anjapisze

I walk through Mokotów Field at night—silence, a vast absence of something that could, at a stretch, serve as a reason for existence when returning from a party at 4 a.m. I trip over a large stone, fall, and already taste salt in my mouth. My tongue probes—I’m missing my upper front tooth.

Like on the jungle gym when seven-year-old Olek told me to jump down with an imaginary umbrella. I thought I had a magic pencil, that I’d draw an umbrella and maybe even wings, or at least float down gently like a dancer. There was some blood. Dad wanted to pull out the tooth remnants with pliers.

“Idiot, pull out your own,” Mom tapped her temple.

And now, once again, I have no front tooth. My breasts are covered in blood. I look down and see a huge dark stain—actually, several, because everything is bouncing in 4D.

Attention! Signal interference!

The grass gives way, and in its place, I see a tunnel to a better world. Oh! There are the lights of that familiar bar. They’ll help me there—call 112 or at least hold me.

My phone is dead. And besides, would it even be appropriate to call someone? Would anyone in this city come to Mokotów Field at dawn?

I stagger, bleeding toward salvation, toward that well-known bar—so familiar that they’ll already know what to do with me. But the light begins to flicker, then slowly fades. Nothing remains. Darkness. As if this were the one true ending. And in my head, a tangle of snakes. Everything is dimming, like in the apocalypse—even the streetlights. I grope my way to a low wall. Beyond it, a pond. I think, I’ll rinse my chest, spit out the dried blood, my mouth is so dry. But no—there’s no water in the pond. It’s September, they’ve drained it. The pool is as empty as the hole inside me.

I trudge on, stumble again. No light. Maybe I should call for help? But that would be embarrassing—to explain to the silence that I’m dying and thirsty. Not just thirsty—thirsty. I breathe like a carp, one minute before slaughter, about to suffocate to death—a death that matters to no one. Or maybe here, in this scenery, it would make perfect sense.

But there’s no magic pencil, and I can’t draw myself a way out. Nothingness surrounds me. Not even the bar materializes. And soon, I won’t be here either. I dissolve into the silence.

I finally make my way toward the street. I see lights again—surely, that means a world where someone is watching over things. I’ll find my way home.

Plac Unii Lubelskiej. Will I have to explain my missing tooth to passersby? To someone? Someone with real problems, who isn’t walking home alone from a party at 4 a.m., taking shortcuts. But no one stops. I blend into the city. It watches me closely. It absorbs me.

A night bus looms like a red wall, moving toward me as if with hostile intent. I want to run, but I can’t even cross the street. I cling to the curb, but it narrows dangerously, and I remain stuck in a dead zone. I lift my gaze to the horizon.

“ROAD WORK AHEAD” and a steel grate, where I hook my fingers like the protagonist of The Deer Hunter, moments before death.

But then, an Uber stops. A concerned Armenian or Belarusian driver, in broken Polish, asks if I need help.

I have no phone, no wallet—maybe even no keys anymore. Blood here, a torn dress there. I tell him I live fifteen minutes away but have no way to call a taxi.

“Get in,” he says.

Is this safe? The thought barely forms before I realize what he might be thinking—that I’m the victim of a gang rape and need to be taken somewhere for an examination.

I suddenly remember my tooth and search frantically with my tongue, but it’s gone. I’d kill for a sip of water.

I get out. My building looks smaller than before. The door code isn’t needed—this is an enchanted house, and the doors to a better world open magically, like a gaping wound in the city.

Tomorrow, I’ll save the tooth. And myself.

For now, all I can do is turn the key in the suddenly shrinking door—like Alice in Wonderland—drink a liter of water, shed my bloodstained dress, and draw myself, with my magic pencil, an eight-hour sleep.

And then, it starts. Like someone rewinding a film in reverse.

No one saves me. Or my tooth.

I simply wrap myself in a sheet and fall into a half-sleep, full of flickering streetlights and tunnels swallowing the grass of Mokotów Field. It’s unbearably hot, like the Amazon jungle. Everything slowly seeps into the sheets—me included.

And after four hours, I wake up drenched in sweat. And I know—I will always come home without that tooth.

I sit at my computer.

And again: I make coffee, open Word, type “a,” then “n,” then “i,” then “e”—and so on.

And things begin to move as they should.

The table returns to its place. The monstera plants no longer dissolve; they accept the permanence of spring.

I am whole within myself, missing a front tooth, but the shapes of faces return. A body, soft, warm, and familiar.

I remain grounded. There are no coincidences here.

The world is saved.