The Corner -short story.

  Recently one clever guy I randomly met somehow managed to convince me that publishing my stories on my blog, especially noting I would have shown them to anybody anyway, wouldn't most probably do any harm. So here you go. This story has been written at work on my lunch break a year ago and made me feeling genuinely proud. I spent months reading it and telling myself what a genius I am and what an amazing talent I keep hiding from public. At the meantime, a year goes by, I don't like it anymore. I would write it now. I can't see why would anybody ever write such a thing. 

 I decided not to bother to put a title on it. Anybody curious, enjoy. 

There is this place in Victoria Park, where the historic borough of Tower Hamlets ends and Hackney begins. This place lies in my heart, gently filling the empty spaces with a green carpet of grass, calming down the turning corridors of memories. On that day I got up in a bit of a different manner than I used to and I found a golden ring hidden in my fist. It used to be a belonging of my grandmother, the only thing I got from her and my mother always said it didn’t matter. I had lost it years ago and I liked to believe it had a deeper meaning as we usually try to give value to the unexplainable. I was watching it for a while as it was lying there in my open hand, reflecting the light brought by a strong summer sun through the open doorway. Summer in London always comes as a surprise, but not a miracle kind, rather a magician’s trick when all of the sudden they take a harmony out of their hat instead of a rabbit. It can seem though, more golden than in the rest of the world, shimmering the air with bits of lightening treasure. You can ask this sun for your answers. It’s there for you, responding with thousands of gardens. 

 On that day I walked through the streets like a thought slightly floating on a verge between the wind and the pavement. I boarded the train from the same platform as usual, still holding a golden ring in my fist. There were just three more passengers in the carriage. On my left hand, with a corner of my eye I could see an elderly lady with a face alike to an exotic bird, with a red throat contrasting an ivory smoothness of her nose. Apart from her there were also two men carrying late autumns of their lives inside their tired gazes. One of them, of a tiny posture and short neck turning his head slightly towards his left shoulder, looked up in my eyes and smiled with kindness one can only be offered by a stranger. I was sitting next to the window watching the brown and sad track, the final landscape after everything has turned to dust. Then all of a sudden I heard the an automatic sound and a monotone voice announcing: ‘This train does not terminate at the next station. This train does not stop. It will continue till the final station. This train is for the end.’ I took a look around at other passengers’ faces. They looked calm and untouched, like sketches in the old animation, looking more beautiful to me than ever random strangers could if I only paid my attention to shadows. My destination had obviously changed and I felt embarrassed for travelling with such a big discount. 

 Slowly, I stood up and walked towards the beginning of the carriage, looking at the landscape outside of the window as it was getting closer and closer to my eyes. The train suddenly turned like a carousel keeping on turning around and making the world around all trembling in sights. Then I saw this place once again, the corner of Victoria Park near the station of Hackney Central. My mind entered the tunnel of gobelins filling  me all with smells and flavours I remembered from my dreams. Victoria Park looks the best in the afternoon, these afternoons which were running through the path of my own board game. When I was a child my dad and I used to play 'Wild Geese' which was nothing but a journey on a large cardboard. It was a journey through the hell, at least that was the way I perceived it at that time, because the pond was always deep and the well was always right there, and I had an anxiety of both: highness and darkening. And it always made my dad laugh, because he was never afraid of neither traps nor tricks, neither weeping harmonies nor talking trumpets. Could this train be stopping here? Is it here- the end of the world, the end of the ends, the end of the imagination. Could it be here?

Walking in my shoes

 Alonso liked when I was changing my shoes. There were two full drawers in my room, encouraging to pick one pair, according to the standard of the moment. There were several sets of high heels, inviting to pair them with the right dress, with a matching brooch or a necklace. Some ballerinas able to tell the beginning and the end of spring, and an endless crowd of boots and booties. They were my favourite, playing with the spots of the weather, they were a dress themselves, and a coat, and a warm pillow for the cold, windy mornings, calmly sufficient in their highness. But Alonso never asked me which ones were my favourite. He himself had only one pair of shoes of his own. 

 I was choosing them every morning with care. Polished and smart, but are they matching this fancy cheese you got me today for breakfast? Is it appropriate, is it right, does it suit the story you wrote for me today? Am I a lover or a mother, or a sister full of compassion and understanding, always understanding, cause that was a part of the deal to always understand.

 These days my distinguished high heels remained mostly locked up in a drawer, too uncomfortable, so in contrary to comfort. It is awful to live out of comfort, as you said, not having a stable job, an own flat, and how on Earth can people decide to live without a car. I have a bike, said I. My cycling shoes, sleeping in the upper drawer. You wanted to give me a helmet.

 My ankle booties, dark suede, not very suitable for the vegan pizza you ordered, no cheese, full of lettuce. I'm trying to hide my feet under the chair.

 It was problematic having picked a wrong pair of shoes. It was making me feel for my poor Alonso as it was pushing us both out of ordeal. That's the way it was meant to be- challenging! Just as challenging it can be to anticipate the theme of tonight's show. You see, it was the most difficult to choose the right shoes for the night. One needed to carefully listen to the previously provided instructions, spread into parts of suggestions and marmours, several glances outside of the window. It had to do with accuracy and most valued discretion, simply to never, ever, reveal the rules of the game. It could have become really problematic to Alonso if I suddenly came out of my role. Because it could lead, at the very end, to him, to have to take his shoes off as well. It was something I couldn't allow to happen. 

- Let's go to Amsterdam! Let's go to Victoria and then we can catch the next coach. It takes only couple of hours, we can sleep on the way. 

 In these moments he always said he didn't understand. It was the result of wearing the wrong shoes, that's why it was so important, his eyes were letting me know, it mattered just so much to pick them carefully. According to these shoes we could plan our life, expected at the train station at the right time with the estimated amount of luggage, with the hair perfectly cut and stylised. This future couldn't stand a whisper. 

 In the lower drawer was the place of rest for the shoes never meant to wear anymore. Amongst them, a set of sassy ballerinas, two coloured and embellished by a small detail, nicely lying next to each other on the bottom of the dust. These shoes were forbidden. They were the shoes of a girlfriend of another man. 

 There was another pair hidden deep in the corner. I was watching them sometimes from a distance. But it was me who was reluctant to take them out. These shoes were saying 'Adieu' and I didn't like goodbyes. The goodbye was not a part of the deal. It was not meant to be the part of the story. 

- Why don't we just find some nice place? Somewhere rather east or south, listen to the music or take some drugs or what so ever, start a day every morning with a tea by the window. 

- What do you mean? I didn't get it. 

 Today I was walking in my shoes. I passed a narrow, almost empty street and jumped over the uneven parts of the pavement. I didn't take them off when I came back home, to get a tea and stay indefinitely at my table. I didn't know if they suited the weather, or where they too warm for this temperature, too high to bring a comfort. No one would tell me to take these shoes off. They are for real. 

Three years and one day

Exactly three years and one day ago I arrived at Stratford Station in East London with one backpack, couple of hundreds pounds in my pocket and thousands of fears in my head. The London I used to know from postcards seemed as far as my mum left on the staircase of our small town house by the highway between Warsaw and Berlin or my friend left behind the gate of the Tocumen airport. This time, it was supposed to be my home. With a Turkish supermarket in Leytonstone with freshly baked pita every morning and cheesy mosaics of Alfred Hitchcock's movies at the tube station. 

 Later I can see A. in the middle of Covent Garden as I saw him for the first time. That day changed my life. 

 I see Thinkersoup by the table eating a turkey leg while reading a book, and Agnes in her cabin crew uniform. She asked me to get her a Red Bull on my way back home and that's still what I'm doing when I want to feel more home than usual. Mr Charming's laughter on the staircase, Vincenzo with his fancy pasta and packs of lavazza, The Guy I Lived With in his pyjamas. It was just the beginning of the amazing characters I was about to meet, places I was about to see, adventures happened on the way still yet to believe it was true. 

 And then, it was Monkey Seduction. My first steps in writing in English, erasing my past away from my mind, first readers, first times for the first time. First love and then the second, then the third one, all more or less relevant leaving with tons of poems written for them under the impression of the moment. First short stories written till the end, meeting Terry Pratchett on the red light. University. 

 A restaurant in Stratford with cheap but fine Chinese food, hidden from the eyes of pedestrians and the top floor of Westfield where Ms Adorable used to work. 

 One long street in Hackney leading to Victoria Park and Palm Tree pub in Mile End. Cheap fries after midnight and pagoda in Battersea Park. The graffiti portraying a scared little girl by Brick Lane, long time gone. 

 London Eye by night. Walks along the Thames until Shakespeare's Globe. Baker Street with lost spirit of Sherlock Holmes pointing you the way.

 And love. Lots of love to all of you, those whom I didn't mention but about whom I would never forget, Love to you, Love to London, Love to those who read it and those who won't find the time, to those who enchanted this time even for a little while. 

 I am happy, I am happy, I am happy. Love to you. 

The world inside my iPad- what's in your technology brain.

 I never thought it could have happened. I need to admit that for most of the time of my life I was a total ignorant to modernisation of devices and rather reluctant to technology in general. I cherished my old Nokia with a sentiment you can offer only to a long time friend and felt a bit of sadness when I had to swap it for a Blackberry. I never understood how people can spend thousands of pounds on phones and tablets and more fancy, completely useless electronics. 

 And then one day it happened: I got an iPad. At the very beginning, I doubted if it could be useful. A portable browser, what else can people invent. But then I charged it and it said hello, offering to be a pocket edition of my brain, to tidy up my head and clear away the cobwebs of overwhelming day-to-day reality. With smile, I could not refuse and I welcomed the iPad on board of my busy life. Then it asked me to feed it. With all the cool things I would like to have in my head. Now it's a time to talk about it a bit, what's in my head, what's in my iPad.  

 First of all I had to decide in what situation can it be of use. I always considered portable devices practical so I got a... netbook. Now I had more activities within reach with no need to come back home. It was a good idea as home can be overwhelming. To be sure my iPad is well prepared to go out, I got it a fuchsia case. I search for a matching cover.

INSIDE

 So I have to admit that alongside with technology itself I got also fascinated by social media. Quite bizarre as I used to say I would never, never (and never, never, ever!) become one of these geeky modern trendy creatures bouncing around with iPhones and letting Instagram be the portfolios of their lives. Today, oh well, Twitter, Facebook and Padgram (an iPad version for Instagram) were the first apps I fed my precious with. It's not like I know perfectly how to use them- don't get misled.

 With the second group of my favourite digital creatures most of my friends will be very pleased. Oh, I can see all of you clapping your hands. I have a navigation! I have maps, bus connections and tube updates and it would be a great idea if I actually ever took my lovely out of home... But, you see, just like getting lost in my own pocket, I also tend to lose everything I have with me.. and I mean everything.

 Then my iPad offered me a newsstand. It seemed quite bizarre for me, but soon I liked the idea of staying connected with news. As I normally don't read random news, the only item I used as far is a digital issue of 'Stylist'.. I just can't get over of the guilty pleasure of reading the great Lucy Mangan in my bed early morning.

 After appreciating the role of media I also downloaded Panamanian news app 'Estrella'. It's not like I claim it's entertaining.

 On the wave of creating my digital brain I also got Spotify (still learning how to use it), BBC iPlayer (only to watch 'The Honourable woman' before sleep) and Antena 3 player with hope to find all the missing episodes of 'Internado'.

But there are three the most imporant things I found absolutely delighted. If anybody has a brain similar to mine, you would surely wish to have them inside.