THINNING
MODEL: CEZARY
THINNING AWAY/OUT (RZEDNIENIE)
There’s this old tenement house near my home... I press the lift button and pass by stories with many doors, and stories behind those doors. Every flat has its own balcony and if you open its door, you can let some air in. The flat’s essence changes then, as the air thins. There’s a blackberry bush around the house, planted by somebody back in the days of communism. The stairway has been painted yellow by some other person, but that was in 2003. In the old days, the lamps here were made of fine glass; well, now they’re form whatever cheapest chain of furniture stores.
I gave him a coat from back in the days of Stalin. At the time, in the freezing winter, a soldier would stand by a burning bin near a bus stop... I think there was a word for that in polish... He would stand there and think. As he’s been aging, everything seemed to get hazy and shapeless. He could only remember things vaguely. Like some streets... How some fence out there might have looked like, he couldn’t recall. Not like anyone cares about those things anyways.
You might go to a bazaar and buy an old jacket; you put it on and sometimes you get this burning feeling on your neck. It’s a very specific sensation – if you try on something passed on by a mentally well person, it always seems to fit nicely on your shoulders. I always look at the collar; that’s where a person leaves the most trace of themself. I keep losing things because I have a lot of thoughts and sometimes I might leave the bar in just a sweater because it’s not yet that cold. And only the next winter do I realize, the coat is gone.
translation from Polish: Sambor Zgoda
There’s this old tenement house near my home... I press the lift button and pass by stories with many doors, and stories behind those doors. Every flat has its own balcony and if you open its door, you can let some air in. The flat’s essence changes then, as the air thins. There’s a blackberry bush around the house, planted by somebody back in the days of communism. The stairway has been painted yellow by some other person, but that was in 2003. In the old days, the lamps here were made of fine glass; well, now they’re form whatever cheapest chain of furniture stores.
I gave him a coat from back in the days of Stalin. At the time, in the freezing winter, a soldier would stand by a burning bin near a bus stop... I think there was a word for that in polish... He would stand there and think. As he’s been aging, everything seemed to get hazy and shapeless. He could only remember things vaguely. Like some streets... How some fence out there might have looked like, he couldn’t recall. Not like anyone cares about those things anyways.
You might go to a bazaar and buy an old jacket; you put it on and sometimes you get this burning feeling on your neck. It’s a very specific sensation – if you try on something passed on by a mentally well person, it always seems to fit nicely on your shoulders. I always look at the collar; that’s where a person leaves the most trace of themself. I keep losing things because I have a lot of thoughts and sometimes I might leave the bar in just a sweater because it’s not yet that cold. And only the next winter do I realize, the coat is gone.
translation from Polish: Sambor Zgoda