Gienek

"Look at you! He almost screwed that BMW!

" "Ugh... what! Weren't you doing last week? What a ride! It was wet! Three of them crashed!

" "But he left marks, heh, heh!

" "What are you talking about, marks!? How much glass was there last time?! And when that woman fell out of the Opel, I thought she was going to kill Gień!

" "Someone's going to die because of him. Fucking filthy!

" "That he's still walking, that lame one!"

Two backpacks/satchels lay on the sidewalk under the bus stop shelter, waiting for someone to play football with them. Their owners, however, had other things to do now. Standing staring at the nearby intersection, they were waiting for some interesting twist to end their busy day at middle school. Especially since an accident almost occurred right in front of them – a three-car collision. Other cars were approaching much more calmly, creating the common traffic jam on this route.

"Hey! Maybe you'll walk faster this way!" Should I push you? Don't you have the strength?! – A blond, thick-necked head, sticking out of the rear window of vehicle number one in the traffic jam, exclaimed in a masculine voice. – The old man is walking so viciously… .

– Well, I think I'll kick him right now, and he'll fall onto the lawn! – a voice came through the open window of the driver of vehicle number two.

– Come on, Jacek, can't you see he's a cripple? – a woman's voice soothed him.

– I see he's some kind of drunk! We almost hit him! And he's not walking in the crosswalk!

– Car number three stood silently, swaying from its sudden braking. Apparently, its occupants had nothing to say. The joy of a successful traffic maneuver was enough.

"Gadu-Gadu, screw you," Gienek thought. "You can kiss my ass..."

The passerby shuffled his stiff leg again, as if he were lazily sweeping the street with it. He stopped. His crutch shook along with his hand as he reached into his jacket pocket, propped up. Finding the candy among the shreds of the pocket torn from the inside took time. However, the drivers, heading to their destinations, couldn't understand this. This drunken, lame old man was throwing their plans into disarray.

The right lane had been vacated by Gienek, so several cars screeched against the asphalt, signaling their displeasure at the forced stop. Another waited for the candy to be unwrapped, urging him on with their horns.

"That Gienek has nerves, doesn't he?" said the witness to the near-accident, one of the two with the schoolbags, with a touch of emotion.

"What a fool, he'll be run over for good!" he replied. His friend.

"You, he had an accident a few years ago. That's why he's so broken. My mother told me someone ran him over in the crosswalk and ran away. He barely made it out. He even tried to commit suicide!

" "Yeah, I heard that too. Apparently, that Marta from the grocery store is his ex-wife. That chick, you know?"

"Yes, he left her after that accident. No one knows why... Mother decided she wanted to be alone. He'd gone mad...

" "Now you can run me over," Gienek said to himself. He blessed her body frantically, his tongue tracing the stretch marks on her stomach, hmm... something's not right here... in the madness of love... er... he blessed her body with his hands, his fingers gripping her nipples. Her breasts, which she had only recently dismissed in her mind as ballast—the reason for the unnecessary expense of expensive bras with padding—this time rose to the occasion. The forty-year-old hills burst into life. Like fabric with memory, they took the shape of their youth. He and his little-used Wacuś were doing the same for her, heh, heh. Well, there's something to that!"

The blaring horns turned into the screeching of tires from the liberated vehicles. Gienek rocked slightly on the curb as if to finish the case of the accident from six years ago. But he wasn't thinking about that at the moment. Propped up on crutches, nervously, as if his life depended on it, he was scribbling something on a piece of paper. He always carried with him a sheet of A4 paper folded in four and a pen. This, and a few candies with which he sweetened his life, constituted the contents of his jacket pockets. The ones in his trousers were torn straight through, so conveniently that he could pluck the Demodex mites from his thigh at any moment.

When he read what he had written, his withered and unshaven face smiled, revealing the blackness of a few surviving teeth. He lurched farther into the sidewalk, his body hunched over, twisted towards his right side. This caused him pain deep in his pelvis, which had been repeatedly repaired by the hospital specialists. The doctor considered this an excellent result of his many years of clinical experience. Gienek, however, disagreed – a cleanly severed head would have been more beneficial.

"It's nothing. I'll be home soon," he thought.

Gienek had been living for several years in an apartment building, chipped away by age and neglect. The former owner, a once-thriving state farm, was selling off the apartments of his former employees to profit, even if only for a moment, from the administrators of his bankruptcy estate. He bought this apartment inexpensively, right after breaking up with Marta.

The staircase with its eighteen steps of "stupid stairs," as he used to insultingly call them, was the apartment's only drawback for him. No, the peeling plaster or the clogged sewage system. No, the meter-high weeds that had once covered the flowery squares in front of the apartment windows. Just eighteen nasty steps!

"One... he confessed his feelings to her in a breaking voice. Two... he replaced his confident smile with fear. Three... fear of being rejected by the woman he loves. Four... four... fuck, I can't stand this climb, one day I'll crash into them like a porcelain doll. Five... I won't let you go. You'll rip my heart out if you leave. I need your touch and your voice," she said...

That always helped him. He distracted his thoughts by wandering through the expanses of his imagination.

"Eighteen... and they lived happily ever after, heh, heh... and they became one, hmm... and the chemo stopped working... oh, I have to think of something better, heh, heh."

Having passed his calvary, he cleansed himself of the mucus accumulated during the exertion. His lungs were completely healthy. At least that's what he told himself, comparing them to the rest of his body. They were functioning flawlessly. With a single puff, he shot the contents collected from his sinuses into the corner of the hallway.

"Nobody cleans here anyway. Let it dry," he used to say to himself after eighteen degrees."

The small room with the kitchenette was enough for him. A mattress against the wall, with eternal, sweaty sheets, faithfully awaited his exhaustion. And he was patient. It was impossible to tear Gienek away from the computer. Only the nature of the dream limited his connection to the machine and the internet.

"My Account – Login" flashed on the screen. With a quick movement of his right hand, he typed a password on the keyboard.

"There are a few comments. There's also my Andalusia, Janka, AnnoDominika. Hello, ladies," Gienek said to himself. It was his affliction ever since he became a loner. He liked to speak aloud, alone in his apartment. He liked to talk to internet users, even though they had no right to hear it.

He clicked on the comment.

"Monster, hmm... I don't like addressing you like that! Your words in the last story penetrated the depths of my feelings. Your nickname doesn't fit them, which, like a beautiful butterfly, leave the cocoon of the chrysalis. Where does so much love come from in a man? It impresses me.... Greetings, Janka."

"I agree with Janka. It's a good thing I don't know you personally, or I'd have to leave my husband. She's already screwed with me, now that I know such emotional men exist. Internet kisses. AnnoD."

"Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful... and that's it... I won't say anything more... Andalusia."

Gienek smiled for the second time today. The black stumps of his teeth once again saw the light of day.

"He, he, I can't wait for you to leave your husband for me. Just one look, he, he," he continued to say to himself...