Zbigniew Oporski

This is a place of shadows. I was there recently. For a while. The place is old age. It is she who writes his rules and everyone serves her there. She herself is looking straight into the eyes – shamelessly, in a horrible way. She looks even though she does not look straight. He looks through the observer, with pride, self-confidence – ruthlessly. Old age penetrates deep into a human being making it physically and mentally wreck waiting for its turn – the turn to meet another friend of old age – death. Old age is part of only a few, chosen according to unwritten rules and widely understood happiness. It binds tightly, painfully, like a constantly clamping barbed wire. Pazernie, because as part of it is furious that only so much can. He never lets go. However, for the most part, old age is a whole, it is a state. Then, it pushes without any frames or barriers. Here, in old age, there is no word “dignity”. For example, you can not choose a moment of meeting her second friend – death, but only – as in Russian roulette – passively wait for your end. This waiting can be seen on the faces of the shadows, who, not so long ago, were volcanoes hated by the old age of youth. Now the shadows feel worse, debased. Devastated the more, the more they collide with someone younger. For example, contact with family on the one hand brings light, but on the other it intensifies the awareness that here they are, shadows are just shadows. A dot at the end, sometimes a very short sentence. These feelings manifest even in physical inefficiency. It is she who brutally and, worse, publicly collide with the obviousness of everyday normality, now appearing as the heights of human existence. How bad it can feel the shadow, attracted by the scent of food, which even crawls out of hunger in its wheelchair centimeter by a centimeter, a pace that departs any memories or pictures that appear over a bed from years ago. The commonality of everyday life sets new standards, in which the awkwardness of the soma does not even allow you to raise your head, showing the remnants of human pride that belongs to a punishment called life. Doused, spat upon, hungry by shadow, he moves his hands awkwardly and bound to the canteen with his crooks, to eat in his bent shape, leaning like a pig over the trough, unable to look at the companion on the other side of the table at the same time. Even this is too much for old age which curves, hunchback, coffins making us look with envy on the colorful world from the TV screens, not allowing to reach through the window often because it suddenly turns out to be too high, or the world behind it appears to be fuzzy stain. Now I understand why some put a sign of equality between life and death. Old age is the most perfect example and expression. I’m afraid. I feel helpless in the face of the awareness that once I will open the door of the place of shadows not only as a guest …

The first text I was able to create. The date of creation is February 24, 2015.

The quiet steps of a silent walk. Slow, almost silent like everything else you used to be. The eyes running across the windows are looking for themselves impatiently. The sight of his reflection in the shop windows you pass by sharply rejects the gaze to an undefined place. The cold of the night wind is no longer felt and the penetrating moisture is no longer annoying. The orange light of the street lamps, so warm and friendly, summons other people with its rays, but they are also gone. The sky-high silence raises its outcry. It attacks from everywhere, not giving you even a moment to rest. She moths, stings, is unbearable, indigestible, and ruthless. It hurts. The eyes continue desperately, blindly throwing gaze stones. It has no reflection anywhere. There is no one, no one is watching. The street becomes narrower, darker, more like a crack between buildings that are silent, only wanting to crush whatever comes between them. Imaginative crush becomes more and more felt. The eyes look anxious and the breathing becomes faster and nervous. There are less and less glowing windows. Suddenly a figure appears in one! Is! Yes! He holds out his hand !. No!? No! No …. He just showed up to fix the curtains and then disappear. He was gone, he was gone. There is … There is not … Again. However, this is not the end of the network of streets that surrounds everywhere. This network is huge, extensive and there are many windows. Meanwhile, the web of hope turns into the one that defines its essence – slowly entwines, loops, constrains more and more and more and more to immobilize it in its thicket, and finally snatch the last breath, choke it, annihilate it. It is useless to try to return. Breaking the braid is grotesque – too late. At first, the silent footsteps become more expressive and loud. It is the only sound in this non-colored, monotonous environment. It’s so terribly quiet around. Monstrous, unbearable silence from all corners of the world and a terrible, shocking scream inside. Though so loud and bursting, it is also inaudible. What’s more – nobody wants to hear it and sometimes can’t even hear it. You can stand right next to it and hear absolutely nothing. Such a scream can only be seen. You can see him in the madness of his eyes, his ragged voice, his uncertain, fragmented and chaotic speech, trembling hands, and the expression of a dead body. He will show his character only to those who shouted at least once in his life. Then he becomes visible and, showing his face, he entwines with fear whose penetration is the most horrible form of pain he has encountered. This is what meeting this scream looks like. It destroys every cell, it kills every nerve, every thought. The ruthless flight of time is felt more and more. Space begins to wobble. Single windows, as if inspired by madness, spring into a circular flight. The penetrating silence of the swirling surroundings, together with an inner scream, begin to tear the frail body. The pain on the verge of insanity throws him overwhelmingly. The first fall occurs. The panicked gaze seeks help in anything, however, there is no one or anything that can help. The body sacrificially leaps up, but after a few steps it falls again onto the dirty, neglected street. Suddenly my breath stopped. In an instant, the air turned into a stone that could not be drawn into the lungs. It has become a barrier, an insurmountable obstacle. The body begins to choke, thrash. The dance of convulsions takes a huge toll of terror with every second. Then he twists, wants to scream, but the grip is so tight that a barely audible hiss is released. The environment darkens. Due to exhaustion, the body becomes more and more inert, like a balloon from which air has escaped. The approaching darkness of powerlessness and helplessness is finally interrupted by the first gulp of inhaled air. After a while, more appear. At a time, he takes one extremely cold and deep breath from the environment. It is followed by a series of smaller, more shallow ones. Now he lies so helpless, defenseless, lost in his vanity. The space emerges from the darkness with an ever sharper contour. The body gently rises, rests against the scratched, disfigured wall. I don’t feel cold. It takes a while. The eyes, streaked with red veins, slowly begin to look uncertainly and searchingly. The city’s terrifying silence is broken by an unrhythmic, soft clatter. The sound at the beginning on the verge of doubt increases and, becoming more and more clear, suggests approaching. The heart rate becomes stronger, the surface of the forehead slightly wrinkles and the head twists a little to better hear this strange, familiar sound. The body seated by the wall tenses uncertain as it waits to meet the stranger. Each second of waiting increases tension and suspicion. In its indeterminacy it is more intolerable, increasing excitement and uncertainty. Waiting and louder and louder steps torment causing rapid breathing. Drops of sweat trickle down your temples, your head jerking nervously. From nowhere, the footsteps are coming, as the echo bouncing off the planes of the buildings causes torment of confusion. The tension is at its peak. Suddenly, from a small recess on the left, from the most unexpected place, a figure appears carelessly wrapped in a coat. Her eyes, white with terror, cast chaotic glances at the stagnant surroundings. Chaotic footsteps cease under the influence of uncertainty about the direction of the chosen path. The fear that gripped the body half-sitting on the ground that second causes it to recoil in an act of escape, but the wall behind the back brutally destroys this intention. The murmur caused by this movement immediately attracts the whiteness of the figure’s gaze. Suddenly, the eyes of both of them meet, and at the same moment a shocking, ghastly and tearing scream reaches the silhouette huddled under the wall! Exactly the same! Like an electrocuted body, it convulsively lunges, seeking any opportunity to escape the torture of screaming. Eyes bulging out of terror saw something that hurt so much that the immensity of the torment is unbearable. The parchment of fear draped over his face. Once again, panic in its size only allowed her to let out a groan from her cracked, blue lips. With the last of her strength, saturated with fear, the body sprang up from the dirty ground and hurled blindly into a dark, narrow street. Distracted by madness, the human outline quickly disappeared into the blackness of the narrow gap between the buildings and the noise of her footsteps was heard for a short while before finally dissolving into the silence that filled the entire city that night …