Cold Feet in a Tiny Fiat
A masterclass in locomotion from when the system fell
“In short, we live together without love, but loyally, without highs or lows, in a symbiosis of complete resignation, based on an understanding of inevitable biological and metaphysical necessities.”
— Tadeusz Konwicki (1926–2015), a Polish writer and film director
When you live in Poland, every year you get two winters. The first ends in March. The second begins in December. It was during the latter winter of 1990 that I was sitting, with four other guys, in the backseat of a tiny Fiat, parked outside a music club in Gdańsk at night. My feet were cold because my socks were too thin, I complained to my companions. The heating was off because the engine was off because the petrol was low, they said. I was barely eighteen, the fellows were in their twenties, so I felt good about myself having older friends, and on top of that I felt super because they were in a rock band together, so I felt like a celebrity—the cold feet were worth it. We were all cramped: Doc Martens boots, and bomber jackets, and shaved heads full of bad ideas, and they were smoking hashish with the windows rolled up. I was just about to be given my first puff. The way that hash was smoked back then, just a year after the system collapsed, was like this: you rolled a bit into a ball. You had a beer can left over, and with the tip of a knife, someone always had a beer and a knife, you punctured a few tiny holes in the lower part of the can, placed the hashish there, lit it up, and inhaled through the can’s mouthpiece. I had never seen anything like that in my life and I was keen to try it. My hands weren’t shaking, I took a drag, took another. Passed the can. New ball. When it was my turn the second time, my feet weren’t frozen anymore, my forehead felt fuzzy, took a couple more puffs and then I don’t quite remember. Someone was looking for car keys. Three people had to get out first for me to get out. Looked for change. Ticket. Waited. The next thing I knew, the commuter train. Blow of ionized air, screech and whizz, two steps up. Fluorescent lighting, vinyl floor, benches covered in foam rubber. Asking some stranger already sitting there if he was going past Sopot because I needed to be sure to get off in Sopot and he winked yes I’ll wake you up young man. The intuitive kind. I did fall asleep and he did wake me, and so at Sopot station I got off. It was right there and then, on the platform, that I discovered that walking is a problem. No, my feet weren’t cold again, that was not the issue. Rather, I found that walking straight was not possible—and I don’t mean upright, I was upright alright. Walking forward, in a straight line, seemed out of the question. I came to a halt just to be sure, tried taking a step ahead, no go. Hm. Stepped to the side with one foot, brought the other foot in. Good. Okay. Well, in short, I began walking to the side. By the time I hit the main street, I was already good at traversing, having done some sailing as well as hiking, not at the same time of course, when I was a kid. So I traversed my way home, took the stairs up sideways. My approach to the bed was essentially a series of controlled broad reaches until I finally steered into the bunk and dropped anchor. My first thought the next day when I woke up and sat on the bed with both feet on the cold floor just before I stood up? I had mastered a new way to move.
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