I remember the day when, sitting in an armchair with a book, in my bathrobe, I heard a knock on the door. As my daughter and my son had moved out, I didn’t receive many visitors. I was getting excited. Who could that be? Maybe a neighbor telling me that I had forgotten my keys in the door… which had happened a lot lately. I am getting forgetful and maybe even old. I got up from the comfy armchair and opened the door to see two serious guys in suits. I didn’t even try to disguise my surprise. When they introduced themselves and said they are from the tax administration, I still couldn’t believe it. What it could be only dawned on me when they said they wanted to see my accounting records. All of them.

At this point, I started to sweat. I didn’t know what they knew, so I had no idea whether to worry about the fake bills or the skimped bills. And on top of this, I had absolutely no clue where I had put those books or my invoice copies. I had deleted the invoicing program years ago, exactly five years after I quit giving private lessons. I was desperately searching for the books and invoices I still might have had in print. I was also looking for the Excel tables I either still had or had deleted long ago, I had no clue. The men in black suits just stood there menacingly, towering over the small desk I somehow still had, but only to hold my laptop. If only I had known where my bills were. No voice was coming out of my throat and I handed them the folder with the printed ones, my hands trembling. I knew that the ones they were looking for were not in there, and I was crossing my fingers that they would not ask for more. They started scrutinizing them, kept asking which transaction entailed what, who was the client, how I found them, etc. Then they asked for the books I had to maintain. But to be frank, I had never been good at that stuff, so they would certainly find some discrepancies. They had never checked me before, and I always thought they only wanted to catch the big-time offenders, not me. Really, what would they have wanted from me? Oh, please, please, don’t find anything wrong, I don’t want to go to jail. Deep inside I was praying, begging for mercy, but they just kept on reviewing those papers, talking to each other about all sorts of discrepancies they had found, looking for signs of a crime I was most probably guilty of. Finally, they looked up from the records, took my papers, and left.

And now, I have their verdict. I am skimming through the first sentences, facts, findings, figures. The ink on the paper becomes smudged, the noises distant, the world around me fades to black. I’m losing my balance, my feet turn into jelly. The world around me disappears and …

When I come to myself, I don’t know where I am. Slowly I recognize the table, the chairs, the letter. I am lighting a match, hold the letter above it and watch as the flame burns the corner of the paper. I feel incredible calmness as the fire eats up the whole thing, and I know that whatever they wrote, it will not keep me hostage. Once and for all, I am free.

Transadaptation Volume 4 – Material Dissent

January: A Blinding Light and Then, All Darkness – Jonay Quintero Hernández (Spain)

February: The Opportunist – Lauren Voaden (United Kingdom)

March: A Stranger in my City – Alejandra Baccino (Uruguay)

April: A South African Soundtrack – Sarah-Leah Pimentel (South Africa)

May: Full Circle – Ina Maria Vogel (Germany)

June: La Lluvia en Bogotá – Adriana Uribe (Columbia)

July: Freedom – Krisztina Janosi (Hungary)

August: A Bus Ride – Svetlana Molchanova (Russia)

September: Transcendence – Armine Asryan (Nane Sevunts) (Armenia)

October: Motherhood – Marilin Guerrero Casas (Cuba)

November: Nine Days – Gennady Bondarenko (Ukraine)

December: Open – Seyit Ali Dastan (Turkey)

Background – Context

Transadaptation Volume 3: Evanescent – Young Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2022)

Transadaptation Volume 2: Conceived – Childhood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2021)

Transadaptation Volume 1: In the Middle – Prelude to a Contemporary Transadaptation, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2020)

Peripatetic Alterity: A Philosophical Treatise on the Spectrum of Being – Romantics and Pragmatists by Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)

La Syncrétion of Polarization and Extremes Transposée, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)

The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2018)

L’anthologie of Global Instability Transpuesta, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2017)

From Wahnsinnig to the Loony Bin: German and Russian Stories Transposed to Modern-day America, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2013)

Emblems and stories on the international community

Perception by country – Transposing emblems, articles, short stories and reports from around the world

Credits (left side, middle – top to bottom, right side)

1. Budapest, Hungary – The doorway – Durjay Sarkar (Unsplash), 2. Szenna, Hungary – Free – Gelefin (Shutterstock), 3. Budapest, Hungary – Széll Kálmán square 2 – hbpro (Shutterstock), 4. Budapest, Hungary – Kids in primary school – A great shot of (Shutterstock), 5. Budapest, Hungary – Underground – Nelson Wong (Unsplash)

Source: The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed