Nostalgia

"...everything, good and bad, leaves

a void behind when it ends.

But if it was bad,

that void fills itself.

If it was good, you could

only fill it by finding something better."

"A Moveable Feast"

Ernest Hemingway

And it was autumn again, and colorful leaves covered the sparse treetops. The wind blew strangely close to the ground, causing the yellowed leaves to dance in the air, circling in characteristic circles. At that same moment, the area was enveloped in gray, and silence began to struggle with the dull moan of the wind. Only a few rays of sunlight now tried to break through the ominous clouds. It began to rain. Large raindrops struck harder and harder against the withered leaves that had appeared on the ground quite early. Streams of water flowing along the ground carved tunnels between the tufts of grass, quickly disappearing somewhere beneath the surface. Darkness fell over the city. As evening approached, more and more light appeared in the windows of the houses. Light that Daniel had so desperately needed just a short while ago.

The boy stood between the streams of rain that flowed limply down his cheeks. He stood there for a moment, then, unmoved, he slowly walked forward, as if unaware of the chill enveloping him. Dressed in a dark blue raincoat, he walked past a park that had been deserted for several days. Cold rains continued to fall, and people walked past him without even glancing at the old, creaking gate. Daniel associated each sudden arrival of autumn with the unpleasant events of a few years ago and with this park. Although he had managed to come to terms with his father's death, with the arrival of the rain, memories returned, and pain once again appeared on his face. The deserted garden became the place where the boy spent most of his time. He never minded bad weather or the wrong time. He had a habit of sitting on a bench and withdrawing into himself, so that no impulses from the outside world reached him. His eyes were usually fixed on one spot, not even twitching in this moment of extreme contemplation. His hands, tucked into his pockets, occasionally giving a discreet shake, gave a sign of vitality. This time it was no different. He sat stiffly under one of the trees. Drops of fresh rain peeked over his head. The wind was blowing with such force that even the bushes hidden just above the ground mercilessly tore at his hands.

The next day brought no improvement in the weather. From early morning, the sun was smothered by billowing clouds, and the rain fell incessantly, casting the city's inhabitants into an autumnal melancholy.

Daniel had to go to school that day. It was his last year of high school, so he had to devote more time to studying than in previous years. The boy knew this perfectly well, but he didn't attach much importance to it. He was an average student in class. He never stood out, but he also didn't have any major problems absorbing the material. He had an intelligent face, as his Polish teacher claimed. However, it wasn't the face, but the mind was more important, he tried to explain to himself.

A lot had changed in his life since his father's death. He had begun to approach everything more responsibly, putting the well-being of his family above all else. On the one hand, this was highly mature, but for him, the decision to become an adult meant nothing but sacrifice. He began to lack time to meet up with friends, which meant their circle weakened with each passing day.

Daniel sat in the school cafeteria. The double doors at the entrance kept opening and closing. With his first breakfast and a set of books in front of him, he stared at the pages of one of his textbooks. The book was carefully bound, adorned with gold carving. "What are you reading?" he heard suddenly.

Looking up, he saw a short blonde woman before him, her curly hair cascading indifferently down her back. Her round face, like her deep-set eyes, betrayed no trace of her charm. The girl was dressed in a warm jacket and held a burgundy scarf in her hands.

"Hemingway," he replied, lifting his head, revealing the book's cover.

The engraved letters on its cover gleamed in the light from the lamp hanging just above his head.

"Anything specific?" she asked again, still wrapped in her warm clothing.

"Yes. 'The Light of Life.' That's the title," he replied, turning his eyes back to the book.

"What is it?" the girl asked again, distracting Daniel from his reading.

Silvery droplets appeared on her forehead. The heat was getting worse. However, she didn't want to leave until she had an answer.

Her arms were straight, her head slightly tilted forward, and she patiently waited for his response.

"Life?" This time, Daniel tried to ask.

"Light," she corrected.

"We don't know each other, do we?" he asked, skillfully dodging the question.

"Sylwia," she finished, wiping her forehead.

"Are you going to stand there?" he asked, pointing to the empty seat in front of him.

"I wasn't planning on it," she replied, then took off her cover, hanging it on the chair next to her. "Do you have a name?" she asked before sitting down.

"Daniel," he introduced himself, looking her in the eye.

"Daniel," she repeated silently, smiling discreetly, before settling down at the table.

A few moments passed. The boy's eyes settled on the book again. The girl grew impatient. Waiting for him to finish the chapter, she lingered on him, following his slightest movement. She fell into thought for a moment.

"Do you have any particular reason for coming to me?" he asked, finishing the last lines. The girl, distracted, looked away from him.

"If you want, I'll go?" she asked, sensing the indifference in Daniel's voice.

"I'm sorry. That's not what I meant," he tried to apologize, closing the book. "I'm just surprised that a complete stranger would sit next to me without explaining it.

" "My mother died a few weeks ago," she said with an unwavering expression.

"I'm sorry," he replied, dismissing the topic indifferently.

In an instant, the girl's eyes welled up, and bitter tears flowed from beneath her eyelids. Daniel felt miserable at that moment, realizing he had once been in a similar situation.

"Have you had enough of this fuss about you?" he asked, correcting himself, realizing his own experiences with his father's passing.

"Yes," she choked out, "I know you've had similar experiences, so I thought maybe you..." she couldn't finish.

Her voice broke, and he couldn't say anything more.

"...that I can help you?" he finished. "Do you think I can?

" "Otherwise I wouldn't have come.

" "How do you feel about this?" he asked, packing his books into his backpack.

"Why are you so indifferent about it?

" "I'll explain it all to you if you have more time?" he replied, rising from his chair.

"I'm in no hurry," she stood up, putting on her jacket.

A dozen or so minutes later, Daniel and Sylwia were already in the park. The same one he'd been thinking in yesterday. The same trees glared ominously at the girl, just as they glared at each new figure. The park looked unchanged. Bushes and leaves covered its central part. Nearby stood an old wooden bridge that led to a small island. The place was surrounded by foul water, like solidified lava flowing from the underworld. The island's centerpiece was a statue of a little boy holding a violin. His eyes were tiny, almost invisible. Age was killing the freshness within him with each passing day. Daniel still hoped that one day he would hear it play. Legend had it that the song of the violin was the cry of the trees, which, after their guardian's death, never returned to their natural form. The old man who cared for the park was homeless. He set up a shelter there and, along with the trees, comforted the people who came to him. With the old man's death, the trees died too, and people no longer visited the park for many years.

"What is this place?" Sylvia asked when they reached the bench near the frozen statue.

"It's called the 'Park of Dead Trees,'" he replied, recalling the apocryphal tale.

"I'm asking, what is this place to you?" the girl corrected, causing Daniel's face to turn strangely serious.

"Everything," he replied without hesitation. "It's the answer to the thoughts that torment me. I've been coming here since my father died.

" "It's terribly dark here, for an oracle." She paused, watching as the light couldn't penetrate through the dense tree branches.

"It's a place for conversations with God and a refuge in times of need," he said, finishing the thought.

"I don't believe in Him!" the girl exclaimed violently.

"In God? I don't believe you don't," the boy retorted, refusing to be convinced.

"Why?

" "Everyone believes in something, because if they don't, they lose their self-esteem. You only get angry at Him." You think He's to blame for everything, but in reality, it's completely different." Daniel disagreed with the girl, so he tried to explain to her that she was wrong.

"Why would I be angry with Him?" Sylwia persisted, and her words became more vehement.

"You wanted Him to help you. He couldn't. Or maybe it was you who didn't let Him help you," Daniel explained very slowly, never missing an opportunity to steer the girl in the right direction.

"If I hadn't let Him help me, I wouldn't have come to you." Sylwia also stuck to her guns.

Each subsequent word the girl uttered was gentler than the last, as if she were trying to understand what she'd been doing before. She was trying to sort out her own world, one she didn't fully understand.

"So, why didn't you go to someone else but me?" he asked, knowing exactly what the answer would be. "Exactly," he confirmed to himself. "You're creating a ring around yourself that you can't get out of or into," he concluded.

"So, why are you inside it?" " she asked after briefly analyzing Daniel's words.

"You yourself said we have shared experiences. We are similar."

Silence fell for a moment. Terrifying shadows fell over the two people sitting in the park. After a short but lively exchange, Sylwia suddenly exploded with anger.

"I thought you really wanted to help me. I thought you were different, after all... but like everyone else, you only know how to judge.

" "I said it might be so, but what is it really like...? I don't know. I was hoping you could explain it to me." The boy skillfully controlled his emotions.

The atmosphere in the park was suddenly warming. The cheerful, serious mood that had prevailed during the conversation at school had returned. Daniel's brief but insightful observations seemed to overwhelm Sylvia, and she reacted with bitterness. Her mother's recent death had stirred sudden anger within her, which exploded at inopportune moments. Daniel understood all this; he had acted the same way before, but the changes he had undergone during that time had strengthened him internally and made him feel mentally stronger. No harsh words or convulsions could induce in him a mindset where massive amounts of adrenaline would begin to decide for him.

"Where do you get all this strength?" the girl asked when she had calmed down.

"I try not to think about it so much. When you do that, you gradually lead to self-destruction, and that's no solution. You can't give up, and you should fight it." Every bend is another nail in the coffin you're building for yourself. Could you do it?" he asked after a short speech full of philosophical reflections.

"To bring about this..." Sylwia didn't even want to utter the words: death or suicide. "I would be afraid," she finished.

"I told you so!" The boy jumped, clearly pleased with the control he had over the conversation.

"What?" The girl looked surprised, not understanding the smile on Daniel's face.

"But you believe in Him. I told you so," Sylwia still didn't understand the boy's words. "You can't not believe in anything," he reminded her, and then everything became clear. "When a person fears something, it's only what they don't know, and God has been a huge mystery for centuries, whose explanation thousands of scientists have attempted with little success. You're gripped by fear of the unknown, the incomprehensible.

" "I don't understand why this happened to me?" "The girl, uttering these words, admitted that everything she denied was merely a momentary doubt. A side effect that accompanies the death of someone close to you.

"Don't think you're the only one who survived your mother's death. There are definitely worse things than dying." Daniel tried again to convince the girl of his point, but she wasn't immediately convinced.

"What could be worse?" The girl felt she couldn't understand the thoughts racing through Daniel's head.

"Poverty, misery, hunger afflict so many people without asking anyone if they're happy living in such conditions," he said, then grabbed the girl's hand and led her out of the park. They walked along a muddy sidewalk, or rather, a path long worn by passersby. The street stretched on for a long time, so Sylwia continued her thought.

"But they don't commit suicide, nor do they kill to survive," she repeated confidently.

"Because they have the courage to face it," he replied, somewhat incomprehensibly, as the girl looked at him thoughtfully.

"How so?" she asked, astonished.

"People die when they lose the will to fight.

" "You think people are responsible for their own existence. What about tragic accidents and incurable diseases? There are millions of such cases," the girl said, as the boy tugged harder on her hand, quickening his pace.

"It's similar," he said, swallowing hard. "Illnesses are slow deaths, without the help of loved ones. The moment a person overcomes death, they overcome themselves. Then we call such a phenomenon a miracle." Daniel tried to portray his own vision of the fight for life as precisely as possible.

"Are you saying that people don't have enough strength and will to fight to overcome death?

" "They don't have enough strength to fight loneliness," he replied curtly as they stopped before an old gate.

The place was surrounded by a high wall, behind which literally nothing could be seen. The figure of the weeping Christ on the arch of the gate might have indicated that they were standing in front of a cemetery. Only Daniel knew this. Sylwia was well aware that she had never seen this place before, making it clear with meticulous movements of her head. The boy still held the girl's hand and then led her through the gate. On the other side of the gate, the repulsive sight of hundreds of graves met their eyes. All were overgrown with tall grass, barely visible. Here and there, graves were adorned with glowing lanterns, not altering the image of a forgotten, long-unvisited cemetery.

The boy took the girl's hand again. They stopped at one of the most well-kept graves. Daniel's father's name and surname were inscribed on its top.

"When I stood by my mother's grave, I couldn't hold back my tears. You say it's nothing bad. So why do people cry when someone close to them passes away?" she asked, staring at the gleaming tombstone.

"It's not the people; it's the soul that cries," he explained philosophically, not for the first time.

"I don't understand why it hurts so much."

"Perhaps the soul's cry becomes so loud and painful that it loses awareness of the pain it inflicts on the body.

" "Does it make sense?

" "And would life have meaning if it didn't pose difficult questions?

" "I wonder where the boundaries between its birth and its demise blur?" the absorbed girl leaned over the grave, lighting the extinguished lanterns.

"Have you thought about it?" the boy asked in a whisper, rubbing his tired face.

"To be honest, not much. Only now have I realized there are so many things I've never thought about or mentioned."

"Perhaps life is born when its desire is so great that it exceeds the limits of its countenance a hundredfold." Daniel proved once again that his world of rules was perfectly ordered. He never questioned this and never tried to change it.

"The limits of what?" she suggested, fanning the flame into the light.

"His beings.

" "Who are these beings? Those who so desperately desire this cruel life?"

"Perhaps they are immaterial beings, for whom sweetness and pleasure no longer bring the satisfaction of savoring them? Or perhaps it is simply us humans, who are reborn? The hope that lives within us ensures that even the worst existence can be the best.

" "If life is such a tremendous gift for us humans, why do you speak of its death as a reward?" Sylvia thought Daniel's words sounded paradoxical, so she tried to straighten them out in her own way.

"Life is death's eternal companion. Their shared journey consists of numerous battles, as a result of which the latter's victory is linked to the former's destruction." The human body, in such a journey, only wins victories, only fails once." The boy turned his gaze to the girl.

She seemed to understand everything, but still didn't hear the answer to his question.

"But why, with death's triumph in mind, do you think about the reward?" she repeated.

"Because I'm not thinking only of myself." Sylwia looked at him in disbelief.

"So it's selfishness?" she asked, just to be sure.

"Yes. When people lose someone close, they only think about the material and moral losses it will bring them.

" "That's not true!" the girl interrupted, resisting firmly.

"No one even thinks about whether someone wanted it or not." Daniel cut Sylwia off. "People despair because they feel abandoned and unwanted.

" "I don't believe it!

" "But it's true, and the truth hurts.

" "It's not true, it's blasphemy," Sylwia firmly denied, taking small steps back.

"It's a sentence!" the boy shouted, watching the frightened girl. "Can't you see that?" "This time, more gently. I come to this place every day and I've never seen anyone alive here. Look. Sadness and oblivion have enveloped this place. People don't want to remember what they've lost.

" "It's not up to you to pass judgment." This time, Sylwia tried to bring the exchange back to a pleasant and peaceful one.

"And who?

" "God.

" "You said you didn't believe in Him."

Suddenly, silence fell. Daniel and Sylwia stood at the entrance to the cemetery. Increasingly strong gusts of wind ruffled the girl's hair. The girl, trying to brush it back, looked directly into the boy's eyes. A gray sky had settled over the cemetery. Bare columns of trees looked gloomily at the quiet.

Sylwia had long resisted psychological and skillful attempts to convince her that the world engulfing her wouldn't be better until she decided to change it. The boy tried to soothe the agony that awaited her if she didn't decide to try to repair the reality around her.

"Good," Sylwia said. "You succeeded. I was wrong. Maybe someone up there is trying to help me." The girl overcame her anger.

"Believe me," he said, grabbing her shoulders. "Death for a tired body is a blissful sleep from which it doesn't necessarily want to wake up. We associate it solely with pain, suffering, regret, and sadness. It is we who want things differently. Our needs seem to be more important, and that's why we are selfish," he said, referring to the previous sentences.

"And you? Do you only think about yourself? Or is your credo so perfect that it prevents you from succumbing to what you claim are stereotypes."

"My life is soft ground, so don't enter it if you can't handle the challenge of staying there." Daniel made it clear he had no intention of talking about himself.

He never did, anyway. Especially after his father's death.

"Answer me," Sylwia's voice was pleading.

"Yes. That's what you wanted to hear. I'm not perfect. I also have moments of doubt," he admitted with disgust, spreading his hands.

Daniel turned his face away. The girl was beginning to take the initiative. The boy, despite his best efforts, seemed to be losing to himself. The conversation dragged on, and dark clouds enveloped the cemetery. Glowing lanterns flared, creating a unique sight. The bent lantern next to them stood unlit. Sylwia moved toward the exit. Daniel heard the rustle of grass, then turned to join the girl.

"Why are you lecturing me?" Sylwia asked again the difficult question. "You preach moral warnings and principles, yet you don't follow them yourself," she added.

"First of all, you asked me to," he said, counting on his fingers. "Secondly, I also lost a parent.

" "You're driving the nail into the coffin!" The girl skillfully exploited his own words.

"The force of life isn't always strong. We, too, will lose the will to fight someday." The boy also used his charismatic abilities impeccably.

"And then what?

" "We'll fall into a blissful sleep," he replied.

"Just like that?

" "What can I tell you?"

"Do you think life is just a constant journey toward destruction?" Sylwia began her monologue. "After all, human existence isn't limited solely to pessimistic reflections on death. People have their own goals and dreams, which they surely try to realize with passion and determination," the girl continued. "Everything we do is a path we shouldn't give up on. Life is no exception. Is everything short-lived elusive?

" "Indeed.

" "I don't understand you." The girl couldn't gather her thoughts.

Meanwhile, they both stopped again in front of the abandoned park. The gate at its entrance still stood forgotten.

"When we entered this park, you said you didn't believe in God," the boy said, directing his gaze to the leafless trees. "Your entire life was covered in a cloak of shadows, from beneath which there was no hint of light. You said human existence was meaningless, and now you're trying to convince me to change." Sylwia didn't even try to interrupt Daniel, staring at him as if into a bottomless mirror. "Your own world was surrounded by an iron railing that no one could penetrate. Now you're searching for a way out yourself." The boy's acumen was incredible.

Stoic calm guided him like an obstacle course. Every solution was a good solution.

"Isn't that what you meant?" she asked after a short pause.

"Yes, but shouldn't you ask yourself that question?

" "Who are you?" she asked again, not answering.

"I already told you. You asked me."

The cautious exchange of glances lasted for a while. Rain began to fall. Small drops fell from the dark sky. Sylwia's eyes were obscured by her lush hair. Water streamed down their faces. They briskly ran into the park, where the density of the trees stopped the drizzle. They stopped at the same spot they'd started. In the middle of the island stood a statue of a boy, reached by an old, decayed bridge. The girl stopped beside the stone figure.

"Who are you exactly?" she asked, as a grimace appeared on the boy's face.

"I don't know why you're asking?" he replied curtly, as it was clear he didn't want to answer.

"Because I want to know. You're wondering why we're actually here. Haven't you considered that we shouldn't be here? I'm standing in the pouring rain with a complete stranger. Isn't that strange?

" "Isn't it?" he asked, astonished.

"Yes," she replied, expecting a response.

"Are you afraid of me?" he asked out of the blue.

"Why do you think that?

" "I told you that fear comes from the unknown. People who don't feel fear aren't human," he explained.

"Do you feel fear?

" "Of course," he replied.

"What are you afraid of?" she asked, curious.

"Myself.

" "I think I should go," she said.

Sylwia headed toward the bridge. She walked slowly and carefully, not looking back. Only when she was at the exit did she look back. There was no one on the island. Only the figure of a boy with a violin in his hands. As she ran out, Sylwia just managed to see the sunlight breaking through the treetops and illuminating the park.