One

"Fuck!

I always get the hands mixed up. The damn alarm clock has four—one for hours, one for minutes, one for seconds, and the alarm—and at six in the morning, they all look the same. When I wake up, I jump out of bed, get up, and go to the shelf, staring sleepily at the dial from twenty centimeters away, trying to figure out which is which. And I don't immediately notice the second hand, because it's dark in front of my eyes and my thoughts are still swimming in the land of blue almonds. For that brief moment after waking, I simply don't think. For a few seconds, I'm suspended between sleep and rage. Because in the morning, I'm always rageful. No matter what time I have to get up—for me, it's always two or three hours too early. I could sleep in some more, get warm under the covers. I lie down so that I snore for six hours at most—at twelve, when I get up for six, at two, as if for eight." And I need eight—no more, no less, because after ten, my head hurts all day, and I'm even angrier than when I don't get enough sleep.

"Fuckingfuckingfuckingfuckingfucking!"

It was seven forty-five, and my classes started at eight fifteen. On weekends at times like that, I'm doubly furious. Saturdays shouldn't even be earlier than nine—the world should simply start at ten. It's the weekend, damn it! And on Sunday, I wake up foaming at the mouth and wanting to murder my professors.

It was Sunday. Seven forty-six.

***

I walked at a quick, jerky pace, cursing under my breath. I had twelve minutes—exactly how long I needed to get to the university. I always left home this way, and every time I made it—just in time. Year five, the same route. Everything seemed fine. This time, however, I didn't manage to eat breakfast. Oh well, I thought, I'll buy a roll from the cafeteria and wash it down with a Coke. There wasn't enough time for anything except getting dressed, brushing my teeth, and shaving quickly. Sometimes I forgot not to shave when I was in a hurry. I cut myself under the nose, and the skin on my neck was cherry red. And I hadn't washed my hair. Horrible, clumpy hairs slid down my forehead and into my eyes. I didn't want to be seen like this. I didn't look too bad, but I didn't like looking, much less being seen, unshaven, unkempt, or sloppy. Basically, I've always tried to look my best. I would never open the door to anyone in my threadbare, worn-out gray sweatpants, and certainly not to acquaintances. No; I'd make them wait at the door and, in a flash, change into elegant, wide-legged black jeans that concealed my skinny calves, comb my hair, and then open the door. Now I was walking, cut, disheveled, in unpolished shoes—sleep-deprived and angry, ready to glare at anyone who dared look at me. But I didn't encounter anyone along the way. On Sundays, at eight in the morning, I'd see at most someone walking their dog. Sometimes a single car. Today, though, no one.

We had classes in the former dormitory building, next to some technical school whose name I hadn't learned for five years, opposite some vocational school—though I wasn't sure what vocational school it was either. I know Tomek, a friend from elementary school, studied there. He was in the fifth grade—the final year—when I started my first year of university. I'd met him a few times. But then I bumped into Lech, a high school friend, coming out of the same building, and he was studying there—and I don't remember what either. Nearby stood the economics technical school, where my brother, Stefan, went, and a bit further on, the university.

I passed the entrance gate from Wojska Polskiego (I liked entering through the gate, not the wicket gate), the fenced-in playing field on the right, and the technical school building. This time, I didn't check which school it was either. I continued walking, past the sparse lawn.

No one was standing on the steps. It was chilly—but usually, even in winter, there was a group of smokers standing on the school threshold, making an unpleasant smell. They always arrived a little early, and even then, they were late, because you can't waste a cigarette—you have to finish it. This time, however, I found no one. Strange.

I was even more surprised when I pulled the door. It made a clattering sound, as it always does when a heavy door opens, but it didn't budge. I just grunted, furrowing my brow, and tugged again. And nothing. I let go. It was locked; I didn't have to check ten times. I peered through the glass door to see if anyone was inside—cleaners, the cloakroom attendant, or the guy at the reception desk. There was no light in the hallway, however, and at this time of day, it was too dark inside to save electricity. There was simply no one.

I sighed heavily and frowned. I turned and scanned the area, looking for anyone coming. No one. The street I'd come from, and the one perpendicular to it, along which I was now looking from the top of the stairs, were empty. Completely empty. No cars. It hadn't immediately caught my eye—I was the kind of person who didn't pay attention to cars, unless I was standing at a crosswalk. I could tell the difference between a Porsche and a toy Porsche, and those lights were one of my first memories. I'd recognize a Ferrari, or a Subaru Impreza—just the cars from video games. And yes, cars were divided into small, medium, and large, as well as a station wagon similar to the Ford Scorpio we once owned. There wasn't a single car in the parking lot. Neither professors nor students arrived.

I decided to wait anyway—fifteen minutes, not a second longer. A full fifteen minutes of academic time—that's how long I was obliged to wait by the door before I returned home, furious and foaming at the mouth, to sleep off the ungodly hour of waking up. I walked slowly, shifting my weight, circling the narrow porch, looking down at my feet, occasionally glancing around to see if anyone was coming. I would have started a car to pass the time—but I never did. Well, once, at the prom—but it didn't make much of an impression on me. Just a scratchy throat—nothing interesting. It never happened to me again. The stench of tobacco smoke made me nauseous. I could almost feel it eating away at my lungs and laying the foundations for cancer. I hated it when anyone smoked near me, especially in closed rooms.

No one came. No one came either. I looked at my watch and left at exactly eight-thirty.

***

When I got home, I only took off my jacket and shoes and went to bed fully dressed. I didn't get under the covers; I collapsed on the bed, wrapped myself in a blanket, and without knowing when I fell asleep. It got dark and warm, and I no longer blamed anyone for getting up early after a lazy day and needlessly going to school. I was even grateful there were no classes. I was sleepy.

I got about two hours of sleep, because when I finally woke up, it was almost eleven. I rested a bit, got some sleep, but I was terribly hot under the blanket, and my clothes were sticking to my skin. I sat on the bed, my elbows on my knees, my face on my fists, and wondered what to do. Instinctively, I looked to my left, at the desk where the monitor and modem stood. But my computer was being repaired. Something was bugging me, the computer was acting up, working as it pleased—and if it didn't, it would freeze or restart. So I took the thing to the repair shop on Serbinowska Street, eight minutes away—and waited. It was supposed to be ready for pickup in two weeks. For now, however, the shelf under the desk was empty, and I had to find other things to do. I wasn't bored anyway. In college, there's usually no time for lazing around, thinking, and certainly not boredom. I was busy five days a week and every other weekend. Ah, the joys of being a dual student. Luckily, one school was twelve minutes from home, the other eighteen, so the biggest challenge was dragging myself out of bed and getting used to a twelve-day work week. Ah, the last year of this system – the daytime commute was just starting, but I'd be finishing my part-time studies in a few months. And after the holidays, all weekends until the end of time would be mine.

I got up. I was hungry, so I had to eat something – especially since I'd missed breakfast. I pulled a bowl from the shelf, poured myself some milk from the carton I'd taken out of the fridge that morning to at least have a drink before leaving, and poured some cereal. I didn't like eating. I mean, I liked the taste of food, and at the end, I wanted a full stomach – but everything in between made me nervous. Chewing, chewing, swallowing – it was tiring and time-consuming. That's why I often ate cereal with milk – it was tasty and quick to prepare and eat. Pour, pour, munch.

When I finished eating, I shoved the cereal bag back on the shelf where it belonged. In the first room, I had furniture like the Kiepscys—the ones from the TV series; I noticed it in the opening credits. I put the milk back in the fridge—it didn't work anyway. The apartment was rented, not mine, and the fridge didn't belong to me. So when I opened it one day and the light wasn't on, I didn't ask. Besides, I only bought four yogurts at a time and a two-liter juice. I lived alone, but next door was my grandmother and grandfather, my father's parents, and my godfather, who owned my apartment.

I wanted to do the breakfast dishes and wash two dirty glasses and cutlery—but when I turned on the hot water, nothing came out. I tried running cold water—but that didn't work either. Besides, the light on the water heater—which was plugged in—wasn't on. I thought it was broken—but when I flipped the light switch, the light bulb above the bathroom door didn't come on either. This surprised me. Power and water outages at the same time?

I went to ask my grandfather if they were there too. I tried the doorknob, but it was locked. When I rang the doorbell, it also remained silent. I knocked—several times—but for two minutes, no one came to the door. I retreated to the apartment. I checked through the window to see if they were in the garden. No one. All that was left was to wait. If it was a power outage, it would be a while before they fixed it. If the traffic jams were gone, I still had to wait for my grandfather. He had the key to the mailbox, and he—a retired electrician—could have been messing around in it. I couldn't call the power company—the phone was network-dependent, so it didn't work either.

I had to do something else until they fixed the outages.

I didn't even think about the computer. The reflex of reaching for the shelf under my desk disappeared a few days after I dropped it off for service. It was replaced by an almost involuntary flick of the television. This time, it didn't respond to the remote control. The stereo in the bedroom was just as dead. I didn't even bother pressing it, checking; the red light next to the network button wasn't lit. So I decided to read. On the bedroom table lay a hefty tome – the third installment of a science fiction trilogy about the colonization of Mars. I'd bought it back in high school, after reading the second volume – a solid seven hundred pages; heavy, but compelling. Then I bought the first volume and read part of it before I became completely absorbed in preparing for my final exams. It sat there for four and a half years until I picked it up after passing my fourth-year exams. Despite myself, I plowed through the whole thing. I don't know, some obsession with reading everything I bought. It was difficult considering my ability to focus on one thing for about fifteen seconds. I'd start doing something specific, and then a moment later I'd get up and go get a handful of cereal to munch on, turn on some music, or watch TV. I've also had phases when I could spend a solid eight hours on one thing without a break, and even when I had to leave, my mind was constantly on the task. In the heat of the moment, I'd forget about food; I'd stop thinking about the world. But with this book, I simply couldn't get going. My thoughts would wander off into completely different directions after just a few lines, and after half an hour, I'd find myself stuck on the same page. This time, however, I persisted and, without taking my eyes off the page, read with great effort about forty pages. When I looked at my watch, I realized I'd wasted an inhuman amount of time. It was three-thirty.

We still had no power or water. I went back to check if Grandma and Grandpa were home. As I frantically tugged on the doorknob, knocking repeatedly, I remembered they were supposed to be going to a funeral. They were just supposed to leave me the key so I could make dinner. So I went back to the apartment and started looking for where they could have left the keys. A table? Nope. A couch? No. An armchair? No. A TV? No. A pouffe by the door? A sideboard? By the kitchen sink? I couldn't find them anywhere. I shrugged and decided I'd have strawberry yogurt for dinner, but I wouldn't drink tea with it because I had no power or any way to boil water without an electric kettle.

There was no water or electricity until late in the evening. I did my final revisions for Monday's classes by candlelight. I had one—a thin, white one, stuck in a tacky wooden candlestick. I memorized German vocabulary in the quivering glow of the orange flame. I went to bed around nine, when it had already gotten dark. That was early for me, but what else was there to do when you couldn't turn on the lights, listen to music, or play on the computer? As I drifted off to sleep, a strange thought crossed my mind: that for just one day, the world had stopped working. I chuckled to myself at the thought, then fell asleep.

***

I woke up at a quarter to seven—with a comfortable margin for doing everything at a snail's pace before I woke up and my numb body began to function normally. So I could put on one sock for five minutes and doze off in front of the mirror, brushing my teeth. I got a sleep like I rarely do. My mood soured almost immediately, however, because when I went to the bathroom, I discovered there was still no water. But I had to at least brush my teeth. I spat on my toothbrush and applied toothpaste. I scrubbed, polished, lengthwise, widthwise, heightwise, and depthwise, then—for lack of anything more appropriate—rinsed my mouth with milk.

"McGyver..." I snorted into the mirror, wiping my lips.

Imagine my surprise when, at seven o'clock, I found no one in the apartment next door. How long could the funeral last? No exaggeration! I stared at the closed door, ruffling my brows. I was starting to worry. Had something happened to them? I had no way of finding out, because I neither knew where they were nor the phone was working; the power was still out. I knocked on the door of the neighbors in apartment number one, but no one answered there either. I thought—only after a moment, though—that they were asleep and it would be foolish of me to wake them. I quietly

retreated into the apartment.

I left at seven thirty-five. I only needed eighteen minutes to get there, but since I was practically ready to leave at seven, having brushed my teeth and eaten breakfast, I could lie down for a while and then leave a little earlier so I wouldn't have to rush to school with my tongue hanging out. I wouldn't have gone at all because I looked even worse than yesterday—greasey hair again, a wasted face—and I didn't want to be seen by anyone, but unfortunately, my absences were exhausted, and I had to show up for the first class. It didn't matter that I had a doctor's note for both missed hours. One absence got you branded like a bandit, and two got you threatened with trouble. The school charged you by the hour, and I don't think anyone in this place ever heard of the rector's day. Every minute wasted had to be made up at a later date—and there were no mercy. Probably, even if the world were ending, classes would be held in full, and even if not, we'd make up for it someday before or after the momentous event.

As I continued walking down Serbinowska Street—because the road to school was as straight as a police baton—I didn't see any of the food court kids—either rushing to school or later standing in front of the building, right next to the repair shop where my computer was. This didn't worry me much—groups of young people larger than one terrified me. I shrugged and continued on. At the intersection with Dolnośląska Street, the usual guy from the food court, who looked like a pre-war money changer, didn't pass me. I didn't have to stop in the crosswalks—not a single car was passing. Absolutely nothing was happening on the four lanes. Looking up the street, toward the Water Tower, I frowned, feeling a strange unease.

I continued walking. I passed the market. It was empty. No one was selling anything, no one was buying. The shops were closed, and not even stray dogs were wandering around. The market square was deserted. As I tottered through the park, I didn't notice anyone walking or sitting on a bench—neither near the path I was taking nor on the horizon. I just shook my head and continued on, driven by the conviction that even if the world fell apart, classes would still go on.

***

I yanked on the door like a madman. And it wouldn't open. And I didn't want to believe what I was seeing—or rather, what I wasn't seeing. The parking lot was empty. At 8:00, there was no one in the schoolyard, and the entrance door was locked. I glanced at my watch; I reflexively wound it, thinking it might have stopped—but I wound it automatically, every five minutes or so.

I wandered around in front of the building, peering in through the windows. I couldn't see a soul. I was freezing. I was wearing a denim jacket, but it was chilly, and my hands were numb, and my face was freezing. In the chill, it slowly, very slowly dawned on me that something terrible had happened. That all the strange things that had happened to me since yesterday were combining into a terrifying whole. No classes on Sunday, no classes today. Zero cars at the university, empty park. Grandma and Grandpa's absence, silence at the neighbors' house. All of this had a single cause, one that was only slowly seeping into my consciousness, breaking through the wall of disbelief.

I stepped onto Kordeckiego Street and turned left. I walked, looking around, disbelieving.

"Help!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "Help!"

A police station stood a few dozen meters away.

"Fire!" I yelled, my throat tightening.

Only the echo of my own scream answered me.

I walked a little further in that direction. I picked up a cracked piece of paving stone and approached a car parked across from the police station. I threw the stone I was holding at the window. The alarm echoed throughout the neighborhood. I stood by the car, my arms limply at my sides, looking hopefully at the police station entrance, hoping someone would come and pick me up.

And nothing.

With a jolt of horror, I finally understood. There was no one there. The city was empty, and I was completely alone. The car

alarm

with the broken window wailed and wailed. I could hear it at the other end of the park. The echo carried well across the completely empty spaces. An unbearable, piercing whistle. It pierced my ears—but didn't reach me. All I could hear was my own shallow, rattling breath. Blood roared through my skull, and each step I took reverberated in my head like a meteorite impact. My thoughts were spinning like crazy, and I was spinning around like an ant with its antennae ripped off. I knew for sure that something terrible had happened—but I kept resisting. I looked around nervously, hoping to find something, to spot something that would prove me wrong, that all was not so bad. Like the stork in "Sexmission." But as I walked down the short, small street by the park, I banged on every door, pounded on the windows, shouted—and no one opened, no one yelled at me. And the intercoms weren't working. I didn't see my stork.

In the park, on any of the trees, I didn't spot a single bird.

Just yesterday, I'd loved this place. It was desolate, yet beautiful. Full of greenery, trees, and two ponds, one on either side of the path I took to school every day. This stretch of road had always been the most pleasant. But now, it was this park that terrified me the most. Spinning like a top in the middle of nowhere, I felt a keen sense of overwhelming emptiness. It overwhelmed me, crushed me, filled me, and burst me from the inside—the painful awareness that there was no one there, that I was alone. The nothingness made itself felt in all its splendor; with my own eyes, I saw only the empty park, but I felt the vast expanses, the highlands, the lowlands, the canyons, and the cities—all empty, dead, uninhabited. Suddenly, the park seemed so infinitely small in comparison to the immense emptiness. It sagged beneath it. I felt as if it were about to crumble, and the nothingness would swallow it, and me with it.

I started to run. My eyes darted. My breath ragged. My blood throbbed. My thoughts raced. I ran, my gaze fixed on the ground—anything but the windows where no one lived, or the white, empty sky. On the sidewalks, in the streets, I searched with trembling eyes, not for people, but for even a trace. Because, after all, they hadn't all just vanished. Something must have happened—something I'd overlooked, missed, overslept. But what? What could have meticulously wiped out the entire city and spared me? An epidemic? Radiation? I may not be sickly, but damn, I could feel it! After a whole day, I'd be coughing up my own lungs and losing my hair if something had been hanging in the air! War? No, the city was still intact and intact. I saw no explosion craters in the streets, not a drop of blood. Simply nothing! It was clean and empty. Terrifying. I passed apartment buildings where no one lived anymore, and parked cars that no one would ever drive to work. My footsteps thudded, bouncing off the gray walls, returning to me, amplified and multiplied by the echo. I was fleeing the emptiness and silence. I felt like I was running on the moon. I couldn't breathe, my legs were slipping away from me—as if there were no atmosphere, no gravity. Cold shivers shook me—as if I were floating naked in an icy, cosmic void. The city was inhuman, otherworldly, unreal. Black and white, blurred—like the lunar landscape from that memorable report from 1969. And just as dead and alien.

I ran into the hallway of my house and bumped into the door. With a trembling hand, I pulled the key from my pocket and, after several tries, pushed it into the lock and turned it. I slipped inside, slammed the door behind me, and locked it. I slumped against the door, slid down, and sat on the mat. My head dropped to my knees. I couldn't think. Everything was drowned out by the roar of blood in my ears and my rasping, hectic breathing. In this confusion, my frantic thought processes became lost, tangled, and finally stopped altogether. I simply shut down.

***

I woke up. I began to see, hear, feel, and think again. I was sitting in a dark hallway—one meter by two meters. Straight ahead was the bathroom, to the left the door to the room, to the right the kitchen, and behind me, the front door, against which I leaned my back. I didn't get up. I stared at the wooden toilet door, trying to gather my thoughts. But I could only focus on what I saw, felt, or heard. A tall, light-wood door, glassed at the top. Colorful windows, yellow and burgundy. Cold. The hard, rustling doormat beneath my backside. And nothing else. Silence. Complete, oppressive silence. I couldn't hear my own breathing or heartbeat. Nothing. Silence—increasingly distinct, more oppressive. My frozen eardrums were so desperate for any kind of stimulation that they reacted to the slightest turbulence in the air, and I heard them as sounds—tiny, barely audible, but real; whistling.

And I don't know if I was imagining it or if I really heard it, but I thought I heard some repetitive, pulsating, high-pitched note. I bulged my eyes, as if trying to spot it; a strange reflex that probably arose from the fact that even if I wanted to prick my ears, I wouldn't know how. I didn't even move. I listened intently to the silence, trying to pinpoint the strange sound; to see if I was really hearing something.

...bim...bim...bim...bim...bim...bim...

Something was there—somewhere outside. I jumped to my feet, unlocked the door, and stepped out into the hallway. I anxiously peeked my head over the threshold.

...bim...bim...bim...bim...bim...bim...

The sound was coming from somewhere directly in front of me. On the opposite side stood a house identical to the one I lived in. As I crossed the street and approached it, the sound became clearer—but it wasn't coming from inside. It was something behind it. So I walked around the building to the right to peer behind it—but the strange, repetitive note was coming from somewhere else. I continued down a narrow street—South Street—past a school I'd been to a few times for elections. Nearby stood an old elementary school. As I walked toward it, I heard the sound growing louder—though it was still hard to tell what it was.

Bim. Bim. Bim. Bim. Bim.

Further down the street adjacent to the school—Ludowa Street, as I noticed from the sign on the building; I swear, this was the first time I'd heard that name—I spotted a blue, dwarf car parked crookedly on the left. As I approached, I noticed an open door. The sound was a warning signal, signaling a door ajar. The engine was off, but when I looked inside, I discovered the key was in the ignition. Without even thinking, I got in and closed the door to silence the humming.

I turned the key in the ignition and the car started. It was the first thing in two days that had worked. I leaned back in my seat and for a moment simply enjoyed the sound of the engine and the vibrations of the interior.

Something tempted me to turn on the radio. I did it mindlessly, like a kid blindly pressing a button. But once I did, I decided I'd really like to listen to something—someone talking, or singing, or playing music. But only static came from the speakers. Stereophonic, loud static—and nothing else. I started searching for other frequencies, but I scanned the entire range and couldn't hear anything that wasn't homogenous static. Not a single word, not a single note of music.

I turned off the radio, irritated. I turned off the engine, climbed out of the car, and slammed the door.

I started laughing. A hollow laughter washed over me. Hollow, loud, and insane. I began to stagger down the street like a drug addict, unable to stifle or contain my laughter. It boomed in the empty alley and echoed across the city, the country, the world. Because echoes travel best in empty spaces.

***

Sometimes it takes a while before you truly understand certain things. Like some jokes—when someone tells it, you don't know what it's about at first, then you smile to avoid upsetting anyone, and then you burst out laughing after about fifteen minutes when you finally get it. And then a complex joke turns out to be hilarious. But that's how it is, the sheer volume of information affects your clarity of thought; like a large bite lodged in your throat, making you choke and choke. And for that long moment, it's as if he wasn't thinking at all. The gravity of the situation doesn't sink in. Only when he coughs out something or swallows a huge lump does he realize how serious and final a situation he's touched. The symptom itself turns out to be nothing when you realize the complications.

When I got home, the thought occurred to me to call my mom and say I'd drop by because there were no classes.

I stopped mid-step, remembering that I couldn't take the bus since no one was around.

Then, on the kitchen threshold, heading for the phone, I realized: I wouldn't go to my parents', not because there were no buses, but because my parents were gone. My mom, dad, or sister weren't there. Grandma and grandpa wouldn't come home from the funeral. My neighbor wouldn't get out of bed and open the door for me. I wouldn't wake up his two kids by knocking. I wouldn't buy juice and four yogurts from the lady at the corner shop. I wouldn't meet Tomek, Lech, Adam upstairs, or Jarek across the street. I wouldn't run into the pre-war money changer on the way to school. Hanka wouldn't take me out for a beer anymore, even if I wanted to. I won't visit Stefan, I won't invite Jola over for tea. I won't run into Kaśka while rushing somewhere. I won't exchange a school smile with anyone, a quick hello.

Family, friends, acquaintances—they're gone.

Strangers—faces seen sometimes every day—the same.

Taxi drivers. Saleswomen at the Empik store. None of them are there anymore.

There's only me. I'm the only one alive—and I have to live with their absence.

When our dachshund died two years ago—seven years old, not that old, just cancer—when I found out, I walked around for a moment as if someone had slapped me. Only when I sat down did it hit me—just a few minutes ago she was there, now she's gone. And I cried, as did the whole family. A while later, we bought a new dog, and he was exactly like the one that died. Or maybe he wasn't—but I got it into my head that he was; that it was as if the other one had never left. And I don't know if it's good or bad that we've come to love the new one like the old one, or "as" the other one. I don't know. But it helps when you can transfer your feelings from emptiness to something else; To replace something that's gone with something else—and to enjoy it. It wasn't easy—the grief over the old dachshund hadn't passed so quickly, and at first I resisted loving a new dog. Sometimes, while still holding the tiny puppy with its teeth erupting, I wondered, and at the same time, was afraid to think, what it would be like if someone close to me left—so suddenly, without saying goodbye. Now everyone I'd ever loved, liked, or even known was gone in an instant, and by the time I realized it, they were long gone. Countless people, more or less permanently anchored in my heart. And someone, or something, had taken them all away in an instant. Hundreds of anchors were ripped from my heart, tearing it to pieces. There was no one—no one I felt anything for, and no one I could pour those feelings into, to even slightly ease the pain. I was alone. I had only a million vivid memories of everyone—and now each one only hurt. All that remained was grief.

When our little dog died, I cried and then ran my nose all evening. My eyes stung whenever I looked out the window at the tree where my father had buried him. A searing feeling of bitterness stayed with me for months. After realizing that March day that I would never see a familiar face again, I howled like a dog until I lost my

voice completely. I was blinded by tears.

I woke up. I blinked a few times, as if in a completely unfamiliar place, trying to figure out where I was. I was sitting on the couch. I don't even know when I sat down. I don't remember. I snapped out of a trance. My face was streaked with dried, salty tears; my blouse was wet, and I felt weak and stiff. I could barely move. I don't even know how long I sat there. It was light. So maybe only a few hours, maybe a day, maybe two. It's hard to say. I simply shut down completely. I wasn't there—I don't know how long. And when I woke up—just like that, I started seeing, thinking, and feeling anything—I felt empty. Emotionless. Woody, hollow inside like a bamboo stick. And hungry.

As I devoured the last yogurt left in the fridge, I kept replaying what had happened. The haunting image of emptiness and the awareness of loneliness were seared into my mind. What surprised me, however, was that beyond that... I remembered nothing. I'd cried a sea of ​​tears for my family and friends—and now I couldn't even think about any of them. Memories of conversations, faces, voices—escaped me. They slipped away. I felt no sadness. Nothing. No emotions. I'd experienced a lethal dose of them, after which I recovered—and I was immune. I had no feelings, and I refused to let them get to me.

***

I'd run out of milk and juice. There was no tap water, and it would stay that way—and I was drying out. So I left as I was—in my sweatpants and flip-flops—and went to the corner shop. It was closed—of course. I stood for a moment in front of the glass door, peering inside. Then I focused on the glass separating me from the interior. I frowned. I looked at the door as if it were an insurmountable obstacle—because if it was closed, I couldn't get in. After a moment, I snorted to myself, realizing how naive I had been. Because I felt confined by the most ordinary door. I realized I'd never tried to enter through a closed door before—because it wasn't proper. Because I was worried about what someone would think of me. But since no one was watching, and no one could find out, because no one was there—I was going to go in and not be embarrassed.

I looked around for something sharp and heavy. With some effort, I dug a whole slab out of the sidewalk. I walked to the door, took a swing, holding the slab in both hands, and hurled it at the glass, taking a few steps back. I covered my ears and turned as the weight crashed through the glass, shattering it into tiny pieces, hitting it flat against the surface. Finally, after a long moment, I turned to survey the destruction. I was surprised I'd done it, though I hadn't hesitated for a second. I slowly approached the gaping hole in the door, riddled with sharp pieces of glass, and peered in. I glanced at the floor—it was strewn with splinters.

I carefully examined the window frame, trying not to put my hand where I might cut myself. I grabbed it with both hands, rested the flap on the bottom edge, and with the other, lifted it over it and stepped inside. For a moment, I stood there, stunned, as if in an unfamiliar place. It was dark and silent. Strange and unnatural. I shuddered. Only after a moment did I begin to look around for what I'd come for. The two-liter apple juice was where it always was—high on the shelf to the left. I reached for it with one hand, carefully sliding it out so as not to knock over the multi-fruit and grapefruit juices standing nearby. I set it on the counter, then peered through the glass at the dairy aisle. As for the milk, I could drink whatever came to hand, but among the yogurts, I had my favorites—they changed every now and then. I simply ate one or two kinds until I was disgusted, and when I finally got sick of it and was so bored with it that even the smell made me gag, I tried another, and stuck with it, never to buy the old one again. I walked around the counter, opened the glass shelf, and grabbed one milk and one yogurt. I returned to the counter, set it next to the juice, and reached for the bag to put it all away.

When I left, I left the seven złoty I owed on the counter.

***

When I returned the next day for another yogurt, I didn't leave a penny on the counter. And I pocketed the seven złoty I'd left there yesterday. However, while looking for strawberry yogurt, I decided why not try a chocolate dessert, or rice pudding with cherries. I hadn't had kefir in a long time, and I liked it. I also didn't disdain homogenized cheeses. I also grabbed a few bags of cookies: butter cookies, brownies, sponge cakes, and chocolate chip cookies. I got carried away, grabbing whatever I could find. I came to my senses when I started packing bags full of raw vegetables I wouldn't have touched anyway. I returned home with several bags bursting at the seams.

For breakfast, I ate yogurt with chocolate chips. I was so full that I didn't rush through lunch—and when I finally did, I only munched on a couple of chocolate chip cookies. I forgot about dinner altogether. But I relished these meals like never before. Usually, I ate quickly, just to fill up, and when I wasn't hungry, so they wouldn't yell at me for not eating—and I'd go back to my work, tormented by nausea. Only occasionally was eating a pleasure. I loved pizza, spaghetti, lasagna, and rice—though I wouldn't cram more into my stomach than usual. But those were rare. And between quick breakfasts, fatty lunches, and hearty dinners, sometimes I could barely fit a single yogurt. And now it could be my breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Since all my meals were sweet, fruity, or chocolatey, I was even ready to accept the institution of second breakfast, second course, or afternoon snack. I even began to enjoy that feeling of satiety—food churning in my stomach.

All this overindulgence made me lazy. For several days, I did practically nothing but roll from one place to another. From bed to couch, couch to armchair, and back again. I fell asleep when the blinds darkened the room, and woke up when it was light. The entire day between sunrise and sunset was spent in sweet idleness. I didn't even bother to clear away the plastic yogurt cups that were piled on the table. They piled up in heaps, sliding and scattering across the floor. I'd misplaced my spoon somewhere under it. I also cared only enough to not get hungry. I deemed shaving unnecessary, and after a week, my greasy hair stopped bothering me completely. My belly was growing, and I felt remarkably good about it.

***

When I felt vomit rising in my throat, I had the presence of mind to cup my hands. In an instant, I felt strange—dizziness, heat—and a moment later, I was pouting into my begging hands. I slid off the chair and, on weak, stiff legs, ran to the toilet, constricting my throat before finally, with relief, vomiting everything onto the floor between the sink and the toilet. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and wiped my palm on my sweatpants. I returned to my room and began scanning the table for the culprit. I scanned the expiration dates on the yogurts. Then I realized I didn't know what day it was anyway. I'd lost track of time. It might still be March, or maybe already April. Either way, I wouldn't be able to pinpoint what was wrong with me unless a colony of mold jumped out of a yogurt container and punched me in the face. So, as a precaution, I gave up dairy and switched to cookies.

I wanted to wash down the cookies with juice, but when, along with the cherry liquid, greenish-white moldy flakes splashed into the glass, I suddenly lost the urge.

I decided I had to leave. It wasn't that I was overcome with an overwhelming urge to go for a walk. No—I simply wanted to go and get something to drink that wouldn't spoil in a few days. I'd already completely ransacked the corner store and the old "Społem" across the street. I thought for a moment where to go next. After some thought, I decided to go to the nearest hypermarket. For some soda.

I dressed up for the occasion. I changed into worn jeans, changed my shirt, put on socks and sneakers. Hypermarkets were always like going to Sunday Mass—elegantly, with the whole family, if you had one. So I dressed up, more or less, and went shopping.

***

United States Street—sloping gently in the direction I was walking—was deserted in its entirety. Dead and gray under a cloudy, white sky. A four-lane highway—and not a single car in sight. The vast expanse I could encompass from this vantage point only accentuated this emptiness. My every step, every breath echoed. But strangely, I didn't feel stifled. No. The loneliness in the middle of a dead city didn't overwhelm me, didn't fill me with fear. It didn't oppress me. In fact, it began to answer me. When I first sensed the ubiquitous nothingness that day, I felt abjectly small in comparison. It weighed on me like the pressure of a thousand atmospheres. Now the nothingness was just undeveloped space—a void in which I seemed to grow, expand. The street was mine, mine alone.

I walked lazily, on the left side, staggering, slaloming along the solid line separating the lanes. The traffic lights were dead, and I could do whatever I wanted on the street without fear of being hit or run over. I could practice my pirouettes on the main street without embarrassment, or pretend I could sing. I had a beautiful bass—though not vocally trained. I could join choir if I wanted, and once, in high school, a friend tried to drag me into one, but I refused. But I always wanted to have a sharp vocal for heavy, guitar-based music. Except I never dared try. My throat was so thick that if I screamed loud enough, you could hear me for a mile. And I'd spent my whole life trying to be inconspicuous, neither visible nor audible. It's a bit difficult when you're nearly two meters tall, so I tried to at least tactfully maintain relative silence.

Standing with my legs spread apart over a solid line, I raised my arms, clenched my fists, and screamed as loudly as I could.

I cleared my throat. I was pleased to find that my voice was decent. I would have started a band if I had someone to play with.

***

The building that now occupied the hypermarket had stood in this spot, at the intersection of Wojska Polskiego and Kościuszki Streets, for as long as I can remember. It used to be "Bursztyn"—also a sort of market, but smaller and more modest. People came here more on special occasions, for more expensive purchases. There were Barbie dolls here, which my then-three-year-old sister pestered our parents about whenever a new model appeared—and there was one every time we went to Bursztynek. Barbie the cook. Barbie the safari. Barbie the floozy. Just like in hypermarkets now, you wandered through the labyrinths of shelves and stands selling toys and other things. There was also the old Centrum Department Stores, but I don't think I'd ever been there as a kid. I only saw the logo occasionally, and for some reason, it terrified me. It had a bad connotation. A hiccup after a recurring dream. Or maybe it was just because it was awful? I used to go to Pewex stores, but that was rare now. Back when dollars were available. The Pewex on Dolnośląska Street always held fond memories for me – with Lego bricks, every kid's dream. Oh, the memories... And now... I don't even remember when Bursztyn disappeared, replaced by a foreign-owned hypermarket, crammed to the brim with cheap products. The

automatic doors didn't open when I approached them. But they weren't locked. They stood still, ajar enough for me to easily enter sideways.

The interior – a maze of shelves – looked strange, shrouded in semi-darkness. White halogen lights used to shine all day – to make what they sold seem healthy and tasty, or to blind customers enough to buy anything they could. Even though I passed by there quite often, I'd only been here once before. Buy sixty-watt light bulbs with narrow threads. Meat, unlit and left on shelves for weeks, rotted, giving off a sickly stench. Eggs and bread spoiled.

I had a few loose change in my pocket. I found the złoty I needed to unclip the cart from its chain. I pushed the coin into the hole on the handle, and the lock released. I pulled the cart out, accompanied by a considerable clatter, intensified by the omnipresent silence, and set off shopping. Walking slowly, examining the dimly lit shelves, I grabbed cereal from this one, then another, then soda (there was one that boasted a one-year shelf life despite the lack of preservatives), then crispbread, which I liked to snack on because it wasn't fattening—though probably not in the quantities I usually devour. As I passed the mineral water shelf, I grabbed ten one-liter bottles at once; on the way back, I put down the orange soda. I grabbed an entire ten-pack of toilet paper from the shelf. At each turn, I twirled the cart like a figure skater swinging his partner in a dance. I've always loved fooling around like this, especially with shopping carts. I'd always wanted to hang onto one and zip around the store—but it wasn't appropriate, because people would be watching, or I might bump into someone, and what would that be?

I stood on the cart's axle, leaned my hips against the handle, and grabbed the sides of the basket with my hands, weaving my fingers between the metal bars. I pushed off, then off again, and sped down the shaded aisle. I braked, turned the cart around, spinning it around, and drove back down the same aisle. At the end, I slowed, spun, and entered the next one. I gained speed, gripped tightly, and so I sped to the end of the aisle. I closed my eyes.

When I opened them, I was heading straight for the beverage section. I just managed to jump off. The speeding cart crashed into the shelf, and one by one, plastic bottles tumbled to the floor like bowling pins.

I pushed the cart away and grabbed two bottles to put them back on the shelves. Once I had them set down, I bent down to grab another.

Then I realized: I don't have to! No one would scold me for this. There was no one who could possibly object. There was absolutely no one in the whole world. I liked the thought, and with some satisfaction, I left the bottles scattered on the ground. Then I ran along the shelves, stretching out my right arm, knocking everything off them. I ran down the aisle, sweeping the goods from each shelf onto the floor. On the next shelf, I did the same—left and right. I ran, leaping between packages of sliced ​​bread and cartons of milk, pirouetting, laughing, grabbing whatever I could and throwing it to the ground or to neighboring shelves, watching it crack, crumble, spill, or break. I kicked, threw, and jumped over the packages, boxes, and bottles lying on the ground.

When I got tired from all the running around, I went to get a cart and headed for the exit. I grabbed a few lighters along the way.

The stroller wouldn't fit through the door. So I climbed in between them and, like a biblical Samson, with an inhuman effort, opened it enough for me to safely exit. I wheeled the stroller outside. I grabbed a bottle of mineral water, unscrewed it, and took a long swig. Then I poured some on my face.

***

Until then, whenever I'd ventured a few steps away from home, for a few minutes at most, I'd noticed nothing unusual about the house upon returning. I hadn't had time to unleash its dark atmosphere—and I'd already returned. However, when I'd been gone for two hours, I almost fell upon entering. A heavy, overpowering stench hit me—the stench of sweat, stale air, vomit in the toilet, and shit-stained and pissed-on armchairs and sofas. I rushed to the windows, hoping to get some air out. Pulling up the blinds, I had to shield my eyes with my hand. The sun came out. It was on the opposite side, behind the house, but it cast a blinding light over the entire neighborhood. The apartment blocks rising around it, the trees, the sky—they dazzled with their aggressive, bright colors. At first, I turned away from the sight like a devil from holy water.

I fumbled to pull up the blinds, tied them, and opened the balcony door. The invigorating, fresh air enveloped me. I was choking on the peaceful atmosphere, so I inhaled it until my head buzzed. I stood on the balcony threshold, adjusting the curtain that was caught on the edge of one door, and was about to retreat. But no. I pulled the curtain aside and flung open the door. I descended the few steps, stepping over two flowerpots on one, and sprawled comfortably on a bench. The garden was in shade; the sun practically streamed through my bedroom window only in the mornings, and for the rest of the day, it circled the house, casting a long shadow across the beautiful garden just below my windows. It was chilly, but I didn't feel it. I took off my shirt and tossed it on the stairs. I let my gaze drift from the sky to the surrounding area. I stopped at the apartment buildings on my right.

No one was standing on the balcony, watering the flowers, or hanging out the laundry. No one was staring at me. Because no one was there. Involuntarily, I smiled.

For as long as I can remember, I've been gripped by fear. Well, maybe I'm exaggerating—but from a young age, I was afraid. And it wasn't about monsters under the bed or in the closet. No; my fears had a completely material, real cause—humanity. Humanity, with its "norms," ​​low tolerance limits, and insistent need to hurt others just to feel better myself. And I didn't fit the "norms," ​​I didn't fit the limits of tolerance. I felt like I was somehow incomprehensible—people couldn't believe me. But when I saw them looking with the same astonishment at my sun-allergic dad—holy shit, just pimples!—I finally became convinced that I lived on a planet of idiots, in a country of morons, in a city of ostentatious imbeciles. And it bothered me. I started to isolate myself from it. I created a mini Vatican in my apartment—a state within the city from which I rarely left. Home-school-home. Home-kiosk-home. Home-shop-home. And even though I had a beautiful garden—grass, trees, shade—I didn't leave the apartment. At home, I had blinds to cover the windows whenever I turned on the lights. I shut myself off from people, shielding my life from their focused squints.

Now I no longer needed to be afraid, hide, or conceal. I could sit on a bench in front of the house. I could dance around the garden in my underwear. Or without them. I smiled to myself.

I stripped naked.

***

I sat in the garden until late, eating crispbread and drinking mineral water. A few bottles went for a quick bath. I grabbed a towel, shampoo, toothpaste, and soap from the puke-stained bathroom, and outside, I lathered myself up, washed my hair, rinsed my mouth, and then rinsed off all the dirty suds. I changed into clean clothes and spent the rest of the day lying on the grass, snacking and drinking.

When it started to get dark, I decided it was time to head out. Somehow, I didn't particularly want to go home, inhale the stale stench, or even wake up in this perpetually shadowy, cramped house. I decided to spend the evening and night outside. I dragged a blanket and a pillow from the house. The duvet and pillows were sweaty and dirty. The mere sight of them made me nauseous, and as I leaned over them to retrieve a small pillow from the corner of the bed, I almost vomited. I immediately opened the window in my room. Let it air out.

With a blanket draped over my shoulder and a pillow under my arm, I scrambled outside. I stretched out on the grass and, as I had all day, stared at the sky—darkening, filling with stars. Night was falling—black, deep—and millions of suns illuminated it subtly with their modest, millennia-old radiance. The clearer their twisted constellations became to my eyes, the more astonished I was by the sight. It had been a long time—a very long time—since I hadn't gazed at the stars. I'd almost forgotten how beautiful they were. I'd almost lost respect. Night had become merely a sheet obscuring the day; a darkness that inspired fear only because, beneath the cover of darkness, the greatest evil in the world—humans—felt its presence with impunity and license. A darkness that could be quelled, dispelled, by a few lanterns. Living in the city, falling asleep in a cramped room, by a nightlight, separated from the rest of the world by four walls, one forgot how beautiful the night could be. Only when one looked at it in absolute darkness did one perceive its depth; one realized that, in truth, the night never ended or began anywhere. Living on this small planet, one could delude oneself that the most important thing was the day, because the nearest sun shone in our faces, and the sky was blue for half a day; that we were unique and the most important in the cosmos. In truth, we were just a speck, hanging in the vastness of the universe like trillions of others, scattered across infinity, so that each was but a pale dot to every other. The greatest man in the world was, in reality, on a cosmic scale, nobody, because the Earth was nothing. The small, bursting sun would have swallowed him without even noticing him.

This wondrous sight somehow humbled me, yet also soothed me. I felt... centered.

It also grew cold, so I wrapped the blanket tighter around me. But lying there was uncomfortable; I wasn't sleepy. Reflections on the cosmos, on Earth, on myself had fully awakened me and put me in a strange mood. I felt like building a fire and sitting by it, basking in the warmth, like a planet in the sunlight.

I thought for a moment about what to burn. Brushwood? Where could I find brushwood in the city? There was a pear tree, but I didn't intend to split it or set it on fire—it was a good tree, so why bother? Instead, I broke down the fence separating the garden from the street. It was no longer needed. I ripped out the pickets and carried them to a pile at the back of the garden, where there was no grass and the firewood was yet to be found.

I dragged a low chair from the room—wooden, with red fabric upholstery—and set it by a mound of boards. I lit it with a lighter. The upholstery instantly caught fire. Then I added the broken boards and went home to look for anything else suitable for firewood. One by one, I pulled out all the chairs, breaking each one into pieces and adding one stick at a time. The mound of wood grew, and the flames leaped from it higher and wider. They twisted hypnotically, crackling, shooting sparks, and extending orange tongues in all directions. I was strangely captivated by the sight, gazing into the flames, and the warmth radiating from the fire soothed me. I offered them pieces of my home, my life. I added more wood, and when there were no more chairs, I ran home again and returned with an armful of books. I burned my uncle's medical textbooks, Anna Karenina in Russian, old—and outdated—French courses. I threw old notebooks and tons of crumpled photocopies into the fire, collected over five years of study, gathering dust and just taking up space. Then I dug out my favorite computer magazines, collected as a child, which no longer existed, and I hadn't read the ones I had. They just sat there—like so many things in my house, mine and others', crammed together as if in a second-hand bookstore or thrift store. I pulled them off the shelves, took them outside, and threw them on the fire. Finally, I started burning English-Polish, Polish-English, German-Polish, Polish-German dictionaries, Swan and Beza's review books. From the books, I burned something by Lem that I didn't particularly like—and when the fire began to die down, I grabbed everything from the shelves as it came, without privilege or prejudice. My favorites—Koontz, Pratchett, and King—also went into the fire. I burned my own drawings. I hastily and without thinking, added old student IDs, then my student books, my military service book, and finally my ID card. When the fire was dying down anyway, I pulled a burning log from the fire, smoldering at one end like a torch. I went home with it.

I set fire to the curtains in the bedroom and living room. I threw the torch on the bed. I went out and, standing by the tree, watched the mesmerizing work of destruction—flames in the dark windows, illuminating the apartment like a candle inside a carved Halloween pumpkin. Smoke blackened the dirty, gray walls. Fire burning up and down—into the apartments next door and upstairs. Crackling, grinding. Explosions.

I fell asleep under a tree, exhausted, smoke-fueled.

***

I woke up wrapped in a blanket, frozen, numb, and stiff. It was already light. A cool, foggy morning had arrived, and the house had long since gone out. It was charred and completely burned. The apartments were scorched, and the windowpanes were shattered. Shards of glass littered the grass. There wasn't even any smoke anymore. Only the world looked as if I'd sooted it all with that fire. From the garden, I couldn't even see the opposite side of the street. Everything was lost in a thick, ashen fog.

I stood up, pulling the blanket over me like a cloak. I averted my gaze from the burned-out house. I looked at the sad ashes of my entire life, scattered in the extinguished fire.

I left the garden through the gap where the fence had stood only yesterday. I turned back along the worn path to the sidewalk, and before I went as far as my eyes could see. I burned the house down—because I could afford it. I was the master of this planet and could do whatever I wanted, live wherever I wanted. I burned down my house—because it was small and dark. I could have lived in something better—or not lived at all.

I walked forward in the fog. Reality emerged from the grayness almost before my nose, as if from nowhere, and then vanished just behind me, as if it had never been. As if only a fragment of the world within a twenty-meter radius of me truly existed. The rest was only temporary. It faded into nothingness or emerged from nothingness—first a vague outline, and only then, right in front of me, any color; something real and tangible. I pressed forward more to see if—or perhaps simply: when—the world would end, and nothing would emerge from the fog, and the ground would give way beneath my feet, than to get anywhere. Simply forward. I didn't look back, and I didn't yet see what awaited me. I didn't want to think about either. I needed some... vacation...

I decided to relax at the hotel on Dolnośląska Street. Spend some time having fun, not worrying about anything. Live in my own city as a tourist.

The doors were locked. But I already had my ways of dealing with that.

***

I settled into my new role quite quickly – which wasn't difficult, because what does a vacationer do in a strange city? Go to bed when they feel like it, get up when they've had enough sleep, and spend the rest of the day wandering around until their legs give out. I had a nice room with a quite comfortable bed. I slept as I pleased, and got up when I wanted – and if I didn't feel like it, I stayed under the covers. But when I finally got up – at various times: sometimes at the crack of dawn, sometimes in the afternoon – I didn't stay in my room for the rest of the day either. It was cozy, I slept well – but I was bored there, suffocating. I started going out more often. I wandered around the city, sometimes for whole days, peeking into unfamiliar corners like a curious tourist. Because, yes, I'd lived in this city since I was a child, but I didn't really know it. I only knew how to get to a few places and memorized a few street names – nothing more. I discovered my own city, and myself, with a strange pleasure. I usually walked "somewhere"—I had a specific goal and a specific time to get there. That's how I functioned. Going anywhere, for nothing, and without rushing—was something new for me. And a great thing. I walked up Dolnośląska Street—uphill—and when it ended, I continued along Łódzka Street. I looked in the shop windows—pharmacies, video rental stores, sporting goods stores, grocery stores, clothing stores—and houses—and everything was completely new to me. I might have seen it all before, but I'd never paid attention to it—because I didn't have a purpose. What I enjoyed most of all was the walking itself—step by step, step by step, step by step. The movement. The muscles working. The way my calves tensed repeatedly, stiffening after several hours of walking so much that by the end of the day I could barely walk. I'd come back from such a day tired but satisfied, and I'd sleep until noon. I'd get up only to get dressed and go for a walk. I wandered through seemingly familiar yet unfamiliar neighborhoods like a maze. I wandered around, sometimes getting lost, but I always emerged into familiar territory and somehow found my way home. I explored the brown, communist housing estates with the curiosity of a small child. Sometimes I sat on a bench and rested there, remaining there for hours, absorbing the peace of these quiet, gray places.

Naturally, as befits a tourist, I shopped frequently. I frequented clothing stores. I shopped for panties, socks, and undershirts in bulk. I devoured crisps with a passion. I drank mineral water by the gallon. I walked more and more. I started running. The exertion fascinated me. It was tiring—true—because I'd never had strong legs, and all that overeating had given me a belly that orbited my body with every movement. But with each passing day, I got better. At first, I couldn't run a hundred meters without getting out of breath. After a while, a few-kilometer jog had no effect on me, and my shins were wrapped in rock-hard muscles. I turned the city into my running track, my fitness trail, my jungle gym. I ran, jumped, climbed onto balconies, and from there, from a height, I practiced spitting into the distance. When I got bored, I'd stand on the railing and then jump to the nearest tree, which I'd climb down. I was becoming someone I'd never been – part animal, part playful child, who didn't care about rules, caution, or consequences. As a child, I would never have climbed a tree – I'd be afraid of falling and hurting myself. I didn't take the slightest risk unless I had to. I wasn't curious what would happen. Now... now, I didn't think about whether something might happen to me. Subconsciously, I knew it wouldn't. And that knowledge was enough for me. And it never let me down.

I never thought I had something like that inside me.

As a child, I would never have started throwing stones at apartment windows for fun, for target practice.

***

The sound of breaking glass echoed through the city in the middle of the night. I could see perfectly in the dark and had a wonderful time, smashing windows in the worst neighborhoods with my well-aimed shots. There was a time when I wouldn't have walked this way later than 4 p.m. for anything—you could get hit, regardless of age or gender. Especially at night, venturing into such a place was suicide. And because of that, nighttime lost its charm—because it was considered a dangerous time. However, it wasn't its fault. At most, it was a time of insatiable, dangerous people. It was because of them—and the lanterns, casting a light that looked red against the brown city walls—that the charm of nighttime eluded one. Blacks and navy blues under a starry sky. I felt happy, experiencing the beauty of night. Even this gloomy area took on a certain charm.

The crash of breaking glass. A wild cry of triumph.

I was having a wonderful time.

***

I woke up stretching and yawning, sore and stiff. I smiled. I liked this feeling. The exhaustion of material. The effort bringing results. Torn muscle fibers rebuilding themselves stronger, bigger, more durable, and more agile. Deftly—almost like a machine—I slipped out of bed, changed into fresh clothes, and set off for a run. I planned to grab breakfast in town and do a little shopping, as I was running low on socks.

It so happened that after lunch—snacks and mineral water—I wandered through my daily exploratory jog into a familiar neighborhood—the city center. I hadn't been here much in the last few years, but this was where I grew up, where I'd lived since I was a little girl. Ten minutes to City Hall, five minutes to school, ten minutes for extra English lessons, ten minutes for German. Nineteen years of my life unfolded in this small space. A small world, centered on the third floor of a pre-war tenement building, from which I reluctantly left anywhere and to which I rushed back—as quickly as I could. Almost four years since I moved out, and about a year and a half since I hadn't seen it at all, because my parents had moved elsewhere. So, since I was already here, and I wasn't in a hurry, I decided to visit my old neighborhood and see the house where I spent my earliest years. I wasn't particularly drawn to it—perhaps there was a more disgusting street in the city than this one, but I'd walked it so many times that it disgusted me beyond belief. But it pulls me back and forth, pulling me back to the old places. I wanted to see the old yard where the neighbor's black, murderous dog chased us, the gray sandbox where we played knife games. To see the windows of the old apartment where I spent a dozen years. The windows to the right of the balcony, which I sometimes stared at while sitting at my desk, trying to do homework, pondering the meaninglessness of life as a seven-year-old, a ten-year-old, a thirteen-year-old, and then a high school graduate.

And as I passed the dingy, dark gate, as I stood on the square surrounded on three sides by the wings of the tenement building, I felt sick. An overwhelming sadness overwhelmed me—a nostalgia that brought tears to my eyes, a huge lump in my throat. I longed for that place a little. We found a nicer one, but this was my home for a dozen or so years—the most beautiful house I'd ever seen. And then, when we moved, I watched it being torn apart, stripped bare. And places linger in memories. They can cease to exist, but their interiors, sounds, shapes, colors, and textures remain indelibly etched in people's memories. Nothing truly disappears. Whatever is imprinted on the mind, stays there. You can push it into the subconscious, but in time it will surface, stimulated by a powerful stimulus. A single memory is enough, and in its wake comes a crushing wave of endless memory.

I burst out of the gate with a wild scream and ran blindly ahead. I howled like a wounded animal, like a bear with a gaping wound. I ran, just to get away, just to escape this cursed place. I screamed at the top of my lungs, just to drown out the voices in my head. Everywhere I looked, I saw people, heard voices. Houses shimmered alternately with new paint, then old, black plaster, with red brick peeking through holes. In the shop windows, all the years, all the businesses that had been done there, shimmered. A grocery store, a video rental store, an appliance store, finally an internet cafe. A shoe store, a bookstore, a delicatessen. Echoes of shouts, whistles, drunken chants. The voices of people, thousands of people, speaking to me at once, shouting, yapping, squealing. I squeezed my eyes shut, covered my ears, and ran forward, fleeing from every memory I'd ever held. From the tight walls that suffocated me. First, I'd inflated myself so much that my ego could barely fit in this city, then it pressed against me with its sharp edges, cutting me, inflicting new wounds, and scratching open old ones. I felt that if I didn't escape, the old walls would collapse on me and bury me.

I ran forward, screaming, drowning out the thousands of voices trying to remember my name.

***

I woke up. That was all I could say. I began to think, see, and feel. I could smell the earth, its coolness beneath my head. Above me, I saw the gray sky and below it, the branches of trees. I stood up and looked around at the area. I didn't recognize it. I was somewhere in the middle of nowhere, on a country, worn-out sand road. I don't know, I don't know how I got here. I have no idea which direction I ran or how long I'd been running. Or why I was naked. I only remembered fear, panic—though I no longer felt it, didn't identify with it, and couldn't recall its causes. I did, however, remember the dream I woke from. I remember it clearly, because as soon as it ended, I opened my eyes. I hadn't had dreams in a long time. It wasn't that they had escaped me. No, I could always recall them. But from that day on, I haven't had any dreams. Until today. I had a beautiful, peaceful dream. I dreamed of everyone. In the dream, they came to say goodbye to me—each one in turn—to hug me, pat me on the back, say "hello," smile one last time, and leave forever. I said goodbye—quietly, warmly, and affectionately—to my parents, sister, grandparents, uncles, aunts, all my cousins, friends, colleagues. After them, hundreds of people I knew only by sight passed me by—and they waved at me in groups and said hello in unison. After them, at the very end, came... I came. Shorn, clean-shaven, washed, fragrant, in clean, new clothes, and shiny leather shoes.

"Homo sum et humani nihil a me alienum puto," he said. He waved at me, raising his eyebrows, and began to slowly back away. Finally, he turned on his heel, walked away, and disappeared.

"Ecce homo," I said in a hoarse, guttural voice. I muttered, frowning.

That's when I woke up.

***

It was good. Nothing bothered me. Nothing pinched me. Nothing constrained me. I wasn't too cold or too hot. I didn't feel hunger or thirst. No shame or regret, anger or longing. Nothing. I was free and had the whole world to myself. And even that neither frightened me nor filled me with undue pride. The virtue of a true king is that he accepts a fact, not boasts about it. A lion knows the jungle is his. No one needs to tell him so, and he doesn't need to flaunt it. He knows what he knows—and that's enough for him. That's how I walked through meadows, fields, and forests—and I simply knew they were mine. I drank from my rivers, bathed in my lakes, and ate my raspberries. I licked my own blood from my cut hands without disgust. I slept on my land. I shat and pissed on my own property. And it didn't matter to me. And I felt good—alone.

***

I didn't see him right away. I was tired, I could barely see. It was getting dark, and he didn't move for a long moment. But when I picked out a distinctive fragment of the landscape, I recognized him immediately. He stood, straight, leaning forward, and blissfully urinating into the roadside bushes. He was pale, gaunt, unshaven, ragged, and disheveled. He stank.

A human being.

He was pissing on my land.

As I approached, he turned his head and looked at me blankly, his head still bent, his interest on the surface. He was watching me, his jaw slack, his eyes fixed intently.

A human.

"Jesus! A human!" he exclaimed, delighted. "Ha! Hahahaha! A human! A human!

" ***

I licked the scratches on my arms. I spat on my palm and rubbed some saliva into my cut forehead. I was tired and sore from the terrible effort. I had a sprained shoulder and a dislocated finger. Cracked skin on my knuckles. A few bumps, a few bruises. Blood behind my fingernails. Blood on my hands. I was breathing heavily. But I felt good.

Alone.