Turn

Where to begin? Hmmm... Describe what we do? Well, yes... Some people will think it's silly to spend all day in front of the Bend. Yes, yes, in front of the Bend, not the Bend. After all, there's no other like it anywhere. He's one of a kind. And he's ours. The three of us. That's why we're with him. He feeds us, gives us... Well, he simply is. Earlier, someone put up a sign warning drivers about Him. We dug up that metal post with a meaningless piece of sheet metal. We were meant to protect the Bend from outsiders. Neither He nor we needed any sign. And the drivers? Let them worry about themselves. If, driving their cars, they think they own the world, the roads, and speed, they're wrong. The Bend will prove to them that it's more powerful than they are. It will throw them in disgust into a nearby ditch, and there they will groan, locked in the steel canister of their vehicle, begging for rescue that never comes. Then we will come and fulfill His will.

Of course, not everyone needs to be punished. Those who drive through the Bend with a whistling of tires, barely making it to the right, are under His protection. They will remember Him for the rest of their lives, believe me. And we, sitting on a fallen tree stump next to the asphalt, will write down the license plate number of the car that passed. It happened that the Bend would only eject a car after a certain turn. Each ejected vehicle was checked to see if it had passed this way before or not. If so, the people had the right to live. But that depended on their behavior. If, locked in their cars, they acknowledged the power of the Bend, we let them go and even called the doctors to take them back to their filthy civilization. But this happened very rarely. Mostly they cursed, screamed, complained about the poor road markings. Naive. We were a sign of this road, we were His sign.

So what if we're only twelve? Young? Not at all. We understand a lot. More than some adults. What, do you think that at twenty, thirty, or forty, or even older, you can tell us what's right and what's wrong? We know. And not even us. The corner knows. It throws out the bad guys and lets the good guys in. Simple, right? The busiest time is, of course, in winter. It's hard to keep up with cleaning up the wreckage. Another thing is that then we have more cash for our expenses. We know people who don't ask where we get the wrecked cars. They just come, pay, take the car, and leave. It's a good deal. But we always clean up the bloodstains. Sometimes it's better not to give others too much to think about. They might not understand. Sometimes they don't have cash, they just pay with weapons. Before, we only had handmade spears and bows, now each of us has a pistol on our belt and a knife in our hand. We're thinking about buying crossbows, because firearms make too much noise. Maybe we wouldn't need all this, but one of the drivers tried to escape once. Funny, right? Escape from fate?! Well, he tried anyway. He didn't know the forest as well as we did, so it wasn't as much trouble, but now, thanks to the gun, we can hit from a distance.

Another problem is school. Yes, we go to school, what, did you think we were three idiots? No, we even have good grades. We have to get good grades so no one picks on us. When our parents see that school is going well, they leave us alone, and we can do whatever we want. But there's another problem. While we're sitting in class, we don't keep an eye on Zakręt. So, during every break, one of us runs to see if there's a new car. If there is, he checks his notebook to see if it's passed by before. If it has, he checks if the people inside are obedient to Zakręt's will. Humility means life and help; lack thereof means death. When people are unconscious, he also calls for help. If the car's license plate isn't in the notebook, he kills them. And then it doesn't matter whether the travelers are conscious or not.

At night, Zakręt rests, and so do we. At dawn, before classes, we go to check on Zakręt's night. A calm one, or a busy one? Besides, we're with Him all the time. The weather won't scare us, oh no. If one of us gets sick, we come in pairs. Sometimes just one. But there's always someone. We love watching the speeding car struggle, groaning and squealing tires, fighting for survival. In those screeches, you can sometimes hear a plea for freedom, a plea for mercy. Sometimes it's answered. But more often than not, after a short fight, it loses, tumbling its huge, steel body into a roadside ditch, where it remains, motionless, spinning its wheels helplessly in the air. Sometimes it somersaults, rolling deep into the field, expressing the pain of its fall with the grinding of crushed metal, until it stands, unable to move. Yeah... Zakręt can take revenge on those who disturb its peace. And then we look into the notebook...

Lately, we've been having more and more problems with bodies. You can't sell these like a car. At first, we buried them in the forest. But there's almost no room left. We keep digging up a body when we have another one to bury. And we bury it deep. At least five feet deep. It's not easy for three twelve-year-olds, believe me. We dig in the fields from time to time, but we can only do it when the field is bare, otherwise people would immediately suspect someone was digging holes, and from there it's only a short step to figuring out what the holes were for. We have to be careful. Once, we even tried burning the bodies, but the smoke and stench were too much. If we had to dispose of the bodies like that, the whole village would come running to see what was happening. Our lake, on the other hand, is too small for drowning dead bodies, and besides, the village boys like to swim there and would find something immediately. Nothing but trouble. It's gotten to the point where we're happy when a crashed car's registration is listed in the logbook, because then we have a chance to let the driver go, but what can we do when he screams and curses at Zakręt, instead of humbly bowing his head and admitting his mistakes? We have to kill him with regret. But he could have lived. If only he had wanted to.

I remember a truck overturning once. A bang, a crash, several young trees felled, and the cab slammed into an embankment. All three of us felt our jaws drop to the hot asphalt. We approached the truck and at first weren't sure what to do with this mess. Trucks had never driven this way before. Luckily, the driver was dead. Why were you so upset? Of course, luckily, we could have easily run to the village for help. Zakręt killed him; he didn't need our help. All we had to do was clean up the mess. If the driver had survived, we would have had to kill him, and then what would we have done with the truck? What? No one would buy it from us, and even the three of us couldn't have cleaned it up. And no one could have found out about it. Even though our hands were clean, we were almost praised for running so quickly to inform the others. We were even recognized at a school assembly once. We saved the life of one of these guys... His car was noted in the notebook, he showed remorse, so we ran for help. We got a commendation from the principal and some money from the rescued man. Unnecessary publicity. We had to be very careful for a month because all the kids were desperate to know which corner it was and sit next to it. Fortunately, they quickly got bored of it.

So we sit again, waiting for the cars to arrive at their destination. Look, here it comes. A silver Audi, probably eighty, I don't know exactly, I don't know anything about cars. It's going quite fast, driven by some long-haired guy, who knows how old he is, he could use a shave. Next to him, a quite pretty girl, they're talking about something. Someone's sitting in the back too. A man. Also long-haired, but his is curly, and he's shaved. They're getting closer. They're becoming more and more visible. The girl is really pretty, but whatever, it won't do her much good if... I haven't seen this car here before. It's not far now. The driver only just realized that this bend is no ordinary bend. It's sharp. Sharp, but fair. He's about to pronounce his sentence on you. The car started braking sharply, stopped before entering the bend, and with a squeal, that familiar, pleading whine of the tires, it began to turn. Now, now, just a little longer, now... At the end of the curve, the driver accelerated, and the car sped away with a triumphant roar of the engine. Naive, they think they've won, but it was just Zakręt who decided they could continue. Now we'll write down their numbers. Es, ce, ka, zero, one, four, six. Yes. And we'll keep waiting. If you ever come to our neighborhood and see three children sitting on a fallen tree by the road, it means you'll have to drive through Zakręt unless you turn around. But we're patient. The three of us and Zakręt. We're in no hurry. We'll wait for you.