Jan was a man of iron-clad principles. Screws, nuts, nails, screwdrivers, hammers, chisels, files, gaskets and so on – he had them all stacked up, thrown into hundreds of drawers or hung on the pegboard wall, sorted according to size. As a habitual smoker, he maintained a regime of smoking only in even-numbered years for several years. He broke off relations with his brother over some honour dispute. Forever, including the funeral. As an officer of the Voluntary Rescue Citizens’ Militia, he was a member of the board carrying cycling licence exams. When he appeared at my school on the day I was to take the exam, he didn’t let on that we knew each other – that would have been unfair. We didn’t really know each other on that day, which wasn’t so different from the state of affairs on any other day. Briefly speaking, Jan kept chaos at bay at all costs; he put up a dam. But the chaos would leak through this dam, making breaches and more and more – and wider and wider – fissures. As time passed by, chaos also went over the dam, until it made the dam collapse and flooded Jan completely. Sunk him. It must be said that Jan fought valiantly to stay afloat. But it is more difficult to achieve that when swimming in substances with lower density.

Jan believed engineering thought to be the pinnacle of human achievement, while any other forms of expression of intellectual activity were regarded by him as unnecessary whims. Medicine, for example. Jan particularly despised artistic creativity, with music at the top of the list. He reportedly reacted enthusiastically to Rivers of Babylon; the enthusiasm could’ve been about Boney M. 

The text of the libretto, in consultation with Marcin, is turning out to be a vaudeville of sorts. 

(transl. Magdalena Małek-Andrzejowska)