Anatol Kolpak's metamorphoses

"Go in the peace of Christ.

" "Thanks be to God."

The priest had no choice but to kiss the altar, kneel, and retreat with a group of altar boys (the children their colleagues call "pussies"). The faithful were still standing, as in any civilized church. They stood and sang, because this wasn't happening in Jelenia Góra, where in the Garrison Church, after the priest's words, "Go in the peace of Christ," there was an immediate evacuation, often ending in trampling. Although this wasn't Jelenia Góra, Anatol immediately crossed himself and began his weekly escape. He wasn't fleeing from the disgusting moans of women in their eighties, but from absolutely everyone, especially those familiar faces.

Anatol always went to church alone, not just to church, but everywhere, because he was terrified of company, afraid of people, and the prospect of contact (unwanted, accidental contact) dazzled him. He would forgo doing something only because of the risk of encountering another person with whom, it should be added, he had no connection except the familiarity of those features. But he had to go to church. Every Sunday. He had to, because he believed. Since absenteeism was no longer an option, other methods were necessary: ​​he arrived at church fifteen minutes before Mass began, hid in the darkest corner of the balcony, and sat. And waited.

He waited and watched as the church's interior filled with new figures, each familiar face reflecting disgust on Anatol's face. It was tracked to its final resting place and memorized there in such a way that, as mass began, Anatol would have a church plan before his eyes, with sensitive points pulsating with red light meticulously marked on it. Any dangerous approach to a dangerous spot would trigger an alarm signal, which at that precise moment would tell him to turn his head away, at any pretext. He would turn his head away effectively enough to avoid the gaze of the vile intruders, and he could always explain his lack of recognition as lost in thought, or better yet: lost in thought! But who would believe him the latter…

Escape…

Phew… I think he'd succeeded again. Now I just need to get into the elevator myself, because that's where it's worst…

-Tolek!!!

………………………????????????????????

-Toleeek! Wait!

Fuck. Wiesiek. Tenth floor. I'll smile: -Hi.

- Well, hi.

One step. Two steps. Three steps. Four steps. The slowest steps of my life. He's the one who approached me, the responsibility for dialogue rests with him. He can't think anything bad about me because he doesn't. He has no damn right. But what does he care about his right, since he's an idiot? And an idiot will suspect me of idiocy. We walk and walk, and it's as if we were standing still. What a terrible heat…

And suddenly, from this massive ball of silence, which was slowly rolling toward their shared building, the air began to escape rapidly through a hole torn by Anatole's sudden words, which cost him a lot of health:

"Let's walk faster, because I really need to shit."

What a display of "unnoticeable intelligence" that was, what a brilliant idea that allowed Anatole to fill the neighborhood with fireworks of pride: he didn't have to talk to anyone, and everyone knew he was great.

This simple slogan (so beautiful in its simplicity) actually accomplished two important things. First, Anatol didn't speak because he was desperately craving a poop, and any word could trigger an unwanted avalanche of unpleasant odors. Second, they'd get there faster because Wiesiek would understand the problem (we're all human) and show himself generous by quickening his pace. What good is a desperate mind searching for a way out of a situation seemingly devoid of one? Ha, Anatol's genius will only increase when we realize that the wolf has had its fill and the sheep are all gone: Wiesiek, after all, felt the burden of silence, but now? Now he'll think Anatol will be grateful for not starting a discussion because of his condition.

Genius.

Well. Now we can say the first stage is behind us, but unfortunately, it's not over yet. New traps are already lurking in the house: Mom and Dad. Fortunately, he's accustomed to them enough…

"Praise him, son."

Oh, it's already beginning, but the answer must be: "Forever."

…that all he needs to do is not cross that line of not speaking, beyond which they start accusing him of not wanting to talk to them. He can do it, but it's painful for him. But there's no way around it, because, as one TV lady said, that's life: some people work, others have to study.

So he decided to play the offensive and sent a strategic sentence:

"It's so warm today, I think I'll wash up." Now he has to wait for a response, because a mother never leaves her son's words alone—they so rarely come.

" "Indeed.

" And thanks to this procedure, he could occupy himself until dinner.

A shared dinner. A monstrosity. But better together than with his father, to whom he can't utter a single word, he despises him so much.

But there were still forty-five minutes until dinner, just enough time to sit comfortably in his special chair and listen to the latest Trans Am album for the umpteenth time.

Weekends were awful.

Every day off was awful.

And vacations were the worst of them all.

All those days when you'd made a habit of not working were just an illusion, and the longer it lasted, the harder it became. Who needs three months of "freedom" when their "freedom" always gets a kicking in the ass from the slavery that followed. The whip would never disappear; it would always be there. And it reminded us during our happiest moments that there were no happy moments, that's why hatred of life wasn't special, it was completely natural.

Of course, all this couldn't have stayed with Anatol forever. After a week, tops, he'd have thrown himself from that damned seventh floor or changed the course of his blood with a knife. So he had to somehow suppress all those vile thoughts that returned like boomerangs every day. That's why Anatol had to "ventilate" every day, and he did it even more often, with the stubborn persistence of a maniac.

Always in the evening. In the bathroom. In various ways: with soap, in the shower, with toothpaste (when his thoughts were at their heaviest, because toothpaste is sharp and always stings later, and physical suffering smothers spiritual suffering and, well, is more arousing), and sometimes, in truth, most often, quite traditionally: with his hand alone.

Always at night. In his room. In his bed. In various ways: by shaking the sheets, to the rhythm of music, or simply by doing so. His vivid imagination allowed him to forget that masturbation wasn't sexual intercourse, and thus, for those few minutes a day, he was happy.

With a woman.

Later, he'd fall asleep with her, but wake up without her. That's why it wasn't a happiness worth getting out of bed to face the rising sun.

Sometimes during the day, when no one was home, and he'd find the right movie somewhere at his father's. These were his only moments of contact with the opposite sex, although in truth, it wasn't such contact at all.

But that was just a valve.

Necessary for life. He couldn't help but live: he believed in God. Truly. He didn't always understand Him, but he never deliberately violated His prohibitions.

Happiness, unlike a valve, is not necessary for existence.

So, when night fell and all the decent people were fast asleep, Anatol, pressing PLAY on his tape recorder, opened the door to his secret world full of imaginary women. Before taking off his pants, he went to his classroom and looked around: who would I go with today? Actually, they were all mine... hmm... maybe Ania, or maybe Małgosia, good idea... but no, I like them too much, I couldn't look them in the eye later... I could love them, but not fuck them, so disrespectfully, it would be like robbing a friend. Unfortunately, it seems it has to be that I will always be in love with ideals, like them, and I will meet (if at all)... Okay... in that case... let's invite... Marzena today. Yes, Marzena will be good: she's a stupid cunt, but she has a nice ass. It's okay to fuck.

The music coming from the speakers was quiet and monotonous, based on a steady rhythm set by a very dirty bass guitar, and around it poured dark landscapes of sampler sounds and patches of ambient reality. Anatol was half-standing, half-sitting, leaning against the desk in his room when Marzena entered. She was wearing ordinary underwear pajamas, the tackiest, yet at the same time the most normal in the world. Whatever masturbators imagine, it is always the most normal, and therefore the most beautiful and alluring to them, because unfortunately, it is completely unattainable. The changes occurring in the brains of compulsive masturbators, causing the degeneration of their sexual drives, completely destroy any chance of ever achieving a normal emotional state and enjoying another person (a doctor becomes the last hope, but where can you find a masturbator brave enough to seek medical attention?). It's a bit like a seventy-year-old alcoholic who's been drinking heavily since he was eighteen, sitting drunk in front of a turned-off TV that only gets one, thinking: "I'll wake up again tomorrow, kiss my wife in the morning, take my daughter to school, and then we'll go to my son and his wife's for dinner together." And he's happy. Until the morning, when he wakes up and remembers that there's no point in kissing that stinking face of his, because his wife is long dead in the cemetery, beaten to death with a breadboard, and that he won't be taking his daughter anywhere, who, after all, has been committed to an insane asylum as a result of repeated molestation, and his son won't invite him to dinner because the prison he's in has strict visiting rules.

Marzena approached him with an exceptionally calm gait and touched his nose with the tip of her tongue, trying to penetrate his right nostril.

Anatol slowly removed the rags he'd slept in and gently caressed himself all over.

Marzena pulled off his pajama top and bit his nipple. She took his hand in hers and brought it to her mouth, from which a very agile tongue protruded. A moment later, her hand was guiding his toward the destination of all male lust pilgrimages, and they both sank in.

Anatol drooled over his hand and gripped his penis with it. The bass sped up a bit. The vertical movements began.

Marzena decided the moment had come and allowed herself to be turned onto the desk, sticking out her ass as she did so. Now she just waited until… ahhh…

Anatol sped up along with the bass, which was getting dirtier and dirtier, until he finally jerked in bed in a slight convulsion, took another drag, and stopped. He sat up, turned off the tape recorder, sighed, and collapsed heavily onto the pillow. Another sperm-stained tissue arrived on the shelf next to the couch (he blew into it far more often with his penis than with his nose).

Now all that was left was to fall asleep blissfully.

Marzena breathed peacefully beside him.

She was probably already asleep.

But now that all the filth was over and only the most beautiful things remained, he probably wouldn't have offended anyone if Ania or Małgosia had appeared instead of Marzena. Still, he was afraid to involve two goddesses in his twisted fantasies, even the harmless ones, if such things existed.

Strange.

He couldn't sleep that night, but he promised himself there would be no more masturbation tonight, no matter what. He closed his eyes, tried to calm himself, then opened them immediately after rolling from side to side a few times.

Marzena couldn't stand this restlessness in bed and got the hell out of there. With that, the last chance to calm Tolek and send him to a peaceful sleep vanished.

When he couldn't stand lying there any longer, he quickly jumped to his feet and went out onto the balcony—the only place that filled him with peace. The view from the seventh floor of the estate, overlooking the edge of the estate and beyond, the sprawling meadows and fields, intersected here and there by the sharp lines of railway tracks, where a steel snake occasionally penetrated under the cover of darkness, where only the chimney of the nearby power plant reached deeper into the sky than he did, made him feel like Mr. Pomorzan.

Mr. Pomorzan stood and gazed out at his estate. He observed the peaceful sleep of hundreds of people, only a few interrupted by the bright light in the window, and even there it was peaceful. Only his balcony, Mr. Pomorzan's balcony, was filled with a dangerous anxiety that could be quenched by a single cigarette, but unfortunately Mr. Pomorzan didn't smoke. A cigarette might even scare away some Butterfly Queen, for whom he had been waiting on this balcony for seventeen years.

(No one's coming here anyway, you stupid prick.)

What? What? Did someone say something? There's no one here... No, this is just a fucking hallucination.

For seventeen years he had been the Lord of the Pomeranians. Seventeen years. That's quite a long time.

And nothing.

Emptiness.

"And for the rest of his life, no one would be waiting for him at the station..."

And yet he was terrified by the thought that kept bouncing around in his poor head: that he was watching this view, standing on this balcony, controlling the neighborhood, that he was doing all this for the last time. His parents had decided, and that was how it was going to be. Tomorrow, they were moving to Radom.

"But Mom, what are you talking about, to Radom? This city is dying!"

"Tolek, I'm really sorry, but you have no say in this matter. We are guided by reasons so important that they can't be changed in any way.

" "What nonsense are you spouting? What reasons could you possibly have?"

"Mom, don't worry."

"Yes, of course, it's just another one of your whims just to ruin my life."

"Tolek, how can you even say that?"

"What, it's not like that, is it?"

"You don't have any friends here anyway."

"Yes, please, kill me off some more.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuckfuckfuckfuck.

" The door slams, and Tolek is alone in the room again. An armchair and ambient music by C-Schultz & Hajsch, which neither disturbed him nor in any way disturbed his emotions.

Somewhere around the thirty-minute mark of the sounds of the bonfire, ships scraping against the quay, and bricks being laid, the door opens. Tolek had been waiting for it all this time. He knew his mother would now tell him their important reasons.

"Toluś, listen, I didn't mean to say that."

"Oh, okay, whatever." "

Listen, we have to move there because …………..

Well, if people always moved to the other side of the country for such idiotically trivial reasons (and all reasons are really terribly trivial), we'd lead a nomadic lifestyle. And so Anatol found another reason (a trivial one?) to make him think his parents were idiots. This doesn't change the fact that tomorrow it would be Radom.

Generally speaking, of course, his mother was right: sure, he didn't have any friends here, and certainly never would, anywhere, but here he still had hope. Here, he was someone; during those seventeen years of standing on the balcony, he had managed to create himself as a very important figure whose waiting would end somewhere. Everything would be new there, this herd of unknown idiots would be important, but not him. An ordinary, unknown peasant from Szczecin. And even his imagination wouldn't come to his aid, even if he begged it on his knees, tears streaming down his face, demanding mercy. Hope, once killed, will probably be denied to us forever. No wonder Anatol couldn't sleep.

Brrrr.

It seemed to have cooled down. He needed to try to sleep again. On the way to bed and while he was getting ready, he remembered the recent party. Another boring party, where he'd only spoken twice and then immediately fled home. But there was something there that intrigued him, a certain charming person, Zosia, whom he'd never dared approach, of course, but whom he seemed to have seen somewhere before. For a while after that, he was even a little intrigued by her image that kept flashing before his eyes. What could it be about her that had prompted his subconscious to constantly recall her? After all, he already had two Angels he'd never be with, and why would he need a third? He didn't know. This figure had stuck with him in a purely irrational way. And now she appeared again, as if she wanted to lie down next to him and fall asleep with him.

Cuddling him in her arms and being cuddled in his.

Anatol, despite feeling somewhat uneasy with her, obviously didn't mind.

Sleep came instantly. And blissfully.

The shrill ringing of the telephone woke him, painfully pressing into his consciousness through every available opening in his head, hurling irrational dreams onto his face. Brrrr. Disgusting. Who the fuck? Maybe someone died and we won't move out? Thoughts flashed before his eyes, arbitrarily and rapidly, even before he bluntly realized the telephone ringing wasn't fictitious.

"Haaloo..oo..o?…? (deep yawn).

"-

(yawn) are we joking?" Anatol's lack of strength prevented even a slight embarrassment (yawn).

"-(terribly shy female voice, timidly) no…

Anatol abruptly jumped to his feet: A WOMAN?! Jesus, if only it were Ania or Małgosia!"

-(a confident, brave voice, intended to inject some reassurance into the other party)Yes, who's speaking?

-(a little bolder)Am I talking to Tolek?

No, it can't be either of them – Angels don't call.

-Yes, it's me. He desperately wanted to find out what was going on, until he decided on a certain step that required his involvement: -It's terribly late…

-(it worked; much faster)Yes, I know. Listen, Anatol, it's Zosia…

The impulse that reached Tolek at the sound of that name made him immediately turn his head to the bed… but no, he was alone. She hadn't slept with him. Or maybe she'd guessed?

-Why aren't you saying anything? Don't you remember me?

-No, no, of course I remember you, and…

-What?

-Actually, I've been thinking about you an awful lot…

-Don't say anything anymore, please. Just come to me.

-What?! Now?! Really?!

-Tolek, we both want this.

-We've barely seen each other…and…

-So what? And so you're still here. With me.

"Jesus... you're here too..."

-

-

-

- (emerges from his reverie) yyyy..., where do you live? "

Not far, beyond the park.

" "Yes, I know perfectly well. I've already inquired.

" "I'm waiting" (the most charmingly phrased word in the world).