English - some stories
PLAYING FOR THE NUMBER
All my life, over and over again, people were telling me to be a good man. I was told: “it’s up only to you, how many points you will get in God with your behavior. As a confirmation of this theory they showed me a colorful picture depicting an old man with a cane, whose grey beard was supposed to be a symbol of goodness and nobleness. During my religious instruction I was forced to paint two red hearts. In one of them I was obliged, as a God’s child, to mark off as a black cross every single transgression of mine which could ideologically separate me from this colorful God. In such a way, trying to make me feel guilty, they wanted to extract my sinless humanity from me. As a result, all my offenses marked with a hideous BLACK pencil, under my parents’ and grandparends’ supervision, I was later on very scrupulously erasing.
When I showed my hearts to the “Supreme Court” during my religious instruction, they were astonished that I had been such a disciplined and lovely boy. They told me: “You’re a boy who will get a good grade from God, you will be saved”.
It ennobled me enough to sing religious songs in an angelic voice. Misled catechists were saying: “This boy performs so many good deeds that he undoubtedly will go to Heaven” It went on for quite a long time for I was a pretty good actor when I was a kid. My teachers would probably never discover the truth if some circumstances did not arise. Some day, when I served as a good example again, singing tryumphally about my love for Virgin Mary, one of my more ambitious and honest schoolmates, being unable to stop the envy accumulating inside him, finally lost his controll and shouted at the catechist with anger:
“You stupid cow! It’s just impossible that a hooligan like him doesn’t have sins at all !”
I was impressed by his exclamation so much that when the offended catechist began to beat him with a ruler, I grabbed her huge nose and started to make figure eight out of it, just like the figure skaters do it on the skating rink.
At that moment, all my hearts turned to black, even the ones that were supposed to remain eternally red. But the most important thing is that when the catechist threw me out of the classrom, she simultaneously deprived me of the feeling of guilt and selfadmiration while I myself felt that the red heart, so familiar to me from my religious instruction and the cards I used to make for my mother, took a human shape and started to thud in the boyish chest.
Couple years later, as an adolescent, I still put the crosses on the sheets of paper. This time, however, I put them on the lottery tickets. I played together with my aunt. She was too old to put six crosses in one blank space. When she finally managed to fill it in with God’s and my own help, I took our tickets and hurried toward National Lottery. There wouldn’t be anything extraordinary about it but one day I noticed to my astonishment that my aunt had a lucky number! It meant a lot of money for which one could buy two houses and a car!
I wrestled with my thoughts all night long: “what should I do with the winnings?” I was aware that if I gave it to the rightful owner, she would donate all the money to the local presbytery. The reason was simple: my aunt had only one goal in her life: to become another Mother Teresa. I was full of remorse but my old penchant for trickery (which had its source in the idealistic catechists’ teaching) finally overcame. I picked up the winnings and opened an account in a bank.; yet I kept enough to have some kicks for couple days. I even wrote an occasional poem titled “Whorehouse-review” and it goes like this:
A passer-by pushed his back into
the black abyss of a corridor
The orange moon on the frozen glass
and a pimp in the hall
With his mouth full of the blood-red lipstick
he looks pseudodemoniacal and comedian
I – a joker - followed him – this
(mind the family, you moron) “something”
Fluorescence, energy lines, bitches and…
sitisfaction guaranteed
‘Cause the whores never die
like ladies or pretentious women do
A moment of silence would be full of doubts on the bottom of exploration
and will hermetically cut itself
on the last glance of a young hostess
for the funerals cancelled.
After couple days of partying, it was high time to follow the voice of my conscience shaped in my childhood. I had ambivalent feelings but when my hangover was gone, I went to the bank, my heart bleeding, to make a transfer of the fortune from mine to my aunt’s account. In a moment of hesitation, I was even considering making a transfer directly to the account of some presbytery. However, I was curious whether my aunt herself (having problems with marking six crosses on the lottery ticket) was able to present her God with two houses… and a car.
THE END
THE DREAM ABOUT LITTLE EMMA
I can’t recall where exactly the thing I want to tell you about happened but it doesn’t really matter. Maybe it was today’s Getting or just entirely different, distant place. Maybe it was 1122 AD or 1221 or 1121. No, I think it was… yes, it was 1112, definitely. However, I’m not absolutely convinced ‘ cause it could be 1211 as well. The old age has its own rights - I am about… 91? No, it seems to me I’m nearly 93.
In that old time my memory was a way better. However, my sense of direction was much worse for I lived in two bodies. Today it is called schizophrenia but in my time it was called simpler: “possession”. Fortunately, Providence took care of me so both of my bodies remained pretty close to each other. They were made of protein coatings and belonged to a knight and his faithfull squire. In other words, to someone really important and to “Mr Nobody”.
On the unlucky day I want to speak about, the soul shared by the bodies of the knight and his servant was escorting a beautiful princess named Emma. We were obliged to deliver her to her father, impatiently awaiting her daughter in the nearby castle. Obviously, both of us desired the young body of a king’s daughter; yet the difference between us was that the knight was one of her potential fiances while the squire could be her shoeblack at the very most. For the time being, however, both of us (or actually I myself in two bodies) were on equal terms, at least as long as we wandered through the wild lands dwelt by the pagans, very numerous at that time. The knight was privileged to help her with getting off the horse, to prepare her meals and so on. At the meantime, the squire was watching them with patience. He was eating and drinking from his saddle as the visibility from that place was restricted. Consequently, the beautiful view didn’t dazzle his hideous and sinister eyes.
It had lasted till the unlucky day when a bunch of uncivilized pagans attacked them. The knight was obliged to fight for the royal honor to the last drop of his blood. He pounced on the barbarians who just impaled him on the spear and gutted like a fish. After some screaming and shouting everything became as silent as the grave. The knight was simply offered to the dogs like a kind of Pedigree Pal. The squire was thankful to God that he was just a squire. The squire, ie. the remaining part of my ego stayed with Emma amid the pagans – that’s what I call a real victory!
We were going to lead long and happy lives.
THE END
THE MENTOR’S HEART
It was on Monday. I was to deliver a very important speech. As a chairman of one of the Coal Unions I was supposed to introduce the guidelines for the upcoming year. A kind of a budget. I had a lot of time, as the speech was to begin at 2pm, so I decided to swim a little. I was lucky. On Mondays, the economy manager usually swam, so the water in the swimming pool had been heated appropriately. Well, it was even too hot, as if someone cared too much about the manager’s ass..
The manager Meniscus was already on the spot. The twelvepack of dark beer showed that with no trace of doubt. When I came up to the edge of a pool I almost hit the stepladder for the polished tiles on the floor were so slippery that one could do pirouettes on it.
Duce (this is what the manager Meniscus was called in the company) was swimming in the paddling pool. His dwarf and fat body was moving slowly on the sufface of water making huge fountains aside. He resembled a whale floating in the vapor of boiling water. When he saw me, insted of being confused, he started to move his legs faster than before which could evoke the flood.
He stood on his clumsy legs encouraging me to join him. I couldn’t find a rational reason to refuse (except for loathing) so after a moment of hesitation I took my bathrobe off and got into the hot water.
“You have a speech today, don’t you?” – asked the Whale.
“Yes, at two o’clock” – I explained – “but as far as I know, you’re starting your own show in five minutes, sir!” - I said, trying to get rid of him.
My remark was just right; Meniscus started to excuse himself saying that he had been just about to leave but when he saw me he forgot about his duties. He lugged his flippers and his own ass out of the pool and feeling offended vanished in the dressing room, his look saying something like “I’ll get ya some time, dude”. My riposte was short and clear: “Get your fat ass out of here and do your job!” I wanted to swim a little bit just for pleasure but I was curious about Duce-Meniscus’ speech so I followed him after couple minutes.
In the conference room the “flipper manager” was being awarded by ovation. He was pausing every now and then to get them more. He acted like an emperor enjoying his erudition and eloquence. He was talking about swimming learning, various swimming styles, diving and diving board jumping. His voice sounded like a thunderstorm. It was something like that:
“Each of you who is not able to swim under water the minimal distance required will not be able to find a permanent job in my company, either! Those who are unable to conform to the current standards cannot be accepted by our board in the name of discipline and a good example set for the others (ovation). The distance that we don’t swim through now, will be left for the next generations of our company’s workers! It just wouldn’t be fair! (standing ovation).
On the following day, Meniscus called me and said that he was not able to work because of his health problems. I felt worried so I decided to visit him in case he needed some medicine.
When I ringed the doorbell, a wizened old man opened the door and invited me inside in his croaking voice. Meniscus’ face which the day before had resembled a fresh watermelon, this time looked like a prune (because of its color, too). Meniscus was mumbling something nervously; it was unbelievable that it was the same person who one day before had been giving swimming instructions to the audience. His trembling body started to writhe in pain. Suddenly, he straightened up and threw in a few sentences that completed his total downfall. It was more or less like that:
- I’m going to get a small drum for my birthday tomorrow. I know that. Everybody heard the drumming – so hollow, empty and dogged. So I will wrap it neatly in a neat wrapping paper and give it as a gift to somebody else. Why not? Let them drum in this hollow, empty and dogged way. Do what you ought to do and go back home! Bye! No, I’ve got a better idea! I’ll break it into pieces and will give you them all just to make you mad! You will be drumming but it won’t sound hollow, empty and dogged any more! This is you who will become hollow, empty and dogged! And the drum will be left for itself. It will not care if you hit the middle or the edge of it. Thanks to you, the drum will be multiplied and satisfied. Yes, it will be satisfied… It’ll go to bed and will sleep with pleasure.
THE END