Swimming in the Dark

by Tomasz Jedrowski

I had always liked the act of leaving, the expanse between departure and arrival when you’re seemingly nowhere, defined by another kind of time.

Selfish. Growing into yourself is nothing but that.

As I broke up the earth and pulled on the beets, my thoughts would snap back to you, to the bar where Karolina had taken me, to the void stretching out before me. I fought against them (the thoughts and the beets), fought their stubbornness, their toughness. I fought them, and they fought me, until I tore them out and the next one came.

allowed the union between the earth and my body, I let go, and for the first time in my life I appreciated everything for what it was, observed the miracle of it. The earth for being the earth, my hands for being my hands, the plants for growing out of seeds, and the others around me, everyone, with their own rights and dreams and interior worlds.

The distant sound of the camp bell rang through the air, stirring us both. Then an odd silence between us, like something balancing on an edge, deciding which way to fall.

No matter what happens in the world, however brutal or dystopian a thing, not all is lost if there are people out there risking themselves to document it. Little sparks cause fires too.

“We’re just queuing for a possibility, queuing for something, maybe queuing for nothing,” she said, smiling her sad and loving smile. “But it will pass, my dear. Even the longest queue dissolves eventually.”

realize now that it never mattered. Because you were right when you said that people can’t always give us what we want from them; that you can’t ask them to love you the way you want. No one can be blamed for that.