And that's why

"...and that's precisely why, do you understand, Piotrek? Do you understand?

" "I'm listening?

" "Jesus... you're like a little child..."

"I'm sorry... I was lost in thought. Could you repeat that?

" "You'd better think about it, if you're not..."

"You'll be in a non-existence, a non-existence-stylish thing." If I'm not here, I'll be at the office, applying for laundry and shitting. Divine punishment, you deserve a beating for life, a slap in the face, your reward will be a flunking of the subject, oh yes, la la la, titiriti, u-ha!"

"What's so funny?" "You'll still be laughing like a sheep."

"No... it's more like a nervous grimace.

" "Don't lean on the desk. Are you supposed to get good grades?

" "I also wanted to answer the history question...

" "I'll decide what I'll ask you about, although I don't know if that will do any good?" Look, one grade, two grades, three grades... It doesn't really make sense from a grade point average...

The classroom darkens. Storm clouds have gathered over the school. Rain is only a matter of time. Children are running, adults are walking, dogs are pooping on the lawn. The narrator is omniscient. He knows the meaning of life and what awaits you after death. He's a master of this game.

"Okay, tell me..." "Not English, not English..." Because I don't know if you know that General Malinowski, who, by the way, was a necrophiliac and had sexual intercourse with most of the kings of Poland..." "Not English, not English, not English..." He knew English perfectly well? "Aaaah! A waking nightmare!" "What is your name, Peter?"

"Excuse me?"

"English! Speak English! Please!

My name... have... no... did, was, were... I know, Professor..."

"Go away! Absolutely sick people! We have nothing more to talk about!"

The colors have faded a bit. The fluorescent lights are making me tear up.

I can still hear the comments from the front desks behind me. Comforting mockery. I feel wronged and sorry. I return to my seat, taking steps and blinking.

Some cynical poem, or a demonic slur. I open it and leaf through, searching for empty pages.

-What's up? - Shh -...Well, what's up..? - Where?! Where?! -...Yesterday I was there, I did it, it's fucked up, are you checking out? - Tick tock... tick tock... tick tock... - Are you checking out?

-Nah, it's crap, isn't it?

-Heyyyy...what's up?

-My dog...

-What's up?

-He died.

-Heyyyy...yes?

-Normal, he got up, yawned, and died.

-I'm playing games online.

-What now?

-This one now, because I'm not doing that one anymore, but maybe I will be.

A moment of expectant silence. One more moment, oh yes, oh yes, this is a tough one, etc.

Is it written somewhere that I need company, that I'm a garbage can for garbage phrases, what's up, how's it going, what do you say, what's up, how's it going, where's it going...

He scratched his neck, stood up, and flew away. In the aisle between the desks, they passed O., who was purring as he walked and smacked his lips. Mmmmm... Cz., Hyyyyy... O.

The classroom is a single form. Individuals have merged into groups, like mixed pieces of modeling clay. It's hard to distinguish individual colors when observed from a distance.

The same species create their own ecosystems. An animal farm. A zoo.

A room divided into sectors. At the back grows a tree for the great apes. From there, coconuts and bananas fly in, accompanied by peals of laughter. In the middle, there are pens for goats and sheep. Ear-ringed, with bells under their necks, they nibble on paper and smooth their fur. The sounds of the countryside,

the smells of laboratories. In between, rare species crouched. A mammoth with a hateful gaze, a bat hanging indifferently upside down, a sloth, a parrot, a frog, and a hamster.

Mice and rats squeak off to the side, and chickens cackle on their perches.

I feel like an envoy of a nature program, although I know I too can be classified somewhere. Prince of darkness, demon of destruction, emissary of hell, let me dream now, let me... I wait for the bell as if for salvation. Sometimes I pray for the bell, Lord, make it ring, I'll be a better person and start going to church, just make it ring. And the bell rings, and I forget my promises, packing my notebooks and books. The first one jumps out into the hallway, and there's a crowd. Mixed and diverse. Multi-gendered and multi-colored. And I burst through with a vengeance, as quickly as I can, away from the crush, the noise, the stench, I dodge, nudge, watch out! Oh Jesus! I'm sorry! And the wall and the stairs and left and straight ahead, and leg and elbow and head and arm and ear and neck and back and ass and ass and ass and classroom - desk - chair, and I sit...

I sit, and I don't know if I'm sitting properly, naturally, or theatrically. The break is on, I fidget, slouch, rest my elbows on the desk, straighten, one leg over the other, legs straight, arms crossed, and what about my eyes? How should I greet those entering the classroom, friendly or contemptuous? Smile or scorn? Love or hate? Indifference, the golden mean, equal for everyone. So I wait, and the noise of the break keeps booming. Ł. enters.

He stands for a moment, hesitating, considering something within himself... "

The end of alienation!" Cheerfully, friendly, breaking the ice, sliding into my company, full of life, with handfuls of happiness, and lacking a textbook. "Do you have a book?" I silently present

my primer. It's time to say some other nonsense, preferably a funny one:

"Yesterday I saw the death throes of an old woman hit by a car." "Ss ...

The hall fills with students. First, they enter one by one, silently, some complaining about the storm, about getting wet, about not having a ticket, about not having a home. Then a group in high heels, wearing hard candy and pastels, chewing gum at a steady, slightly nervous pace. Later, our brave boys, victorious in their confrontation with the mathematician in the restroom, united, in the vapors of their spirit, with shouts and songs on their lips, take safe positions on the palms and banana trees. Finally, enter the nonbeliever—Jesus, you could say I'm a pagan, but I respect the Pope, the Pope is cool—and the superbeliever, who, from too many plants, has turned into a tree and is now stripping paint from the walls with her crown. Chairs scrape,

rustle, walking, standing up, sitting down, blowing their noses, talking, and the bell rings for class.

It becomes quiet and eerie, but only briefly, because again there's shuffling, sniffing, slurping... the grinding of the doorknob... tension... the baboon was late, so relief and shouts and laughter... "

The lesson has already started." - teacher, professor, sudden death, speechlessness. "What do we have for today? Where's your notebook?...what? Did the dog pee on it? You have a smart dog, I don't blame him." - For now, no one smiles; they're still trying to sense the intentions. "Ah!...today we're taking poems. Poetry by Mr. Ryś from under the beer stand, written down by Mrs. Zdzisia from the fourth floor. Who can read here? Here...read, but loudly." Someone at the end is searching for the right page or just borrowing a textbook. He reads, his hoarse voice, in the rhythm of a loyal hip-hop fan, emerging from his ruined throat.

Lightning flashes outside the window. A rumble of thunder echoes over the city. A red glow indicates a building on fire. Someone is calling for help. I close the window because it's getting cold.

I hear a shy thank you from my frozen friend in front. I didn't listen to the poem, I won't be active today.

-What is the lyrical subject talking about? - The question is thrown into the void, rain tapers on the windowsill. -Listen, drunk, I walk down a dark street, trip over the curb, and crash into a garbage can, what is it trying to tell us?

-...that a totalitarian system...enslavement...

-Everything reminds you of communism, Cz.?

-Maybe life is full of traps, throws obstacles in our way, I don't know... -Now I'm testing my skills.

-Are you sure? But really?

-The form... -W. shows off his knowledge of a single word for the third time in a row.

-Oh, I guess not. I hit the garbage can, and then... I puke on my pants...

-Is this childish?... -Now Ł., very clever, universal...

"You had a very uninteresting childhood, Ł., if you have such associations." "Shit," the professor added, adding to the humiliation. The atmosphere grew increasingly tense. The rain intensified its bombardment of the windows and windowsills, the wind uprooting trees. The muffled wail of sirens resounded outside. Nervous anticipation. Only rain and wind.

Suddenly, a crack, and the lights went out. I flinched. Practically everyone jumped in place.

"Ooh... it's so dark..." I nudge Ł. He reciprocates, perhaps a little too much... "

We continue the lesson in the dark, and we haven't established anything worth writing down yet anyway.

E., what do you think?

" "I really don't know, Professor..." "

I'm afraid of the dark." J., as usual, draws attention to himself in an idiotic way. This time, however, there's no peal of laughter, because everyone feels uncomfortable. E. unceremoniously:

"They might rape you!" Thunder rumbled outside again. No one spoke; a general sense of dejection was palpable. The storm had left its mark on us.

"I have to leave. I'll be back in five minutes. Keep quiet." The professor closed the door behind her. In the darkened classroom, everyone's desire for conversation vanished. Strange thoughts began to come to my mind. Thoughts of the end. Thoughts of death. It seemed to me that a shadow was drifting glumly between the desks. Some, listening to the sounds of the storm, began to fall asleep, or maybe it was just an illusion. I felt terribly lonely. Fern blossoms on the windowsill.

Something whispered in my ear that this was the last day, the last moment of wasted time, that I would never have a second chance. An inner voice groaned in spasms of regret. He demanded, begged me to summon the courage to admit myself and confess everything before I choked on tears...

Meanwhile, the storm had raged in earnest. Flashes of thunder illuminated the dome of the densely overcast sky. If anyone were to look up now, they would see the all-encompassing face of the Creator, who had remembered His Work and decided to inspect it.

Left to our own devices, we had no idea that Judgment would come today.

While we were immersed in our sad reflections, struggling through the softened earth, the dead began to rise from their graves... "

A heavy mass, eh?" The orangutan graced me with his compassion, full of empathetic pathos. "Live a little." "

The storm..." I gurgled. "...It's taking a bloody toll..."

The magical atmosphere created in the classroom began to crumble. The navy blue sheet of silence and darkness, uniting us, binding us in our shared apathy, tore apart in an atmosphere of whispers. I watched with sadness as the eeriness created by the rain and wind outside proved to be only an illusion. Distorted, deformed in the dark classroom, individual students, one by one, began to emerge from their desks...

"Your movie's fucked up, Piotrek, what are you talking about?"

"I'm saying that... uuaah..." a prolonged yawn, indicating fatigue, justifying

the blunder, calming the interlocutor, normalizing the strangeness of the situation... "... but the weather...

" "Well, no bullshit..." He puffed out his cheeks and proactively somersaulted backward, instinctively sensing an otherness that, if exposed to for too long, would threaten his position in the pack.

I watched him until he sank into the gray mass of his society.

Slaves to a self-imposed style. They fight the system that restricts their freedom, creating even stricter rules. New religions. New folklore. Each group has its own traditions, uniforms, songs and hymns honoring deceased idols, and rigorous codes of honor. Followers following the same path, huddled together in a tight huddle, slowly begin to merge into a single whole. Hooded figures in sagging costumes merge into a single organism, assimilating the surrounding matter—the sidewalk, benches, and railings, along with the hedge. Across the street, an equally sterile mass, a black scum composed of badges and chains, ineffectually rapes a garbage can. I sneak by quietly, the protagonist, observing these curious phenomena: atoms forming elements, bacterial cultures creating mold.

I wonder if, after copulation, such a pulsating entity begins to reject previously fused bodies and divide its previously unified consciousness among them, each shell regains its own identity, or if this is entirely accidental. I smile involuntarily at the thought that individual individuals fail to distinguish themselves from others, and after the fruitless orgy ends, endowed with new bodies, they return to new homes and new families.

The school has no power. Thick clouds have completely deprived the world seen through the window of sunlight. The classroom is dark and cold. The hum of conversation muffles the sounds from outside. Only flashes of thunder increasingly illuminate our faces...

The hum of conversation. How can we accurately convey the sound of the hum? Noise. Everyone is talking, but no one is making noise for the sake of noise. Individual utterances add up to gibberish, ordered bundles of logical sentences emitted from all directions create a hum. Pulsating, swelling, collapsing in on themselves, and expanding between the classroom walls. A beating heart. The hum of blood flowing in the arteries. An organism living on the skeleton of a classroom. Perhaps, after all, the classroom is not a skeleton but a kind of trap. An aquarium. A glass bell jar with a living brain inside. However, the convoluted cortex doesn't make a whole; it doesn't cooperate with each other; each cell, busy with its own affairs, contributes to the fragility of this being.

A slight external intervention, a signal sent from the world on the other side of the doorknob, causes panic. Silent panic. A desperate implosion. A collapse that drowns out all sound. Buried alive, running out of air. The death of the bustle, urged and fueled, desperately driven into its minute of decay. All that's needed is the grinding of the rusty hinges in the classroom door.

Grinding.

The classroom fell silent. Someone else coughed. His cough infected the others with it. Cough, cough, cough, a concert of coughs, a coughing choir, an orchestra tuning its vocal cords. Coughing theater, dramas, operas, and operettas of tubercular throat-clearing…

A moment later, the performance was over, only a storm destroying the world outside…

Two shadows crept into the classroom. Servants of Satan, eager to present us with their offer for the upcoming holidays. The next vacation will be special, it will never end.

"Is your cough bothering you?" – Professor. The fear sown in our hearts dissipated, struck by a ray of hope. Although, perhaps it didn't completely dissipate, it rather lurked, waiting for a more convenient opportunity. "There aren't a single flashlight in the school, Cz., you're clever, find some candles in that locker, they should be there.

" "Do you have a fire?" Impudent, but too nice to be offended. Cz. jumped from his desk, twirled in the air like a soaring ballerina, and landed in a fluid movement in front of the teacher.

"Cz. is a chain smoker, don't get carried away now, he's chain-smoking one cigarette after another."

The second shadow turned out to be our favorite school priest. "May God protect your lungs."

"Hey, hey, hey…"

Cz. lit the candles. The red glow awakened the shadows. Those shadows were ghosts. Indian warriors dancing on the classroom walls around a candlelight fire. It's a dance of death. I'm sure of it.

"Listen!" Lightning roared outside the window, illuminating the priest's face with an electric glow. "What an effect with that lightning, heh heh," the intermediary between God and humanity laughed, "like in a movie."

"Listen, Father, I have something to announce to you.

" "Listen, today is the day, and this day is the day, this is the day, yes, we're sure of it, we're sure about this day.

" "Where does this certainty come from?" I felt a sudden surge of confidence, probably because it was so dark. "Father, I'm looking out the window and I see, I see storms... the rain and lightning and everything, I don't know, but I think, I know it sounds strange, but I have this strange feeling that this storm... this storm is..."

"Peter, don't get upset." Professor, how kind of her to encourage me. I won't say: this storm is the end of the world, I won't, it will sound stupid, I'll make a fool of myself, not now, not with her, but not the end of the world, something else...

-...it's something... bad- Mysteriously, yes, I used all my intelligence.

"Oh, it's nothing bad, or at least most of you have nothing to fear. Those who used to go to church can breathe a sigh of relief. It's the end of the world, my dears. The Apocalypse. Judgment Day. Today we witness the second coming of Jesus." "Yes, it's definitely something bigger than the year 2000, it surpasses everything that has come before."

"Father," Professor, "How should we prepare for this?"

"Will it hurt?" "J., I don't know whether to laugh or cry." "I rarely went to church."

"You'll burn in hell!" Someone from the back of the room, J., bursting into tears.

"Children, this is new to me too, let's act natural, it's for the best, that's what I think." The priest probably has salvation written into his contract anyway, I doubt he's worried, he probably can't wait. "You know what? Think about your lives, sit at your desks, and then go downstairs, in front of the school, everyone will be there.

"Look at it from a different perspective..." - Professor, our comforter - "...at least you don't have to stress about final exams anymore."

-Now let's be serious. This day is truly wonderful, so let's be serious.

" -The priest is right. Let's be serious.

You look serious in a coffin.

I have no idea how I could possibly think about my life. I was born and that's it, now I'm sitting at school, waiting for the end of the world. It's appropriate to sit in silence and stillness, since everyone is silent and no one is moving. I look out the window. Outside, the world and a storm with rain and lightning. In front of the school, a housing estate of four-story apartment buildings. The streets and sidewalks are flooded. People. Most of the residents of the estate have come outside. The crowd is soaked in torrents of water pouring from the sky, family and friends stand with their heads raised, silently observing the face of the Creator. No one is surprised by the reanimated dead strolling among them. Yes. Only the dead move.

I feel my consciousness leave my body. I pass through the windowpane and fly over the heads of the people gathered below. Thousands of motionless statues, their gaze fixed on fate. Thousands of rotting bodies seeking their waiting room.

I can't stop, I hurtle through the rain without getting wet, passing through trees and buildings as if through holograms of reality. I see everything and everyone. I keep gaining speed, and with it, information grows. Information is born in my head like budding grapes; things I had no idea about before become obvious, like knowledge I've always carried within me, since birth, since the beginning of the universe. I can't get enough of her, and I know I'll find infinite fulfillment only in that which has no end.

Doubts arise in my heart.

Who am I, and what am I doing here?

"What are you doing?" Ł., pulled me out of my reverie and brought me back down to earth.

"Nothing, I was staring into the storm."

"Shall we go downstairs to see everyone?"

"I don't know. What do you think about this, the end of the world and all that?" "

I don't care."

"Go, I wanted to take care of something else."

"Okay, I understand.

" "For now. " "

Hi."

I feel sad. I look around the classroom, lit by the flickering candle flame, and see that I'm not alone in these reflections. Everyone is sad.

It's either now or never.

" "W.?" She flinched; I think I'd scared her.

"Yes? "

"You're not real.

" "What?"

"We never spoke to each other. I was a slave to silence around you."

"You have a psychopathic nature."

"Why do you think that?"

"Never mind." "

You were talking to others .

" "Jesus, don't eavesdrop." "

I made you up.

" "What?"

"You're just a shadow of the W. I have in my head, I'm sorry, it's not your fault. For now.

" "Well, hey."

It doesn't matter to me now. I walk out in front of the school, where the crowd is engulfing me. I stand in the rain, searching for familiar faces. It's hard to spot any, because all faces are turned to the sky. It's funny, but without using my eyes, I still know who's who. And I see more.

However, not all the residents of the estate have taken to the streets. Although there's no electricity, many people have decided to stay in their dark apartments. Most often, they are families with small children. Huddled together, they stare at their televisions. The televisions are on despite the power outage, and the image displayed there completely absorbs the viewers' attention.

And that voice coming from the speakers. Monotonous yet captivating, deep and hypnotizing. That voice belongs to another world, a world millions of light-years away, yet so familiar and everyday. With its angelic tone, it conveys only one ultimate truth, the only important information for the living before the end of the world. Or rather, it only reminds us of what we never wanted to remember.

"You are dust, and to dust you shall return, you are dust, and to dust you shall return..."

"I don't want to die, Mommy. I don't want us to have to die...

" "That's life, honey. Life isn't fair, but death is..."

The television's radiation dried out the air in the apartments. Yellowing wallpaper peeled from the walls, covering the furniture, rotten with age, in twisted cascades. Huddled together, gathered in front of their television sets, the families and friends who had decided to spend this special day in front of the television screen froze and stilled, defenseless and obedient.

Desiccated mummies, frozen in the clutches of love and fear, released their souls the moment their corporeal tombs crumbled, covering the empty apartments with golden fluff.

The thunder stopped. A steady stream of water pours from the sky. I am soaked to the skin. The dead brushing against me, wandering aimlessly among the living, fill me with disgust. When one touches me with their rotten flesh, I want to vomit; I can't help it. It's a natural human reflex.

A commotion erupted in the crowd. A whisper of delight and understanding.

The clouds parted, revealing the Brightness.

The Brightness was One.

The Brightness was Good.

The Brightness was Truth.

The Brightness radiated, drawing strength from itself. The Brightness was first and infinite. It was always there. It gave birth. It is from It that time flows.

This sight captivated me too. I would have stood there forever, gazing at this wondrous phenomenon, if not for another image that froze my heart. From between the parted clouds, from that heavenly opening gleaming with divine light, from the rays of creative unity, beings emerged. Overseers emerged, tasked with bringing this event to its grand finale…

What is perfect gazes only on that which does not disturb its perfection.

The Perfect Light shines for its own glory. The One, thinking of itself, gazing inward, nourished by its own infinity, captivated by its own beauty, does not turn its gaze to the effects of selfish love.

Destiny is guarded by its closest children, created, as everything later was, from the very fact of Perfection's existence, and whose existence is insignificant to it.

Born with knowledge, they know the cause and their task. And they are very conscientious.

These are the Angels of the Apocalypse, or so it seems to me.

Giants approached the earth, wielding fiery swords in their enormous hands.

The people gathered in large numbers in the neighborhood square averted their gaze from the light. Terror gripped them.

At that very moment, the dead, who had been silent until then, spoke simultaneously in a voice that drove one mad, repeating another obvious truth, with whose grim paradox it was hard to disagree:

"...you have to die to live forever..." the screech, shrill and rasping, amplified by the sheer number of the dead chorus of rotting bodies, reached everyone.

The dead leaped at the throats of the living. The scattered, panicked people seemed to have lost all desire for salvation. Meanwhile, the heavenly beings landed on earth, ruthlessly destroying and killing everything within reach. The screams of the dying and the deafening roar of collapsing buildings filled the air. I stood stunned, astonished, watching these events unfold. The earth was soaked in blood. Men and women fell dead onto the crimson streets, entangled in their own entrails. Dismembered, unidentifiable bodies fell from the sky every time one of the Angels plowed the earth with his magical sword. A rain of mangled corpses, mind-numbing, heaps of human remains mingled with animal remains, dying and helpless, desperate to enjoy their final minutes on earth, deprived of hope for eternal happiness. Who would have thought it was all for their own good?

I spotted a priest. He was shouting at people to calm down, trying to persuade them to pray together. I approached him.

"Father, is this how it was supposed to be? Is everything going according to plan?"

"Piotrek, you've always been a bright student... People, I beg you, for God's sake!"

"Father, was this what you expected?"

"Oh, it's hard to say... Please, let yourselves be killed! What is earthly life compared to the infinite happiness in heaven?!... Piotrek..."

"I'm listening. "

"Everything can be interpreted differently, be brave, everything will be alright!"

"But..."

"Everything will be alright, it's a miracle, a miracle! Let's rejoice instead of grieve, this is the day, this is the day!"

He ran ahead, shouting in euphoria. The wind blew his cassock, which formed the shape of a raven's enormous wings. He screamed until fate caught up with him, crushing him like a worm, under the angelic foot of a gigantic destroyer.

I was left alone.

I was ignored.

My friends had already been torn to shreds. The remnants of my love hang from the tree.

The dead pay me no attention. The Messengers of Light do not notice me.

I stand ankle-deep in blood and human flesh.

I try to understand.

"You are Satan, and that is why all this is your fault... and that is why, do you understand, Piotrek? Do you understand?

Blinded by the brightness of the classroom fluorescent lights in front of one.

" "Excuse me?

" "Jesus... you're like a little child..."

"I'm sorry... I was lost in thought. Could you repeat that?"