In my room, the bed was over here, the cupboard over there and the table in the middle. Until the moment it started boring me. I put the bed over there and the cupboard over here. For a while I really liked the change. But then boredom crept in again. I came to the conclusion that the cause of this boredom was the table, or rather, its central and immutable position.
I moved the table and placed the bed in the middle. It really was nonconformist.
Again I liked the innovation but at the same time it occurred to me that I caused a very nonconformist uneasiness. What happened next is that I was no more able to sleep while facing the wall, which had always been my favorite position.
After a while the innovation part was gone and the discomfort stayed. That’s why I moved the bed over here and put the cupboard in the middle of the room. This time the change was radical. A cupboard in the middle of your room is even more nonconformist. It is avant-garde.
But after a certain period of time… To be honest, the cupboard in the middle of the room lost its new and extraordinary dimension as well. It was definitely time to change, to make a determinate decision. If within well determined limits it seems impossible to achieve the perfect situation, you have to cross them. When the nonconformist isn’t enough, when avant-garde is inefficient, you have to cause a revolution.
I decided to sleep in the cupboard. Everyone who ever tried to sleep in a cupboard will certainly know that this causes an enormous discomfort that doesn’t allow you to sleep at all. Not to mention the swelling of your feet and the pain in your back.
But no, this was the right decision. Success. Victory. But again the notion of ‘a certain period of time’ showed its absolute limits. After a while, well, I really couldn’t adjust to the change. No, on the contrary, each time I became more and more conscious of this change. And the pain didn’t help time passing by either.
Everything would have gone perfectly if I didn’t have this incapacity of resisting that obviously had its limits. One day I couldn’t stand it anymore. I came out of the cupboard and slept in my bed.
I guess I slept for three entire days. Afterwards I replaced the cupboard against the wall and the table in the middle because the location of the cupboard in the middle of the room really irritated me.
Now again the bed is over here, the cupboard over there and the table in het middle. And when I feel bored again, I think of the days I was a revolutionary.
Original text: Rewolucja, Slawomir Mrozek, © Diogenes Verlag AG Zurich.