The Last Match - ebook

The Circus

A new day is an undiscovered adventure. Sometimes joy arrives, other times gloom. Each moment brings a lesson for the next morning. Character takes shape by choice — through the attitude brought to each challenge, the moment a “yes” is given to life, or when “enough” is declared.

Understanding the world comes with time. Every event — whether witnessed in silence or lived through directly — expands awareness, though the world seldom greets newcomers with bags full of sweets and affection.

The wise, the rich, the famous and great may cross one’s path — but so do fools, the disabled, and paupers.

Will minds stretch to catch glimpses of wisdom? Will a hand extend to help in hard times?

Or will narrowed thoughts and covered eyes abandon such chances, curse in silence, end the pursuit of understanding, and slip into a life of blissful banality?

Life is fragile, short, fleeting. Time slips away in bitterness, regret, and chasing what was lost long ago.

Better to walk forward, remember the good souls met along the way, use each lesson wisely, and laugh at mistakes repeated endlessly through this brief journey.

***

The next day came, just as the one before had done. As expected, it began with waking and… did not end quickly.

Johnny Balwozy opened his eyes, stretched fully, threw off the warm quilt with a wide sweep, and sat at the edge of the bed. Gaze fixed forward, he faced a tall, wide, slanted window. Beyond the glass, a richly blooming spring reigned, blushing in pinks, reds, and violets. The crowns of fruit trees from the neighbor’s garden rose into view.

Feet touched the floor. The window drew him closer. Weather demanded a better look.

The room occupied the attic of a small two-story house, high enough that the slanted glass revealed a stretch of suburban life. Outside, the sun burned bright. Wind gently stirred the foliage. Blossoms swayed. Neighbors lounged on terraces, sipping coffee or tea, enjoying the season’s gift.

Jognny’s house stood on the outskirts of Kraków, a short walk from the nearest tram stop — shorter still when taking narrow paths between homes. That’s the route used for the daily trip to school. Pleasant days made it a stroll. Autumn brought less joy, and winter demanded use of the regularly cleared sidewalks, slightly lengthening the walk.

But this day differed. No school. A holiday — or simply Saturday. What mattered most: freedom. Time meant for play, friends, and doing whatever the heart desired.

And the afternoon held promise. A trip to the city had been planned — with father, brother, and two friends — to Kraków, to the market square bursting with spring attractions. Not far off stood antique shops, which always caught Marcin Balwozy’s attention.

During visits, he walked the boutiques, browsed, lingered by old objects, rarely allowing a purchase. Very rarely — salary and profession did not allow for extravagance. A coffee table from another era, a dated jug or teapot, a carved chair, a medallion for his wife, or a glass-crafted decanter, perfect for summer evenings with family — all tempting, yet mostly admired from afar.

Johnny’s father, a middle-aged man by then, tended toward natural reserve. Happiness didn’t demand much.

Free moments often passed in the garden or at the workbench. Many items around the house came from his hands — cut, drilled, hammered, glued or screwed into shape. One such piece supported the TV, another created extra room for tools and knick-knacks in the small garage below the house.

Even the wardrobe in Johnny’s room bore signs of that handiwork. Johnny liked to boast about helping — passing tools, holding planks. Shelves slid into place under his direction, all except the highest one, out of reach. That one stayed empty, never forcing a climb.

Magdalena Balwozy, a nurse at a hospital in Kraków, worked several hours a day. Long shifts earned longer breaks — though, unfortunately, this day wasn’t one of them. Whether it was a holiday or a Saturday, she had to work.

In moments truly her own, a book opened and pulled her in. Everything was fair game: heavy volumes, poetry, lighter novels.

Before sleep, Johnny wandered to his little brother’s room. Awaited the usual visit. Mother read to them at bedtime. The stories sounded silly — fairy tales for small children — and never got mentioned to any friends. Discovery would’ve meant ridicule.

He never figured out whether the tales themselves appealed, or if it was simply the way she read them that mattered most.

Fully dressed and ready for anything, Johnny came down to the dining room. Empty — unusual. Usually, Dad was already bustling around.

A few steps led into the adjoining kitchen. Breakfast would be handled alone today.

The fridge opened. Yellow cheese came out — Antoś’s favorite, aside from cereal in milk. Two sandwiches got buttered, topped, doused in ketchup.

For Marcin, one sandwich with ham, another with smoked pork shoulder — both ready-sliced, stored neatly in containers.

Johnny crafted a mix for himself: meat, plus a slice with cottage cheese and sugar. Cold cocoa followed for everyone expected at the table.

Cheerful breakfast? Not this time.

First came the argument with Antoś — sandwiches got rejected in favor of cereal. Then, a pointless clash with Marcin. The reason faded fast; the mood did not.

Luckily, Marcin never held grudges or dished out long-term punishments. Despite the scene, the trip to the city remained on schedule. Canceling the outing made no sense. It had been planned as a pleasant time together — and would stay that way.

Albert and Nina, Johnny’s friends, arrived more or less on time.

Albert — always punctual — never showed up late. Usually the first to arrive, having learned that punctuality won adult approval. Sometimes, good manners brought him early, though never more than fifteen minutes. This time, arrival came exactly as agreed.

Nina was a little late, but no one commented — not the boys, not Marcin, not Antoś. After all, the journey was by car, not tram.

Unfortunately, the bad mood didn’t leave.

Grunts answered questions, teasing met curt replies, and even Nina’s cheerful energy failed to lift the gloom. Almost no words were exchanged with him during the trip to the parking lot near Kraków’s Main Square. Letting the anger and bitterness settle seemed the best option.

Once out of the car, city air filled their lungs. Smiles returned. The group set out in search of entertainment.

Only one face stayed dark, body tense, step heavy. No trace of what had caused such discomfort remained, yet the feeling lingered.

Hope clung to the thought that the market’s lively buzz would chase away the sourness. That square never lacked joy.

Reaching it quickly became a quiet wish — but leaving the group behind would have been wrong.

The plan was to enjoy this together. That’s where joy truly lives.

Sidewalks proved too slow. Frustration built. Little Antoś held back the pace. Tiny legs simply couldn’t match older ones.

Rather than snap, effort shifted to kicking stray pebbles — but city paths offered too few.

Finally, sometime after noon, the square came into view.

Street musicians filled the air with sound. Singers performed. A game area stood ready. Scoops of ice cream changed hands. Tents offered shelter and space to eat. As always, a place had been set aside for carriages — rides for tourists wishing to admire Kraków from the street.

Circus folk roamed the square: clowns, acrobats, mimes.

Behind a fence, a tiger rested in a cage.

Despite the crowd, the voices, and the chaos, the tiger paid no mind. It lay still, licking paws and claws with lazy calm.

The suburban five reached the square. At a sign from Marcin, stopped near the edge. A meeting point was chosen, just in case.

Then, off they went to explore.

Attractions came one by one. The tiger’s cage stopped them again. It stood apart, fenced in, accessible only to the handler.

Inside, the animal yawned and stretched. Despite its stillness, it loomed large — especially to young eyes. The bars felt thin, the power behind them vast.

A single swipe could knock someone down like a tower of cards.

Albert watched the handler with admiration. A short, round man with a tangled head of hair, a mustache, a beard, and deep lines across the cheeks. The woolen sweater and leather pants made him look rough, but not threatening. Johnny understood the job’s danger, though it didn’t impress. Being the oldest among the three, he knew what it meant to tame a wild thing.

The magician came out of nowhere. No one had planned to stop, but stopping became inevitable.

She played with fire — making flames vanish — then dazzled the crowd with card tricks.

One trick got exposed. A bystander called it out. Another failed altogether, causing laughter.

Nina, younger than Albert, loved the act — and the performer. Despite mistakes, attention gathered around this young, rather striking magician. Wonder took hold. How did the flame return? Where did the cards go? In that moment, a decision formed. One day, she would learn such tricks. Perform them at school. Show them to her family and friends — those who meant most in the world.

They had fun, laughed, ate delicacies and drank soda, and everything was as it should be.

Johnny’s dad said goodbye to them for a while and took Antoś on a trip to a nearby antique shop. Before he did that, he left twenty zlotys with John, in case of small expenses.

The trio of friends, fed and happy, set off in search of further adventures.

And the beautiful day would have turned out just as Johnny imagined, but unfortunately, they came across a booth where one had to hit five targets with a slingshot to win the main prize, a cuddly plush toy. The children were allowed one missed shot. That’s where bad vibes took over.

Johnny was the first to take on the task. He picked up the slingshot, set the ball in the rubber, squinted his left eye, aimed, and shot. And missed on the first try.

— Ha, ha. Crooked eye. — Albert commented thoughtlessly.

The shooter burned with rage inside after that unpleasant comment. With a hand shaking from nerves, he placed the projectile in the slingshot’s cup and prepared for a second attempt. And again, he messed up.

— Goodbye, prize. — Albert summarized his friend’s attempt as worthy of such a conclusion.

— If you’re so smart, shoot it yourself. — John said angrily and shoved the slingshot toward Albert. He did it with too much force, which resulted in the boy falling and landing on his butt on the pavement.

— Ow! — Albert complained.

— What are you doing? — Nina, who had been silently watching the incident so far, reacted at such a turn of events.

Johnny got very upset, this time with his own inappropriate behavior. He didn’t know what to do. He turned around and ran. He ran and didn’t look back. Anger boiled in him, and a sense of guilt grew. He didn’t want Albert to get hurt or for Nina to sulk at him. He ran, his emotions boiling, clouding his vision. So much so that he ran straight into something large, bounced off the obstacle, and just like his friend a moment earlier, landed on his butt on the market square pavement.

The collision surprised him, and for a moment he forgot about the previous unpleasant event. He got up, dusted off his jeans.

Standing in front of him was a stunned mime. He was finishing a cigarette. He threw it on the pavement and stomped it out. He greeted John with a nasty, yellowed-from-cigarettes smile. He started a little pantomime and showed the full range of his skills.

Johnny laughed wholeheartedly at his performance.

His friends, who had run after him and caught up, were laughing too.

Johnny looked at Nina and Albert, and a single small tear shimmered in his eye.

The mime noticed it, picked up on it, showed that he was crying too, then silently asked the kids to close their eyes. He pointed at them one by one and invited them to join the fun.

The friends looked at each other and, in good faith, closed their eyes.The Forest

Johnny was still laughing. Then he was left speechless, because he opened his eyes.

Darkness. Blackness. A void.

No, not a void. Or maybe it was?

He covered his face with his hands. Closed his eyelids. Opened them and removed his hands.

The darkness and all-encompassing blackness thickened the landscape and filled the space, every free particle of the world. The horizon moved closer to the boy and stretched to the tip of his nose. The universe, covered in a black shroud, did not allow him to see even a millimeter further. The blackness greedily devoured the tiniest sparks of light. It replaced the everything with a powerless entity in a battle with the giantess, daughter of the colossi — he, called the Unknown, and she, called the Unseen.

Johnny felt the ground beneath his feet and walked a bit. It crunched beneath him. He moved blindly and bumped into an obstacle.

A tree, old, decayed, and crumbling.

His eyes adjusted to see better in the dark. He pushed away from a branch and moved on. He bumped into a trunk. After a moment, in the raven-like gloom, he recognized the outlines of old, disease-ridden trees growing around him.

Where had Kraków gone, the bustling city? Where were the mime and the rest of the circus troupe? The musicians, the comedians? The tiger’s cage, the tamer, and the magician? How, in just a brief moment after closing his eyes, had he ended up in a dark and terrifying forest? How had the sun vanished from the horizon in the blink of an eye, and the surroundings turned into endless night? Where was the square, the merchants, the tents and the coachmen? And the beautiful afternoon, spring, the light wind on his face, replaced now by the stillness of a dead forest?

Devastated by the discovery and the questions flooding his mind — questions without answers — he faltered, bent down, crouched in despair, and suddenly remembered.

Where were Albert and Nina? Had they ended up in this terrible place too?

— I have to find them. They must be really scared.

The memory of his friends, lost in the darkness of the black forest, gave him strength and courage. He set off to search for them. He didn’t know which direction to take, what awaited him beyond the next tree, or how they would escape the forest, which might stretch for kilometers. Despite the many questions and the fear stirred by the surrounding darkness — which would frighten any other boy or girl — he moved into the gaping maw of the dark and called out to his lost friends.

He didn’t shout loudly. He was afraid of accidentally waking creatures living in the forest. Not necessarily friendly ones. He wasn’t sure what he’d encounter beyond the next tree, trunk, or branch. He understood that he was probably not the only being lost in the dark.

He moved forward. From tree to tree, from trunk to trunk. Stumbled, even fell over roots awkwardly growing out of the ground. Heart pounding in the chest, blood rushing to the head. Fear became an inseparable companion on this journey on foot. No stopping — each step a fight, and victory in that uneven battle, where imagination worked at full capacity. It surprised and forced a slower pace, a closer look at the fears painted by the night.

Panic loomed. Hands trembled, and the body would’ve gladly refused to obey had terror gained the upper hand. Though the forest felt warm and stifling, fingers froze, and the lower jaw chattered against the upper as if in the grip of winter frost.

No surrender to mirages or imagined, known, and unknown monsters. Constant reminders that imagination shaped what lay beyond sight. A wise boy, by setting out to rescue younger friends, gained strength to face lurking challenges. Calls to them carried just far enough to be heard from a nearby distance.

Step after step. Movement — always forward. No certainty of the right direction, no way to tell. Determining left and right, front and back, proved useless. The abyss had drawn its own forest path. Even standing in the very center, like a trained dancer, spinning, swaying, gliding, and rocking in every direction, naming the directions differently with each turn — still no help. And if, by some chance, a compass came to mind, to determine east and the other seven directions, the attempt would again be futile — for what kind of east was it, over which no sun rose to start a new day? Without dawn, both compass and map would fail and lead nowhere. In that forest, all trunks looked the same. Bark beetles had deeply scarred them; rot and sickness spread among the trees. As if the darkness had drained their will to live. As if the night would never end, and the world had forgotten it moves in circles.

A pause. Eyes lifted to the treetops. No leaves — only tangled, aimless, dry branches. And something else. Far away, in the navy-blue sky, stars shimmered. Shimmered, if shimmering could be done in black, with a light devoid of shine. Black stars in a navy-blue sky, and not a trace of a spark. No moon at all. This brought great surprise, for a full moon had been expected within days.

How could it be? Had the moon also turned its back on this forbidden corner, and the stars revealed a face never seen before? A magical forest. Magical in an unpleasant sense. Terrifying, dreadful, and evil.

That’s what poor John thought. Courage failed, and fear grew.

Still walking. Walking. Calling out silently and hopelessly. No one met on the way. Neither beast nor human. Not even an evil sorcerer who might’ve cast the worst of spells here.

After a short pause to catch breath and let go of some of the terror, he went on. Slower with time. The surroundings remained unchanged.

Something stirred. Not in the forest, not around, but within. A pressure from inside suggested that something was following. Nothing seen, nothing known — only felt. A presence tracing each step. The thought arose — whether meeting it was truly desired. No certainty that it would be good, friendly, or helpful in the search. A possibility crossed the mind: could it be Albert or Nina? But would either of them follow in complete silence, without a single call or signal? Wouldn’t they do exactly what he had been doing — calling, seeking — to join forces against the all-consuming darkness? To find the last of the missing together?

No — far more likely a forest animal. One that had caught the human scent, navigated the dark with ease, and moved without sound. Friends would’ve made themselves known. Wouldn’t have stalked so precisely, so silently.

What little courage remained vanished with the calling of friends’ names. Calls grew shorter, spaced farther apart, uttered so quietly they barely reached the ears that made them. Doubts multiplied. With every branch passed, hope waned. And yet — pace quickened. Steps more focused, more rhythmic. A steady, brisk march. Anything to stop whatever tracked from rising at the back.The Campfire

He set off on a journey into the unknown. Truly unknown — visibility barely extended beyond a meter or so. A thought came: maybe it was better to wait out the night and rest until morning. But hope for morning had long since faded.

Besides, something moved behind him. Not near, but somewhere in the distance. Whatever it was, some distance had been gained.

Stopping for long was out of the question. Rightly or wrongly, an encounter with the undefined pursuer inspired dread.

The pace stayed steady. Fatigue began to creep in. Feet and knees took the brunt — roots, falls, unseen traps of the forest floor. A decent marching speed came at the cost of scrapes and bruises.

Pain settled in the legs. Constant, unignorable. Nothing dramatic — Johnny didn’t dwell on it — but the accumulation threatened to slow him. No solution presented itself to avoid tripping, but the urgency to find Albert and Nina, and to escape the forest, tipped the balance. Onward, as fast as the forest allowed.

Despite everything, a second wind came. The fear of being followed faded into the background. Calls rang out more confidently.

— Albert, Nina! Nina, Albert!

The dark no longer felt like a trap. Nothing had leapt out, nothing blocked the way.

Terror subsided. That dreadful internal pounding eased, heartbeat returned to rhythm. Fingers, once numb from tension, regained warmth.

Then — something. A sensation. Like a hunter, he lifted his nose. Smoke.

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

Following the scent, he spotted a faint light ahead. A few steps more — voices. Human.

Without hesitation, he pressed forward toward the glow flickering across bark.

The fire grew, the voices clearer — measured, infrequent speech. The glow rekindled hope: hope of escape from the dark, hope of meeting someone, of finding Albert and Nina. Eyes scanned the circle of light.

No trick of the mind. No illusion or trap. A real fire — like all those twisted trees passed along the way. Real, warm, even joyful, though modest — befitting what little the forest gave.

Beyond the final sickly tree blocking the path, he stepped directly into a conversation around the flames. Four elderly people moved about, tending the fire. Over it, a pot hung from a tripod, liquid bubbling inside.

— Well, I’ll be! — said an old man who had his back turned and hadn’t expected a boy to suddenly appear behind him. — Sneaking around like that in the night?

— Sorry, didn’t mean to scare anyone. — Johnny replied politely.