20.1.22
IN WARSAW
In Warsaw you get more lost in the city and not among the people because everything is wide and big. The walls are cold, the pavements distant. The tall windows are double-glazed to make the most of the light and heat as possible. Bulging red plaques with names of institutions; Schools, hospitals, libraries...Brick walls overrun by colossal ivy. Crushing, ugly architecture. The milky grey sky and the smell of rain. Someone is working in the office, someone is studying at the faculty, someone is walking in the museum.
I pass the round window above the old neon of the drugstore. Zbawiciela Square, Pulawska Street, Café Mozaika, the park near my school, the petrol station, the bus stop. My twelve-storey block of flats. The noise of the lifts, the stench from the rubbish room. I climb the stairs to the fifth floor, the rented flat smells of dust and carpet. No one is ever there. I use the yellow telephone on the floor in the corridor. The receiver smells of stale breath. To call you have to dial the numbers by tracing an arc with your finger that drags the accumulated dirt under the transparent plastic wheel.
I pass the round window above the old neon of the drugstore. Zbawiciela Square, Pulawska Street, Café Mozaika, the park near my school, the petrol station, the bus stop. My twelve-storey block of flats. The noise of the lifts, the stench from the rubbish room. I climb the stairs to the fifth floor, the rented flat smells of dust and carpet. No one is ever there. I use the yellow telephone on the floor in the corridor. The receiver smells of stale breath. To call you have to dial the numbers by tracing an arc with your finger that drags the accumulated dirt under the transparent plastic wheel.
I've arrived, all right, good night.

