*Zofia
I’m a bit, perhaps even more than a bit, muddled. I asked the lady to explain what it was all about when she handed me these sheets of paper and a marker pen. I was meant to draw something I could see in the film being shown, or write something. Since the last time I painted was at primary school, and that was truly a very long time ago (a good half-century ago), I shall make use of writing instead.
I have the impression that I’ve fallen terribly behind. I’m beginning not to understand the modern world. But I’m not giving up. Good heavens! My husband has come to fetch me — the husband I had been looking for quite some time. He said: we’re going! In order to keep the peace going (for more than 50 years now), I shall therefore stop writing.
All in all, I rather like it here. I still have a taste for life, and I’m curious whether it will still manage to surprise me.
Zofia, aged 78
P.S. Being a chemist, when I took the marker pen in my hand, I sniffed it. I would most gladly have used it ..., but I am returning it intact :)
Z.
I shall add one more remark. Since I would like to write 1,700 letters (that is how many someone wrote at the beginning of the twentieth century, when there were no telephones, internet, and such means of communication), I should like to write at least… 1,701. I have already written 1,005. I still have many left to write, and I have very little time left (I remind you, I am 78).
I began writing letters at the age of 10, and I am still writing. I shall treat this piece of writing as a letter as well. Therefore, this is letter number 1,006.
*Co-author of Bookperformance: Body & Sound & Light & Eye, Silesian Science Festival, Katowice, Poland, 2025. Originally written in Polish. English version translated in 2026 by another co-author of Bookperformance, Joanna Soćko. The original manuscripts are preserved within the Bookperformance archival-field.