago. It compared them and rendered its verdict, not wanting to bore me with thousands of lines of calculations.

I saw her shapely figure in a chair behind the bar, a book in her hands. I could only see faint writing on the back cover, but I was almost certain it was some Harlequin. The passage she was reading must have been a love scene, because she didn't notice my presence until she turned the page.

Confused by my appearance, she approached the bar and, with the look of a little girl caught cheating, asked,

"Excuse me, I didn't notice. Can I get you something?

" "Beer. This must be a very interesting book?

" "Oh, I like fantasy. Especially Tolkien.

So it's not Harlequin after all," I thought. I'd misjudged her. Don't judge a book by its cover. Neither did the owner.

"Hmm, you're sitting there reading, nice work," I said with a gentle smile, which seemed silly a moment later when I realized I shouldn't have called her "you." After all, we didn't know each other at all.

"It's a relaxed day today; weekends aren't easy," she replied. I guess she didn't take it to heart. For some reason, seeing her behind the bar, I thought I'd find something poetic and mysterious in her. But she was an ordinary, perfectly normal girl. I had to laugh just thinking about how, a second ago, I'd been looking at her like a painter searching for hidden meaning in a classical landscape. And suddenly, the last vestiges of the charm vanished when she touched on a completely mundane subject—oh, I forgot about the beer...

I didn't really want a beer. I wanted to talk to her. About anything, about Tolkien, whom I also liked, philosophy, or the weather. I felt the need to talk and listen, like characters in uninspired movies who confide in bartenders over whiskey. Instead, I watched her pick up a clean glass and fill it with beer, probably completely unaware that all my thoughts were directed at her. I saw her brush back her shoulder-length brown hair, her gaze darting randomly, searching for a stop.

The conversation trailed off, and I, already accustomed to the stranger's voice, began to pick up other sounds I'd previously ignored. They all hit me at once, as if trying to convey something important, shouting over each other. And so I heard the voice of a boy telling his sweetheart he couldn't go to a party with her the day after tomorrow, the loud laughter of the crowd from the other table, the sound of beer clinking into a glass, all mixed with jazz emanating from nowhere.

I felt intoxicated by the very atmosphere of the place. My thoughts were torn, clashing, refusing to let me rest. What was I doing here? Why had I even come? How did I even know I'd meet her? Maybe I didn't know, and I was counting on it like anyone playing the lottery counting on a six?

And suddenly, surprising myself, I interrupted my thoughts with a question stranger than undiluted beer on tap.

"Did you know that Tolkien invented his own languages ​​and wrote poetry in them?

" "Oh, I wonder who'll read that now." As she said this, she giggled to herself like a child who'd just played a trick. "And how do you know? Do you like Tolkien too?"

"Well, even so," I thought to myself, "it's better to talk about Tolkien than politics or the weather.

" "Have you read 'The Lord of the Rings'?" she asked, placing a glass of beer in front of me.

"Yes, all the parts. One of my favorite books, although I didn't like the ending. It could have been more original. After all, Frodo...

" "Hey, don't tell me the ending. I'm only halfway through. What do you think about..."

I threw down a fiver, and a long, informative conversation about fantasy literature began. And then philosophy. Not about the weather.

Sometimes you're only seemingly happy. You think you have everything you need, and yet an inner voice tells you that one or two pieces of the puzzle are missing. You don't know which ones. Go out and look for them, maybe you'll find them. You'll go on a long, long hike, hoping you might stumble upon something. And when you finally do, it turns out the next piece doesn't fit and has to be thrown away."

I was looking at the box containing my puzzle, which read "n pieces with n approaching infinity." The box was empty, and next to it, a little boy was trying to put the pieces together, having fun. I approached him and was about to ask who he was, why he was touching my property, when suddenly a young brown-haired girl appeared in front of me and shouted,

"Hello, we're closing!"

"Uh, what's up?

" "It's two o'clock, Master Philosopher. Too much fantasy and beer, perhaps?"

It was the bartender. She watched with amusement as I sat in a chair against the bar, rubbing my eyes. The music had already stopped, and I couldn't hear any voices or laughter behind me. The place was empty.

I felt foolish. Master Philosopher? I guess I really had a few too many beers and was reconsidering the liar's paradox. Or I was trying to figure out which was better—an evening stroll through the old town or a picnic outside the city.

"Philosopher?" I asked, even though I knew what she meant.

"Marek might be a possibility.

" "My name is Jacek. "

"Nice to meet you, Magda.

I thought some guy from TV would barge in any minute and say, 'You're on Candid Camera.'"

"Okay, Jacek. Come by tomorrow. It'll be another day."

Slightly dazed, I stood up and started to leave. The rotten green and gray decor irritated me even more than before. As I approached the door, I turned back briefly to say goodbye and saw the barmaid Magda's green eyes smiling pityingly at me. I must have looked like an idiot.

"Did you leave the kettle on?" she asked.

"I don't know, maybe... Would you let me take you out for coffee sometime?

" "I don't know, maybe..."

I had only one thought on my mind: going to bed.

I opened the door and stepped out onto the street. Fresh, cold air hit me. The cloudless sky and night lights would normally put me in a poetic mood, but right now I didn't feel like it. I didn't bother with things I'd forget tomorrow morning. So I kept my eyes on the ground and watched my shoes race against the sidewalk.

After a few minutes, during which my feet took steps of their own accord without my even noticing, I stood before the stairwell and saw a black-and-white cat watching my movements to my left.

"Hey, kid," I whispered. He didn't respond.

The next day, while eating breakfast with Radek, I pondered many things. I was interested in why the birds hadn't flown away to warmer climes yet, when the leaves would start falling from the trees, and what subjects would be added to my third-year English studies. I thought of everything I could, just to avoid digging up yesterday's memories from beneath the thick layers of memory, as I was wont to do after a night out. Radek's curiosity, whom I considered a gossip worse than those women in TV soap operas, made me even more irritated.

"What? Did you have a good time last night?" he asked.

"Well, you could say that.

" "Look, it's great that you're having fun, but you could let me sleep at night instead of slamming doors.

" "I didn't slam them. You know perfectly well they always make noise.

" "Exactly, you have to go to the landlord eventually.

" "Then go, who's stopping you?

" "Just so you know, I'm going. But first, tell me who you spent the evening with last night. With those idiots from the journalism department?"

"With one friend," I said after a moment of hesitation.

"Do I know her?

" "I don't think so. Do you have to know all my friends?

" "I should. I like to be well-informed.

" "Seriously? I wouldn't suspect you of that.

" "So? How was it?"

I'd had enough of his questioning. I thought a visit to the "journalism idiots" would be a good idea. Their dorm was about fifteen minutes from our room. So I took a quick shower, put on some clothes, and left the building, which reminded me of gossipy Radek. Stepping out of the cage, I saw yesterday's black-and-white cat. This time, it was lying under the van, sleeping. "I won't speak to you again," I thought.

Walking along the route I had permanently etched in my memory, I tried to take in all the splendors of the departing summer. The sky was as beautiful as can be in late September. White, fluffy giants wandered aimlessly across the blue backdrop, and the sun broke through easily, taking advantage of the fact that it could still be at a higher altitude. The streets were coming alive again after the night's madness. I glanced at my watch. It was a few minutes after 2 p.m.

The thought struck me that on my way to the dorm, I'd see the Stasiek pub, which I'd actually preferred to avoid. Despite all my efforts, I still remembered the humiliating smile of the barmaid Magda and her voice, more irritating than a flock of mosquitoes. "Master philosopher... Did you leave the kettle on?... Come over tomorrow..." Come over tomorrow? Yes, I will!

But later.

Against my will, I passed the place I'd disliked since yesterday, relieved to find it closed.

As soon as I entered the room, I was gripped by the fear that the axe hanging in the air would fall and decapitate me. A mixture of sweat, men's perfume, tobacco smoke, and steam from instant noodles assaulted my nostrils like a prickly monster. The dim sunlight, despite the open blinds, startled me. How is it possible that the academic year hasn't even started, and I'm seeing images of the aftermath of the exams? I thought. "I guess I don't appreciate enough that I'm living in a boarding house in normal conditions. Almost normal. If it weren't for that gossipy Radek.

" "Sorry for the slight mess," Jarek said, as if it were indeed a small mess. A jumble of men's clothes, beer cans, candy wrappers, and something I completely didn't expect—books—littered across the two beds, the floor, and the table.

"Can your lungs breathe this air?" I asked, knowing full well they were.

"They've already adjusted." "Sit down," he said, brushing some of the killer composition off his bed. After a moment, to my delight, he half-opened the window.

"Thanks. How are you?

" "As you can see, I'm studying." He grinned from ear to ear, as was his habit when he was in a good mood, which was almost always.

"Oh yes, I see," I replied, looking around the room again. Everything looked even worse than before. "Too good."

At that moment, Michał appeared in the doorway, a bald, fat guy smashing beer cans against his forehead. He was good at it. He'd probably have something to show his grandchildren in his old age. For reasons unknown to me, he hated my roommate Radek, and the hatred was mutual. Just like the other "journalism idiots," only on a larger scale.

"Hi Michał," I said.

"Hi Jacuś, what brings you here?

" "I wanted to visit some old friends. Besides, I was fed up with your favorite Radek.

" "That idiot and gossip?" And rightly so. Come with us to the next room. I'll introduce you to our new classmate.

"Good idea," Jarek added. "She's a nice girl. I'm sure you'll like her."

I happily left the air, which was too thick for me, and followed them into the hallway. A moment later, we stood in front of door number 257 and entered without knocking. I was the last to cross the threshold.

"Good morning, Miss Magdalena," said Michał, glancing at the figure hidden behind the open wardrobe door. "Miss Magdalena? Let me guess, that's...

" "Hey," she replied, still standing. Although all I could see were a woman's feet in pink flip-flops, I knew immediately it was her. "Master philosopher... Nice to meet you, Magda... Hi." Yes, it's definitely her. "

We have a guest from English Philology. Will you join us for a beer?"

The mysterious figure poked her head out from behind the wardrobe and, seeing me, said with a smile,

"Hi, Jacek.

" "Hello."

"Oh, I see you two know each other," Jarek said, surprised.

"Well, sort of," she replied.

"So what about that beer?

" "Why not. Give me an hour.

" "An hour? What are you planning to do in that time? Watch the Fashion Show?

" "No, Oprah.

" "Okay. In an hour at your place."

2

I was sodden after a few beers, just like everyone else. A few in the dorm and a few at the club. The conversation turned to the latest movies, the news in our city, Hollywood gossip, and then Michał started telling dirty jokes I'd heard a million times. Magda wasn't lucky enough to know them, so she was forced to listen to a guy bursting into the house and seeing his wife in bed with her lover, or Kowalski meeting up with Nowak.

And I, searching for hidden meaning in the ashtray that Jarosław constantly used, condemning the rest of the company to secondhand smoke, wondered if I'd really been that bad yesterday. Perhaps she was interested in my philosophical side, which was generally incomprehensible to most people? After all, every reasonable person feels the need to ponder matters more ambitious than how much they've drunk, whether they'll have enough money until the end of the month, or when a boring lecture will end.

And occasionally speaking up, tuned out of Michał's old jokes and Jarek's fictional, "real-life" stories, I listened to Magda's story about the guy who came to the pub yesterday and spent several hours chatting with her about fantasy literature, with a particular emphasis on Tolkien's works. She avoided my gaze, and I feigned indifference, as if she were talking about someone I didn't even know by sight.

"Funny guy," Michał commented. I wanted to say something about the ridiculousness of his figure, which must have hindered him when boarding the bus. But I didn't, instead defending the "funny guy." "

There are all kinds of people. Maybe he had an extraordinary personality, don't you think?" "I said, jokingly, looking Magda straight in the eye.

"Very possible," she laughed.

"Hey, you know this," Michał began, "a guy walks into a bar and..."

I'd had enough. I decided to take a break and go get another beer. At the last minute, however, as I passed Magda, I changed my mind and asked her to dance. She agreed.

The music was calm, slow, pleasant to the ear, but I barely heard it. It seemed to be just a backdrop for Magda's gentle voice and the beating of my heart. The same voice that, like a red rose, lingered in my mind as a beautiful and painful memory. Colored lights flashed around the room. The image spun in all directions, allowing no respite. It spun this way and that, at varying speeds, moving closer and closer. The indistinct, blurred shapes of dancing figures appeared and disappeared around me, but I was only interested in the one whose delicate hands intertwined with mine in a dreamy dance.

"I made a fool of myself then, didn't I?

" "When?

" "Yesterday at the pub. Believe me, I don't usually go to sleazy bars and talk about Tolkien to beautiful barmaids," I said, emphasizing the word "beautiful," thinking the trite compliment would work. "And I don't usually fall asleep leaning against the bar," I added with a smile.

"Come on, it was quite interesting," she said seriously, ignoring either the worn-out epithet I'd used to describe her or the smile I'd given her. "I get so bored when I have to work beyond the weekend. It was nice talking to you. And I learned a few new things."

There was something in her voice that made even the most serious statement seem like a joke. If she were a TV presenter reading the news, I wouldn't have believed a single one of them. But I liked that hidden mirth. It was certainly much better than Michał's jokes, which I'd escaped from.

"So maybe we'll meet again?" I asked.

"Why not? You'll have to finish the story.

" "What story?

" "The one about finding happiness. You compared it nicely to a puzzle.

So it wasn't a dream after all. I wonder what else I told her then.

" "And the little boy playing with someone else's puzzle?

" "You didn't mention that.

" "Then I'll tell you another time. Maybe tomorrow, somewhere romantic?"

"If I let you invite me," she whispered, "we'd better go listen to Michał's jokes.

" "Don't tell me you like them."

"I don't, but don't tell him that," she said, pulling me toward the table where we'd been sitting earlier. I was happy to hear I wasn't the only one who thought Michał was a bad joker. It was like a little revenge for the "funny guy."

When our hands parted, I felt like I'd lost something precious, and at the same time, I was brought back to reality. The magical, intoxicating energy vanished, everything became clearer, the conversation in the dance seemed distant and unreal. The image spun slower, no longer changing directions, and I couldn't guess how much time had passed.

"You were gone for a long time," Jarek's powerful voice struck me like a hammer. It echoed in my head several times before fading away.

"Aha," Michał added, "you missed a few good jokes.

But not this one," I thought.

"I have to go now," Magda said.

"Did you leave the kettle on?" I asked, and she laughed softly in response.

"Maybe you'll stay a few more minutes?" Jarek suggested.

"No, I can't. I'll have to get up early.

" "So, see you tomorrow," Michał said.

"Will you walk me home?" I offered, hoping to talk to her for a while longer, that the magical aura surrounding her would take over me longer.

"As you wish," she said casually and headed for the exit.

"I told you you'd like her," Jarek smiled.

After a moment, I caught up with Magda before leaving. The autumn night air cooled my body and refreshed my mind. Memories from a few hours ago came flooding back. I realized I'd just left the student club at the journalism faculty dormitory. Literally a few minutes from a smoky room cluttered with junk.

"You took your time.

" "I was thinking about you.

" "You're a lousy poet.

" "But a good philosopher.

" "Ha, you wish. Are you always so cliché?

" "What do you mean?

" "Talking about a romantic place, offering an escort. That's some medieval nonsense. It's a shame you didn't kiss my hand when you met me.

" "Don't tell me you're a feminist."

"I'm not. Feminists are ugly, old women who have no luck with men." I completely disagreed with her on that point, but I ignored her stereotypical attitude. It's like believing all blondes are stupid—I'm just moving with the times and trying to be modern.

" "Modern... What do you mean?

" "We'll talk tomorrow, it's already here." Indeed, out of nowhere, we were standing in front of the dormitory entrance. A faint light was coming from inside.

"Aren't you going to invite me in?

" "And what else?" Perhaps I'll offer you some French wine, and then we'll make passionate love until dawn?

"Good idea..."

I grabbed her fingertips and pulled her body, light as a butterfly, toward me. Our lips met, and, as if terrified by the prospect of separation, they clung to each other in a passionate kiss. At first, gently, like a child trying to catch fluff carried by the wind, then more boldly, offering physical pleasure and elevating our minds to higher states of consciousness. From the magical power grew a plant with many flowers, which, winding through souls, avoiding dangerous corners and dark secrets, connected hearts and bound them together with an invisible thread. Reality vanished, an extraordinary aura descended, and with it a land of intoxication and fabulous feelings.

And the child continued running through the endless clearing, chasing the light feather. She almost had it in her small, pink hands, almost clutching it with her weak fingers, when a sudden gust of wind pushed the fluffy fugitive a few centimeters away. And this game continued for some time, and would probably have lasted even longer if the wind hadn't abated and allowed the delightful little creature to grasp the feather that had so exhausted her patience and yet given her so much joy. But now the young creature realizes that a feather brings pleasure not when held in the hand, but when unattainable, carried by the wind, free. So she releases it and watches it drift slowly across the clearing, rising higher and higher, all the way to the sky itself... Reality

returned, revealing the night sky, the chill of the autumn wind, and the faint light from inside the building.

"I'll come tomorrow," I whispered.

"Come..."

It's so good that Radek isn't here, I thought. It was one of the few mornings spent peacefully. Student mornings, because it was already after noon. I stood in front of the mirror, ready to leave, but I kept checking to make sure everything was in order. First, if my jeans were too baggy, then if my red and white shirt matched the rest of my clothes, then if the scent of my perfume was too faint and I should reapply it, and finally, I focused on the leather shoes, which seemed a little too elegant and forced. Relieved, however, I realized it wasn't so bad and left the building.

This time, as I descended the stairs, I didn't notice the black-and-white cat.

After the dozen or so minutes it always took to get from me to the boys, after passing several streets and the Stasiek pub, after entering the dormitory without identifying myself, without even visiting Jarek and Michał, I finally stood in front of door number 257 and knocked three times. A few seconds later, which felt like years of heart-pounding silence, Magda appeared in the doorway. She wore no makeup and ordinary everyday clothes—rolled-up jeans, revealing the same womanly feet in the same pink flip-flops I'd seen the day before, and a yellow blouse with a simple pattern.

"Hi," I said.

"Well, hey," she replied, eyeing me. Apparently interested in my outfit, she asked, "Is there an occasion today?

" "It's a chance I'm meeting you."

"Come in, romantic," she invited, leading me into the room.

It was remarkably reminiscent of Jarek and Michał's room, except that order reigned supreme, and the air, lightly scented with women's perfume and hairspray, was breathable. There were no beer cans, no candy wrappers, not even books. There were only clothes strewn here and there, creating an artistic mess. The sun, screened off by red curtains, illuminated only the table and part of the floor. A slightly overweight blonde sat on one of the two beds, finishing the last of her coffee.

"Hi," she said upon seeing me.

"Hello," I replied.

"Sit down, would you like something to drink?" Magda asked.

"Hmm, maybe some French wine?"

Meanwhile, the blonde finished her coffee and set her cup on the table.

"I'll... go to Karola's. Bye," she said, getting up and leaving the room. I've always liked a woman's sense of humor.

"French..." Magda said thoughtfully. "There's no French, only Polish." Then she opened the cabinet and took out two glasses and a bottle full of burgundy liquid. The bottle was labeled "cherry wine." There was something so distasteful and disgusting about it that I felt a shiver run down my spine, and memories of my first years of high school, when my classmates and I enjoyed this type of drink flashed through my mind. I didn't expect this from her—sorry for the glasses, but I don't have anything better." She looked at me and, as if reading my mind, laughed and explained. "Don't be afraid, it's good wine, homemade, but that bottle..."

"I was already starting to suspect you of bad taste," I said, feeling a palpable sense of relief. "Don't judge a book by its cover. Or wine by its label.

" "My father makes good wine. I always drank it with my friends," she began the conversation and filled both glasses halfway. "I took one bottle to kick off my studies."

"Just don't tell Michał about it, or he'll empty it in a moment." I laughed and tasted Magda's father's homemade wine. "It's really good," I said honestly.

"Okay, I won't tell him. After all, you've known him longer," she admitted, taking a sip of the burgundy liquid that I'd only just thought was piss. "How exactly did you meet?

" "It's a long story," I replied evasively, and I searched my memory, trying to recall what it was like.

"We have plenty of time." I sensed something in her voice that heated up the atmosphere and intimidated me. "And anyway, you can tell the short version."

"The short version? We met at a party.

" "Not very original. You met me in a more interesting way.

" "Because you're a modern woman, and modern women are met in unusual ways.

" "And you're modern?

" "I don't think so. I'd say rather old-fashioned.

" "But you came without flowers."

"Because I didn't know what the nature of our meeting would be, or whether I'd even find you there.

" "Exactly, you surprised me. I didn't even have time to get ready.

" "You look beautiful anyway."

"We've known each other for three days, and this is your first compliment. So you're not old-fashioned after all.

" "Well, maybe just a little."

I felt the wine awakening my senses, inducing a blissful state and confidence; the blood rushed to my head, bringing a pleasant warmth. Everything looked more colorful. I put down the glass and, after a moment's hesitation, said:

"Actually, I came to invite you on a little trip.

" "Sounds interesting. And what kind of trip is it?

" "I can't say that yet. It's a secret.

" "Okay, at least tell me what I should wear." I'd always dreaded such questions, perhaps sensing a hidden meaning.

"You'll look good in anything," I extricated myself from the situation.

"Then wait outside the dorm. You're not going to watch me change, are

you?" "Frankly, I'd love to. But you probably won't let me?"

"Of course not.

" "Then I'll leave," I replied humbly, "just so I don't have to wait for years."

"If you care, you'll wait," she said, smiling mischievously.

I went outside and, just like before, didn't stop by Michał and Jarek's. They probably weren't there anyway, I thought, "and besides, they'd be asking about me and Magda." In that respect, they weren't much different from Radek the gossiper. They liked to listen, just didn't share what they'd heard with everyone around them. They were like a triple-locked gossip vault.

Leaning against the stair railing, staring at the door, I mentally calculated how long it would take Magda to get ready. First in seconds, then in minutes, until I got lost in the rush of numbers and doubted she'd even come. But she did.

From her outfit, I guessed she wanted to look versatile and appropriate for any occasion, which was understandable, since she didn't know where we were going. She wore the same rolled-up jeans, low-heeled shoes, and a long blue blouse with a delicate neckline. Her hair was loose and fell gently around her shoulders. I was still a little tipsy from the wine, still feeling confident, and the warmth inside hadn't faded. She must have felt the same.

"Will you finally tell me where you're taking me?" she asked, approaching me. I was delighted to see her light makeup, no frills. She looked beautiful anyway.

"To the puppet theater.

" "Are you serious?

" "Yes. Have you ever been to a puppet theater?

" "Oh. Once, in elementary school.

" "Then it's worth seeing again.

" "Okay, what's the title of the play?

" "Little Red Riding Hood." Good, right?

"You're starting to scare me," she sighed and looked at me like I was crazy.

"Ha, I was joking... About that little red riding hood, of course. This will be something more ambitious. You'll see, you'll like it.

" "I'm still afraid of you..."