Spring had settled over Kraków with a quiet grace.
The city felt newer somehow — like a freshly opened book. In the warm breeze drifting down from the Wawel Castle hill, lilacs had begun to bloom, their soft violet petals falling across tram tracks and tiled rooftops. It was the kind of spring that made you ache a little — not from sadness, but from knowing that time itself was about to change.
I had counted down the days.
Because I knew May 5th was coming.
The day I would be born.
And the day the portal would close.
I’d felt it weakening for weeks. The time gate behind the bakery on Kalwaryjska Street had begun to stutter — its once-clear shimmer growing murky, like a mirror fogged over. Each step through it felt heavier, like dragging myself through wet silk.
Still, I returned. Every day. Like clockwork. One more tram ride. One more conversation. One more breath of that sweet, impossible past.
May 4th, 1990: The Near Goodbye
On the eve of my birth, I visited the neighborhood one last time. The street where my family lived was quieter than usual. A few children rode bikes under balconies. Somewhere, a radio played Budka Suflera, and someone hung white linens from a window.
I passed by the building like always — not looking up, not knocking, not crossing the line. I walked instead to the bench in the courtyard, just close enough to feel the warmth of proximity. Just far enough to remain unknown.
That’s when I saw her.
My mother.
Eighteen. Hair tied back. Bare-faced, laughing. She was walking with a friend, holding a little bouquet of wild violets. Talking about something I couldn’t hear.
She passed just feet away from me.
And for the briefest moment… she paused.
Our eyes met.
Not recognition.
Not quite.
But something ancient flickered between us.
She smiled. A soft, polite stranger’s smile. The kind you give to someone you feel you should know, but don’t.
I smiled back. My heart could barely hold it.
She walked on.
I didn’t follow.
May 5th, 1990: The Portal Closes
It was still dark when I woke.
I dressed slowly — as if moving fast might shatter the day. My heart beat strangely: a mix of anticipation and grief. I walked the path I knew by heart, down the quiet streets of Podgórze, past shuttered bakeries, past the familiar mural of a white dove peeling off the wall.
And there it was — the gate, behind the old tenement.
But something had changed.
The light was no longer shimmering. It was shrinking — spiraling inward like water draining from a sink. And the sound — the low hum that always accompanied it — had dulled into silence.
I stepped forward.
One foot in the past.
One still in the present.
The moment I crossed the threshold, I felt it — the shift.
A weight lifted from the air, as if the world had exhaled.
And I knew: it was happening.
Somewhere, not far from here, in a small hospital ward — I was being born.
A Letter to the Girl Being Born
I didn’t stay long.
Instead, I sat by the gate, opened my notebook, and wrote.
Dear you.
Today, you arrive.
You don’t know it, but you’ve already lived so many lifetimes.
You’ve walked beside your family before they knew your name.
You’ve loved them from afar.
You’ve protected stories that weren’t yours to tell.
And though the past will close its door behind you, it will never shut you out.
You carry it now — in your blood, in your breath, in your remembering.So go.
Live fully.
Become who they couldn’t be.
And when you forget — as we all do — look for lilacs blooming by tram tracks, and know:
You’ve been here before.
I tore the page out gently and placed it in a crevice of the wall beside the gate, folding it just so. A time capsule. A whisper to the child I had once been.
The End and the Beginning
As I stepped away, the light behind me blinked — once, twice — then disappeared.
Gone.
I stood in the alley, alone in the spring morning. The sky was already warming. A dog barked down the street. Somewhere, church bells chimed.
And in a hospital a few blocks away —
you were born.
Time, at last, had caught up with itself.
And now… everything could begin.
No comments:
Post a Comment