The second tale.

Our minds – lonely rocks on the stormy sea, constantly whipped by waves of salty words, but words that are not prayers or tales, 

are always whistled in the wind…

But what would be a tale made of words woven by the wind without rocks? 

What could be more beautiful than a prayer transforming our stony, hardened hearts into lanterns torn from darkness? If life is a sum of chances, could a story be created from random words? Would it not sound like a cacophony of thoughts? Would it not look like a picture made of mismatched puzzle pieces?

Do you ever feel that in the face of a hundred reasons to do something, there’s always that one, usually absurd, reason to put your plan on hold? And it’s not about laziness or a delusive lack of time 

(we usually waste entire years to be a few minutes late for a life opportunity), but rather a premonition that preempting fate and fooling destiny might end up, if not tragically, then at least sadly. I remember such a winter journey through the night and mountains, with the traditional feeling of so-called „time pressure,” or being late to who knows where and for what.  I stop the car at a 24-hour exchange office, which is always empty at this time, and it looks friendly to the person heading where he isn’t yet.  In front of me, only one client, but he exchanges currencies 

from half of Europe into zlotys. Playing with paper money continues, the vision of an evening with a beer 

at the destination is getting unpleasantly blurry. After ten long minutes, filled mostly with not very warm thoughts about the straggler, I handle my affairs and return to the highway to my private heaven: the warmth of the car, music, and the illusory sense of being the master of fate. The eyes of imagination undergo a miraculous correction: 

they see every froth bubble in the evening pilsner glasses…

These magical moments, however, are unfairly short. 

The fog mocking my plans, the dawn not bringing light, the speed similar to a Sunday ride on a dilapidated Chinese bicycle. In a moment, I’m stuck in traffic.  It turns out that 10 minutes earlier there was an accident, triggering a series of subsequent ones. I hear on the radio that there was a huge accident on the highway that I was driving to heaven on. A total of 96 cars were involved, including some of the safest ones that usually give one a sense of freedom on every road. The number of injured people is still being counted; unfortunately, their (or not really their) destiny caught up with several people. Still, a little boy who fell out of a window and flew straight into snowdrifts for several meters is doing quite well. Which of those lists was I supposed to be on – I don’t know… 

I couldn’t remember the face of the straggler from the exchange office anymore. Guides to the core of darkness often change faces and paths to disguise or find balance; elves do it, too. The rivers of happiness and despair flow into the same non-existent oceans, where boats and ships do not sail, yet both turquoise atolls and rocky islands in these expanses are full of castaways.

Ferries between the islands and the shore of consciousness operate rarely and irregularly, and yet some of them sink from an excess of gold, baggage 

and psychoactive substances, despite the long-established tariff of one obol (after the carriers’ strike, the dollar and pound were allowed, 

later even the yuan).

These boats with passengers that do reach their destination (most often it’s the final port of Emptiness) after years of odyssey contain only 

mixed ashes in similar shades of grey –  unhappy winners, rich and hopeful losers. The carriers 

(because of a strike due to the growth of cargo weight unregulated by European standards – the number of carriers had to be increased to two), in the company of rosy-cheeked nymphs, use those ashes to fertilize meadows destined for the field, graceful flowers – angelicas, corn lilies, twistedstalk, Lunaria, narcissus, impatiens, rattle-top, goatsbeards, spider plant, beggarticks, black salsify, frogbits and viper’s bugloss.

In the end, the nymphs bid them farewell before another journey with the words: „Harryony, don’t care about millions or dust and dirt. Just don’t take the kids.”

Not the kids…”