Asbestos Boys"

Prologue

Henryk lived in a small asbestos block near a now-closed asbestos factory. The area was therefore called Gray Field.

His grandfather had arrived here long ago, driven out by the war, with his wife, sons, daughters, and grandchildren. He built himself a small wooden cottage, where everyone lived happily and in peace. Only meadows stretched around, and a few trees dotted the idyllic landscape. However, the idyll was short-lived. The country needed urbanization, so by decree of the cooperative authorities, the wooden cottage was demolished, asbestos blocks were built, and an asbestos factory (so-called colloquially, because it was actually a processing plant) was erected. The beautiful landscape disappeared, and the few game animals—birds, hares, and even moles—fled. Grandfather and his family were given a three-room apartment in brand-new apartment blocks. But that couldn't make them happy, especially Grandpa. He fell into depression, started drinking, and unfortunately, he passed these traits on to his children and grandchildren.

The area, previously green and vibrant, gradually began to lose its luster. The colors disappeared, and the landscape began to fade, eventually turning completely gray. No contrasts, no red, or even black. Black, if it existed, was only at night, and red occasionally appeared on the lips of women who tried to escape at the first opportunity. Over the years, the air became more white dust than oxygen. Grandpa loved the outdoors, so he quickly contracted lung cancer, which he didn't even want to argue with. Everything he enjoyed in life had been taken away by officials and industry. He decided it was even better to have this cancer, because who needs a life that doesn't bring joy? Unfortunately, the cancer, in its momentum, befriended the rest of the family, leaving Henryk an orphan at the age of fifteen. After a while, he didn't care so much. He simply waited his turn. And became indifferent.

In the meantime, like his ancestors, he lived a peaceful life. But only on the surface. Within his soul, like two massive tectonic plates, good and evil thoughts clashed. The sky over Hoary Field was usually gray or light gray, so the thoughts of the inhabitants tended to be rather cloudy. Fortunately, Henryk, surrounded by friends, tried, and with good results, to balance the two sides of his personality so that no one would suffer because of him. He tried to stay out of anyone's way, but he persisted when someone blocked his path. Sometimes, mainly after a few drinks, he would get into harmless fights. His face was often adorned with bruises. He treated them like trophies. The day after a fight, he would get up at dawn and run to the mirror to examine them. Touching and seeing these creases gave him an almost semi-erotic experience.

Henryk's best friend was his neighbor, Teodor. They spent entire days together. Teodor would come in for coffee in the mornings and stay until dinner, and sometimes until breakfast. Their small circle of friends was completed by Hilek, who lived on the top floor. Hilek, once a successful writer, couldn't cope with the burden of fame. He wrote a wonderful novel, "Fish from the Woods and All My Friends," and then completely burned out. He spent his money on alcohol and girls. He was evicted from his magnificent downtown apartment, offered a social housing apartment in Siwe Pole instead.

They immediately became friends with Henryk and Teodor. They understood him perfectly. They had experienced failure firsthand, even though they hadn't even smelled success.

Chapter 1

Summer was slowly drawing to a close. The gray sky muffled the dazzling colors of the autumn park, which was drowning in a general grayness. Henryk had finished dreaming and decided to wake up. He scratched his stomach and looked at the clock. 6:45. The morning was chilly. He stroked his three-day stubble. He sighed deeply, then dragged himself out onto the balcony. He lit a cigarette. He felt the wind gently caress his unshaven face and the smoke fill his lungs. For some reason, Gray Field seemed completely new to him. Coughing, he fed his senses with the asbestos-like scent of the air. Then he went to the kitchen to greet and feed his roommate, a cat named Felek. Stepping inside, he felt goosebumps rise on his skin. The windows had crackled with frost in the night, but the kitchen was wide open. This alarmed the host. Felek's bowl was empty, but Felek was nowhere to be found. He always received his favorite food in the morning and never once missed breakfast. He was only occasionally late for dinner. Henryk searched through all the cabinets, which contained only rusty pots and pans. Unaware, Henryk opened the oven door. They crackled ominously, revealing the gruesome truth. Felek. Or rather, his corpse. Heniu screamed in terror. He took the poor cat out of the oven and cradled it in his arms, hoping it would wake up. Unfortunately, the Creator summoned Felek to himself. The question remained: by whose hands? For Henryk's favorite had not departed this world on his own. Someone had clearly helped him, slitting, or rather tearing, its throat to shreds. Henryk's throat, on the other hand, had been torn to shreds by his cries. He stared into the animal's dead eyes, and dried blood left imprints of its belly and paws on his shirt. Felek was still warm, which intensified his owner's despair. A loud "No!" in his head intertwined with an equally loud "Who?" and "Why?" However, the answers to his questions would have to wait. The strangest day in the history of the Grey Field had begun.

Chapter 2

There was a knock on the door. A hand was tapping out the note of Beethoven's "Für Elise." That meant Theodore. He always tapped classical music on doors. It was his whim. Henryk placed Felek on the newspapers and, with tears in his eyes, hurried to the door.

"Good morning, neighbor," he said, optimistic as always. "Ouch!" He noticed his friend's gloomy face. "And why do we have such a dull expression?"

Henryk swallowed hard, saliva that felt like a thousand liquid tacks.

"Fe..." he muttered. "Fe..."

"What 'Fe'? Spit it out!" Theodore was still joking. But a moment later he was to sincerely regret his jokes.

Henryk mustered all his strength.

"Felek is dead!" The sentence cost him a great deal of effort. "Someone...someone killed him. Murdered him!" Tears flowed uncontrollably from beneath his brow. He threw himself into Teodor's arms. The latter, embracing his friend, repeated, stunned,

"It'll be alright. It'll be alright. It'll be alright. Don't worry. It'll work out somehow."

When their emotions subsided, they headed for the kitchen. Henryk didn't take his eyes off Felek. Teodor wanted to distract him at all costs.

"Do you want scrambled eggs?" he asked.

The words were met with a wave of silence in the form of Henryk's turbulent thoughts. Teodor didn't need words. They knew each other too well. He took six eggs and a beer from the fridge and began preparing his specialty, his famous scrambled eggs with beer. A recipe he'd gotten years ago from a drunkard who ran a chicken farm. They ate it without a shred of conversation.

Chapter 3

After a hearty breakfast, they sat in the living room. Henryk chain-smoked cigarette after cigarette. Teodor didn't smoke, not wanting to diminish his friend's depression. They were now waiting for Hilk. He always arrived late. It was already eight o'clock, the sun was rising and, in a rare occurrence, timidly breaking through the clouds. But even that didn't distract Henryk from his gloomy thoughts.

Finally, Hilek's fist rested on the door. Teodor rushed to open it. Deep down, he had had enough of the silence; he wanted to act, but he didn't have the courage to look Henryk in the eye. Hilek greeted Teodor, as cheerful as ever, as he was finishing the penultimate chapter of his new book. Teodor told him Felek's sad story. The three of them took their seats. Seconds passed, rushing by with each passing minute. Suddenly, Hilek broke the silence.

"I think I know who could have done this!?" He glanced uncertainly at his grieving friend, unsure of his reaction.

Henryk raised tear-soaked eyebrows.

"Who?" he said curtly.

Hilek leaned over the edge of the chair, letting them know he didn't want to speak too loudly.

"I read in the newspaper today," he began, speaking in a half-whisper, "that super-intelligent rats escaped from the laboratory on Retkinia. They were doing some research on them." He looked around like an old conspirator. "Yesterday, the morning shift discovered the bodies of their colleagues and the opened cages. Almost all the rats escaped. A few that got tangled in the fence are already being interrogated, but they won't tell them anything."

Teodor looked at them with a stupid expression. When he noticed that none of them were laughing, he became serious as well.

"Intelligent rats?" he asked himself.

"Super-intelligent!" Hilek corrected him.

"I don't know." Henryk persistently searched Hilek's forehead for the answer. He almost drilled a hole in his head. "What are you suggesting?"

Hilek pulled a torn-out newspaper fragment from his pocket.

"They say the trail of rats ends near Siwe pola." He showed his friends the article. "They might be here already!" They killed Filk because he was a threat to them. Now they'll probably want to go after us!

"Damn, this is no joke!" Teodor stared at the piece of paper as if he were ten years old and had just seen the naked Playmate of the Year.

"There's no point in talking, we have to act." Henryk jumped up from his chair, full of zeal and a thirst for revenge.

"Not so fast," Hilek cooled his friend's ardor. "We can't just try to find them on our own! "

Henryk didn't like this.

"We can't sit on our asses. Something has to be done!" he fumed.

"And we will," Hilek reassured him.

"But what?" Teodor finished reading the article. "We don't stand a chance against them.

" "That's it! We have to call a specialist," Hilek said, snatching the paper from his friend. He showed the others a photo of an older, gray-haired man with large glasses. "This is Professor Stefan Liebelkrankelbaum Von Ulm. Here's the number." We have to call, and he'll come and take care of it." They looked at him suspiciously. They didn't trust intellectuals. "Free of charge," Hilek emphasized.

Chapter 4

Hilek called the professor, explaining the entire morning's incident. The worried professor was convinced it was the work of "his" rats. They were supposed to expect him within a few dozen minutes.

Nine minutes later, he was there. He immediately got to work. They looked at him like a god: a huge gray beard, a white apron, a suitcase full of utensils. He burst into the kitchen like a hurricane.

"Show us the crime scene," he told them.

Henryk opened the oven. The professor took out the strange device and then carefully examined the interior.

"Mhm," he muttered under his breath. "Aha."

After a series of more or less intelligible sounds, he stood up.

"I'm almost, absolutely convinced it's the work of our nasty rodents!" he said.

Henryk, Teodor and Hilek breathed a sigh of relief, only to discover even greater terror within themselves a moment later.

"And how do we find them?" Theodore asked.

"If there's a will, there's a way. But that's my badge," the professor smiled, then pulled another strange instrument from his bag. "Don't worry about a thing."

He grabbed a chair and began examining the cabinets above the sink. Suddenly, something caught his eye.

As he turned to his three friends to tell them something, his foot slipped and he fell onto the tiles with a thud. Henryk and his friends watched as blood gushed from the scientist's head. It slowly filled the grooves between the kitchen tiles. They only woke up when it touched their feet.

"Professor?" Theodore bent over the body. "Professor Von Ulm?

" "No pulse!" Theodore said.

"Fucking rats!" Henryk pulled as many plastic bags from the cabinet as he could find. They wrapped the professor in them and put him in the closet.

"Then we're screwed," Hilek said.

"I don't have the strength for this anymore," Henryk said, exhausted. "Let's go to bed. We'll think about it tomorrow. The professor won't escape from the closet. And the rats can wait."

Everyone was tired and agreed on that point.

Chapter 5

Henryk couldn't sleep a wink all night. The ceiling above him swirled and lowered. He turned on the bedside lamp. Looking at his grandfather's picture, he searched for the answer in his eyes.

Grandpa stood in his garden. His eyes were smiling, fixed on little Henio, who was feasting on a freshly picked pear. His face was wet with juice. He could still recall that sweet, sticky scent on his lips and hands.

It occurred to him that he couldn't remember the last time he'd been as happy as he had been in the garden with his grandfather.

He'd barely managed to fall asleep before he woke up. The clock read 6:53. He made coffee. As he drank it, it seemed as thick as night. Earlier than usual, Teodor arrived, tapping out "Moonlight Sonata" and announcing his presence at the door. They sat in their armchairs. The aroma of coffee filled the cool, empty living room. They sat there for about two hours. They were concerned that Hilek hadn't come for so long. They decided to pay him a visit. For several minutes, they knocked fruitlessly on his door. Teodor took out the "emergency" key their friend always kept under the mat. They entered.

The interior was in an eye-straining semi-darkness. Looking around carefully, they reached the bedroom. The window was slightly ajar. Their friend sat at his desk, his face buried in bloody pages. They seemed to be his new novel, his first in years. They didn't know why the sight completely unsettled them. It was as if they had expected to find their friend dead. They gathered the pages from the desk and the wind-blown ones from the floor, then placed them in the cardboard box where Hilek kept the rest of the book. They tucked him into bed, then went out onto the balcony to have a quiet smoke and gather their thoughts. Nothing about the whole thing made sense.

"What the hell is going on?" Henryk's cigarette was disappearing at lightning speed.

"I have no idea. This is beyond us."

Reaching for another cigarette, Henryk angrily declared that he had no more.

"I'll run home for some cigarettes. Are you coming?" he turned to his friend.

"No. I'll wait here... with Hilk," Teodor replied.

"Sure."

On the way home, Henryk tried to piece everything together logically. But what did he and his friends have to do with intelligent rats? What did they want from them? The questions repeated themselves in a loop the entire way. He ran into the apartment, grabbed a pack of cigarettes, and quickly made his way back to Hilk's apartment.

"Teodor," he called out from inside. No response.

He checked the living room. Empty. The kitchen was the same. There was no one in the bedroom except Hilk. He thought his friend might have gone home, but surely he would have heard. Then he noticed the balcony door open. He went out, but his friend wasn't there. Only a cigarette butt and his right shoe lay on the floor. His friend had vanished into thin air. He felt as if he were alone in the world. He stared down at the people marching chaotically along the sidewalks and streets. But looking at them, neither their movements nor this matter seemed to clarify anything.

He puffed on another cigarette, pondering the individual facts and circumstances more and more deeply. Suddenly, a pigeon perched on the windowsill next to him.

"Get the hell out of here, you scumbag!" he yelled at the bird.

The bird cocked its head and responded only with a strange, ambiguous look. Henryk hated pigeons. Of all the creatures in the world, he hated them the most. They always made his windowsill look ugly, and he was constantly trying to shoo them away, but this pigeon, however, seemed unfazed. Henryk took a drag on his cigarette and flicked the butt at the bird. The pigeon flew away, leaving a ribbon of feathers behind.

"There you go, you bastard," Henryk said, as he felt a chill in his stomach.

Epilogue

He looked down and, to his surprise, discovered a knife, almost its entire length embedded in his flesh. He grabbed it and felt the warmth of a stream of blood running down his arms. He heard a cooing sound. Glancing back, he saw, at least, a flock of pigeons staring at him. A moment later, they were everywhere. They swarmed the entire balcony. Eventually, even himself. He had no strength to resist.

He felt dizzy. He fell. He remembered scenes from the movie, where the decent guy gets stabbed in the guts and staggers among astonished gawkers and weeping women. But Henryk was completely alone, and the situation didn't look as good as it did in the movies. He tried to get up, but then everything seemed to play in slow motion. He slumped to the ground, his hands glued to the railing. Hundreds of small eyes stared at him. He knew he couldn't avenge Felek, Teodor, or Hilek. He couldn't believe anyone would take everything from him. What was most precious, even if it was as paltry as his life. Even if it was a desire for revenge.

He was preparing a noose, which all the while had been tightening around his neck.