– Over the past few months, my pen has been leaking lies like mediocrely purified drops of water from an expired filter. This sentence is also a lie, because I have never held a pen in my hand, and I only know the inkwell from engravings in yellowed history books – writes Jurkiewicz in a message to the reader. – I made it all up for comedy purposes. For the sake of comedy, I would lie to your face, but unfortunately it is impossible, because it is a book and our eyes will probably never meet. And I would like to, he adds. “Uneven Stories” will be published on February 27 by Prószyński Media.
EMOTIONS UP!
I have had anger issues since I was a child. Short fuse. That’s what they call it. I don’t have a fuse. In my case, the explosion comes before the spark. I remember the moment when I realized the seriousness of my problem.
I ordered a taxi through one of the popular transport applications. It still fascinates me that I can follow the driver and his progress in getting to me. So I was very disappointed when the car I ordered seemed to be standing still and I was in a hurry. The rain was mercilessly soaking my clothes, and I was increasingly late for my meeting.
I finally called the driver, but was greeted by a waiting signal. The same signal said goodbye to me. I made three more calls – no response. The number of blasphemies I hurled into space increased with each passing moment. I called again. I had lost my self-control a long time ago, and now I was turning rudely to the waiting signal:
– Answer the phone, you piece of shit. How dare you not answer my phone, you piece of shit. Answer it immediately, you whore drowning in hell, or I will kill you…
I didn’t hear the waiting signal for a suspiciously long time and suddenly:
– I’ve already picked it up.
He arrived after a while. It was the quietest taxi ride of my life. I felt very stupid. Silence wasn’t helpful. I should have said something. Something like: “I’m very sorry, sir. It’s not your fault. I’m the one with emotional problems. You’re not a whore drowning in hell.”
Meanwhile, in the alternate reality, the driver took course and began to melt. The face slowly drains from his skull. A race against time has begun – whether the client will be able to get there before he loses his human form to shapeless mush.
The taxi driver snapped me out of these sick visions by saying:
– I forgive you.
I got out of the taxi with my head down and thanked him for the trip.
***
The quiet ticking of the clock could be heard in the study. I couldn’t imagine how wallpaper with creepy pale pink flowers on the walls was supposed to promote psychological recovery. The faded backdrop of this scenery will haunt me in my nightmares.
The psychotherapist looked at me carefully. The thick lenses in her glasses reminded me of the bottom of a beer bottle. I didn’t know how many times they magnified the image, but I was sure it was possible to scan someone’s soul in them.
“Your optimism is the problem,” she said. – You try to influence everything and when things happen regardless of you, frustration comes.
“Yeah,” I admitted, “but it’s hard for me to ignore failure when I put a lot of effort into something.”
– You have to find a balance between motivation and acceptance of random factors. Please remember: you cannot influence other people’s decisions.
The therapy was coming to an end – which was fortunate, because talking about all this was quite emotionally taxing. The more I delved into my behaviors, the more I realized how difficult I was to others. It’s probably better to remain silent and tell yourself that everything is fine.
– Please do this exercise – the therapist suggested. – For one day, accept everything that happens to you. Please treat random events as part of the process.
Maybe she was right? Maybe it was my optimism that made me easily lose my temper and go crazy. For quite trivial reasons. The bigger problem was probably that I didn’t remember my attacks of rage. Recently, when a vending machine ate my five zloty coin, I regained consciousness an hour later. Naked, lying by the river with someone’s hair in his clenched fists. This anger lurked somewhere deep in my subconscious. I once dreamed that I stepped in a turd and split the planet Earth in half.
Half an hour after leaving the office, I was walking down the street and fate threw the first obstacle in my way. The first serious challenge to my patience. An anonymous phone call with the area code from Katowice could not mean anything good, at best it could mean a job offer in a mine. Maybe I should? It’s dark there. Less stimuli to attack my ADHD. The planet is irreversibly destroyed anyway, so we might as well use up those fossil fuels and turn Earth into Venus. Besides, the explosion of methane is less dangerous than the explosion of my anger.
– Good morning. Since you are a resident of Upper Silesia, you are entitled to special funding for the installation of photovoltaics, said the man on the other end of the line.
– I’m not from Upper Silesia.
– I see. Maybe I’ll tell you more about this offer. You will get fifty percent relief…
– I’m not interested.
– …you have to cover the rest yourself and then we will charge a commission of fifteen percent of the energy…
– I don’t even have a single-family house.
– It doesn’t matter, we will install solar panels on the tenement house or block of flats, then everyone will be able to use it.
– Sir, I live in Warsaw.
This information seemed to finally seep into my interlocutor’s consciousness.
– Don’t you want to move to Katowice?
– I wish you a nice day.
I hung up. I swallowed the lump in my throat and within minutes I felt normal. It worked. I suppressed my anger and it drained out of me over time. Have I just discovered a brilliant way to deal with my aggression? Why did I need this therapy? If I had known twenty years ago that it was possible to suppress my rage without consequences, my life would have been completely different. Damn it, I’m a new man!
The curb appeared out of nowhere. My foot caught that damn bastard in the least elegant way possible and I lost my balance. At that moment I thought it was forever. I flew forward and only a few quick, desperate steps saved me from falling.
– F*CK! What kind of **** put this curb here?! Have you all lost your mind in this concrete mess? Where?! I ask where is this f*cking step supposed to lead? – I realized that while saying these words, I had pulled a metal container from a concrete waste bin and thrown it at the shop window, shattering the glass. – Fuck! You made me do this! Society! You f*cks! I can’t cope with your presence! Everyone get the f**k out of town! All!
In universe number AT34x7, Warsaw was completely deserted. They all emigrated for fear of my wrath. And I was standing alone in the center and pissed off that I couldn’t catch a taxi.
Meanwhile, in my reality, the store owner was calling the police. Before I regained consciousness, I realized that my foot had kicked the glass bottle. The primal roar tore through the sky and my throat. The scream erupted from my very spinal cord like a storm of electricity, seeking an outlet for excess energy.
The vibration could mean one of two things: either a fissure to hell was opening in the ground and swallowing several passersby, or my phone was ringing in my pocket. The second variant turned out to be worse, because on the display I saw an unknown number with the area code from Katowice. I threw my phone against a nearby building and the wall bravely resisted. The camera fell into pieces, although the case kept them all in one place.
I went to the wall and started pounding on it with my fists. Subconsciously, I believed that destroying the building with straight blows would bring me relief.
***
The wounds on his knuckles slowly began to heal.
The silence in the police station was palpable. The number of documents on the desk was so large that you could hide behind them and pretend you weren’t there. I was getting more and more bored as I sat there and counted the wrinkles on the brood of the thoughtful policeman. I didn’t know what they wanted from me. I gave them a description of the curb.
– Are you going to do something about these outbursts of anger? – asked the impatient lawman.
– I’m working on it. – I looked at my bloody hands.
– Unfortunately, you will suffer the consequences. You kicked a bottle at the car and it crashed due to sudden braking. In other words, you have created a threat to land traffic. The prosecutor’s office will apply for temporary arrest. More bad news for you: our detention centers are overcrowded and we have to transfer you to another city.
– Which one?
– To Katowice.
Cezary Jurkiewicz promotional materials Prószyński Media
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
