Since my trip hadn’t tired me out so far, I decided to spend some time in the city – I still had to wait nearly two hours for my train to depart. Also, since the second half of my trip to the sea would take me over six hours at best, if there weren’t any delays, I needed to eat something more nourishing than the awful, pre-packaged sandwiches in cheap plastic boxes with a green reptile logo at the nearby store. I hated them. The only enticing part was the filling on the package cover. The bread itself was dry and tasted more of artificial flavors than a properly baked roll. Nonetheless, even if I had been able to swallow these abominations of a lunch, they were still not enough to get me through the lengthy train ride.
The only alternative left in the near proximity of the dworzec was an ugly kebab kiosk with dirty walls that were almost falling apart. Although all the kids swarming around it were kind of inviting, the stench of both over- and undercooked meat pushed the thought of going there out of my head.
And, quite to the contrary of what I was expecting, there were no other places that could offer me any food. Only then did I remember that this is what the food industry looked like now, after the corona pandemic. It was nearly non-existent. Most eateries just went bankrupt, unable to survive. And the worst part was that there was no one to blame for it. Such things just happened.
I checked available places I could reach in a reasonable amount of time and saw that the only ones with decent online reviews and a serving time short enough to let me eat at a comfortable pace were so far from the dworzec that it would be better to just order a taxi. Since I was slowly running out of time, I decided to hesitate no longer and caught a ride.
Fortunately, the driver wasn’t chatty at all. I could relax from all the train and city noise for a couple of minutes. It meant a lot, especially since I had to spend the rest of my day in a crowded, loud-as-hell train. I gazed out the car window to see if the city looked as bad as the dworzec.
Unfortunately, it did. The old, smog-gray walls with faded peeling paint exuded almost the same feel. All the devastated tenements that were only pretty before World War II were still as devastated as they were right after it. I heard they were sold to the private sector in some cities. These investors then renovated them into luxurious buildings with luxurious apartments. But that wasn’t the case here. These were social state buildings with flats for the poorest, with very little interest in their potential beauty, miraculous architecture and wonderful past. All the facades, despite the omnipresent cracks and nearly century-old paint peeling from them, were filled with primitive graffiti, urine stains and god only knows what else.
At the entries to these buildings, you could usually meet a gentleman or two smoking cigarettes and drinking beer all day. Rarely did they move. The only reason they did was to grab another bottle or pack of smokes. Although drinking in public was prohibited, the police didn’t care about them at all since they did no harm to anyone and just minded their own business.
I closed my eyes, happily returning to my hometown in thought, glad it didn’t look like this anymore. Maybe except the communist bloks in my neighborhood. Some towns, like mine, had been lucky enough to collect enough funds from various sources to address such matters over the last few years.
I was ripped out of my thoughts when the driver suddenly hit the brakes. The whole car was filled with all sorts of curses for a few seconds. This was followed by the driver saying something like, “Hitting a cyclist would be a pleasure, but hitting a scootlist should be everyone’s duty.”
Only then did I see a few kids speeding on electronic, rented scooters through the pedestrian crossing, clearly demanding the right of way. Since I didn’t drive a car, they usually weren’t as much of a pain for me as they clearly were for the driver. Yet I knew they were a major problem in the bigger cities, such as this one. But I hated them too for a different reason.
I couldn’t remember if I had ever seen a scooter parked appropriately. The only ones I’d encountered were left stranded in the most random places – the middle of the pavement or street, under the entry to a building, like some sort of deadly trap, or strewn randomly on some public green space or near flower stands.
Yet the worst, and most dangerous, were not the ones lying on the ground, but the ones moving around. Scootlists, as the driver called them, had this awful trait of perpetually speeding and passing by close enough to almost hit you. Every single time.
When all the kids had passed through the crossing, we went straight to my destination without any further surprises. In the restaurant, I was impressed by the quickness and overall competence of the staff. Maybe, after all, this city was changing, but at its own pace? Nonetheless, I saved quite some time and was able to return to the dworzec on foot.
(…to be continued…)
Transadaptation Volume 6 – Meaning? – Uncertainty, Instability and Extremes Transadapted
January: A Regular Train Trip – Mateusz Tymoszewski (Poland)
February: Growing Up – Adriana Uribe (Columbia)
March: Mess – Veronika Groke (Austria)
April: The Roads We Take – Svetlana Molchanova (Russia)
May: Need – Nadia Silva Castro (Brazil)
June: “Next Sunshine” – Jonay Quintero Hernandez (Spain)
July: Pandemic Love – Xiakun Li (China)
August: Planet Kyiv – Anastasiia Leonova (Ukraine)
September: Feeling like a Fool – Ulrike Bergmeister (Germany)
October: Stories of Outcast Souls – Armine Asryan (Armenia)
November: Ronaldinha – Alejandra Baccino (Uruguay)
December: Aimlessly – Krisztina Janosi (Hungary)
Background – Context
Transadaptation Volume 5: Of Flowing Vicissitudes – Change Transadapted (forthcoming: January), (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2024)
Transadaptation Volume 4: Material Dissent – Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2023)
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 column (top to bottom): 1. Gdansk, Poland – Main train station – Victoria Antre (Shutterstock); 2. Wroclaw, Poland – The main train station – Longfin Media (Shutterstock); 3. Warsaw, Poland – The platform – Martyn Jandula (Shutterstock)
Middle column (top to bottom): 1. Krakow, Poland – The station at night – Karol Smoczynski (Unsplash); 2. Wroclaw, Poland – Up and down – Tadeusz Zachwieja (Unsplash)
Right column (top to bottom): 1. Gdynia, Poland – Barring wars – Aleksandra Budnik (Shutterstock); 2. Wladyslawowo, Poland – Waiting – Alexmak (Shutterstock)
Source: The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed