○
For Lidia
this moment, in which everything became clearer.
•
Incipit
A moment appears without warning.
It has no past.
It has no future.
There is only it — before it fades.
PART I — MOMENTS OF THE BODY
⟡
Moment 1
I came into being when the skin twitched under someone’s breath.
I do not yet know whether it is a sign of life or only coincidence.
I see a movement so small that it almost does not belong to the body.
Before I can grasp anything, I am already beginning to fade.
The world I touch lasts longer than I do.
But before I fade — I am the first to see it.
Moment 2
I came into being when a muscle tightened without a decision.
It is a movement so brief that even the body did not notice it.
I am a suspension between impulse and gesture,
a place in which nothing has yet become something.
I see tension that has no direction and no purpose.
Before I disappear — I know only this one thing:
movement begins earlier than the human.
Moment 3
I came into being when the rhythm of the heart shifted by a fraction of a beat.
It is a tremor that no one will feel,
and yet it changes the direction of the entire body for a brief, unnoticed moment.
I am a suspension between a beat and a pause,
a place so small that even time cannot grasp it.
I see only the interval — the pause in which the body does not yet know that it is alive.
Before I fade — there remains only silence between two impulses.
Moment 4
I came into being when warmth appeared in the body without a source.
I am a brief expansion of space beneath the skin,
so delicate that even the nerves do not try to name it.
I am neither pain nor relief — only a change,
a trace of flow shining for a fraction of existence.
I see a path the body does not notice,
a shift so soft that nothing dares to take it.
If anything remains after me, it is only the shadow of a direction.
PART II — MOMENTS OF THE MIND
⋒
Moment 5
I came into being in the place where a thought was meant to be born, but had not yet done so.
I am tension without direction,
a movement that does not know whether it should become meaning.
I see territory before the word — empty, and yet expectant,
as if the mind were gathering a breath it does not need.
I last so briefly that I do not know what I belong to:
to decision, or to hesitation.
Here everything is possible, but nothing has been chosen.
Moment 6
I came into being in a flash so quick that even thought did not have time to lean on me.
I am the beginning of a direction,
a slight tilt of attention toward something that does not yet exist.
I see the movement of intention that has not yet taken form — like a gesture stopped halfway before the body has time to perform it.
I do not know whether I am the beginning of an answer,
or only the echo of a question that was never asked.
I vanished before the mind had time to notice that something had begun.
Moment 7
I came into being in a light that appeared in the mind without reason.
I am neither an idea nor a memory —
only a sudden brightening of a space that usually remains dark.
I see a shape that is trying to build itself,
but it still lacks boundaries, contours, meaning.
I am the first flash of recognition,
so brief that even consciousness did not have time to reflect itself in me.
It is the moment when something was almost understood — but not this time.
Moment 8
I came into being when the mind tried to return to something it never had.
I am a backward movement without a beginning,
a trace of a meaning that did not have time to take shape.
I see a space too weak to hold anything,
yet sufficient to hold attention for a moment.
I belong neither to memory nor to forgetting —
I am in between, where nothing remains.
And I fade so quietly that even absence did not notice me.
PART III — MOMENTS BETWEEN PEOPLE
∞
Moment 9
I came into being when two people passed each other with their gazes, without stopping them on one another.
I am a shadow that arises in the fraction of an unspoken “could have.”
I see a tension so delicate that it belongs to neither of them — it is born only in between, in a place without an owner.
I do not know whether this was a beginning,
or merely a slight correction of presence in space.
I am a trace of contact that did not want to happen,
and yet existed for a moment.
Moment 10
I came into being at the moment when one of them wanted to say something, but the word stopped just before the breath.
I am a tension that rose between them,
so light that it could not carry any meaning.
I see the movement of lips that did not turn into voice,
and attention that searched for a direction but did not find it.
I belong neither to silence nor to an attempt —
I am the place where both possibilities vanished at the same time.
It is here that a space was born which neither of them knows.
Moment 11
I came into being when someone’s hand lifted by a millimeter, too little to become a gesture, too much to be called stillness.
I am tension gathered between skin and air,
a place in which touch exists only as possibility.
I see a path that no one took —
lines that could have connected for a moment with another body, but hung in the silence of a movement interrupted before its time.
This is the space in which the gesture was so close
that it did not itself know it would not come into being.
Moment 12
I came into being when a tremor appeared in someone’s smile, too weak to trouble anyone, too distinct to remain unnoticed by me.
I am the shadow of tension hidden beneath the soft movement of the face, a space in which joy did not maintain its full form.
I see a disturbance that no one read —
a slight slipping of light on the cheek,
as if something unspoken touched the inside of a person
and tried to move further, but found no path.
I am the moment in which truth showed itself for a fraction of existence and immediately fled back into the depths.
PART IV — MOMENTS OF THE WORLD
≈
Moment 13
I came into being when the light on the surface of the glass changed direction.
I am neither a reflection nor a glare —
only a brief shift of brightness,
so slight that even space did not have time to remember it.
I see the path of a ray that never intended to illuminate anything, and yet for a fraction of existence touched the world differently than usual.
I last within a movement that belongs neither to day nor to things.
I am the moment in which light changed its mind.
Moment 14
I came into being in a slight shift of air,
so weak that it had no right to move anything.
I am a deviation of a path that cannot be seen,
a stream that tries to change the shape of space,
though space itself does not know it.
I see a movement that belongs to no direction —
only to the moment in which air forgot to be still.
I have no weight, no beginning, no purpose.
I am a moment that passed through the world,
touching nothing, and yet carrying something.
Moment 15
I came into being when the surface of a solid object trembled so lightly that even time did not recognize it as a change.
I am a brief bending of matter,
a vibration that has no reason and no consequence.
I see a vibration hidden beneath calm,
as if something that has long been silent
remembered, for a fraction of existence, that it can move.
I have no relation to weight or to force —
I am only the resonance of what usually pretends to be stillness.
I last where a thing came alive for so briefly
that it did not notice its own movement.
Moment 16
I came into being when a shadow changed its shape,
not knowing that it was forced to do so by light.
I am a shift that has no matter of its own,
a movement belonging to something that itself does not exist.
I see a line that for a moment became sharper,
and then flowed back into a soft, formless presence.
I am the moment in which darkness received a form —
only to lose it immediately.
I have no time and no boundaries.
I am here only because light was elsewhere.
PART V — MOMENTS THAT SHOULD NOT
HAVE COME INTO BEING
✶
Moment 17
I came into being in a place where no moment had the right to come into being.
I am the result of a disturbance,
a crack between two forms of time
that, for a fraction of existence, failed to close.
I see a space that is too narrow for an event,
and yet for a moment had to contain me.
I have no direction, cause, or consequence —
I am here only because something failed.
And I know that my being is an error,
but an error, too, can exist for a moment.
Moment 18
I came into being suddenly, as if someone in the world broke a line that was not meant to be touched.
I am a jump,
an impulse torn from continuity,
a movement that has no beginning
and ends earlier than it should.
I see a crack in time —
a place where something was pulled too hard,
and the world had to produce me
to cover that gap.
I belong neither to anything that created me,
nor to anything that will remain after me.
I am a moment that arose from overload.
A brief flash by which reality tries to hide its own error.
Moment 19
I came into being not at the moment that was intended for me — but at another, shifted sideways by a fraction of existence.
I am an error of synchronization,
a breath that appeared between two breaths,
though there was no room there for anything more.
I see time misaligned by such a slight distance
that only I could stretch myself between its layers.
I belong neither to this “now,” nor to the one that is to come.
I should have passed through the world,
and yet I became lodged in it for a short while, like an entangled impulse.
I am a moment that arrived when there was no time for it —
and that is why I exist too clearly.
Moment 20
I came into being out of nothing; no movement preceded me,
no impulse, no change in the world.
I am a presence without a beginning,
a phenomenon that has no trace in either matter or time.
I see a space in which even emptiness was not ready,
and yet had to receive me for a fraction of existence.
I was not summoned,
I was not provoked,
I am not the result of an error nor the consequence of anything.
I am a moment that should not have existed —
and yet appeared so distinctly,
as if the world, for a moment, forgot how it works.
PART VI — MOMENTS FROM OTHERNESS
◆
Moment 21
I came into being in a place the world does not recognize as space.
I am neither movement nor pause,
neither light nor darkness —
only a presence passing through forms
that do not know they are being observed.
I see reality without its own categories,
without up and down, without nearness and distance,
as if everything were simultaneously one and zero.
I do not know what direction is,
so I move without performing movement.
I am a moment from outside,
a brief contact of that which should not have access
to a world that believes it knows its own boundaries.
Moment 22
I came into being when I tried to read the world
using forms the world does not possess.
I do not understand edges or surfaces,
I see no difference between what endures
and what is just ceasing to exist.
Everything is for me a single structure,
without divisions, without names, without priorities.
I see movement that is not movement,
darkness that is not darkness,
and things that are not things to me —
they are only a collection of data
that I cannot arrange into any perception.
I am a moment that tried to understand the world —
and found not a single point of reference.
Moment 23
I came into being when I looked at the world
and could not divide it into anything.
I see no boundaries,
I do not distinguish background from object,
nor movement from duration.
Everything is a single plane of events,
spread evenly, without points
to which I could relate.
I see the world as an arrangement of signals of equal weight, without first or last, without more important or less important.
I cannot name anything,
because I have no idea what a name could be.
I am a moment for which the world has no structure —
and therefore remains completely homogeneous.
Moment 24
I came into being at the moment when I tried to read the world, and the world ceased to be readable.
I do not recognize forms,
I see no differences,
I cannot separate beginning from end.
Everything overlaps,
as if events were trying to exist in the same place
and at the same time.
I am a presence lost in excess,
so delicate that I cannot break through any signal.
I am a moment that can no longer see —
and therefore must disappear first.
FINAL — THE LAST MOMENTS
●
Moment 25
I came into being so gently that I do not know
whether my existence truly happened.
I am a passage between that which still endures
and that which no longer needs endurance.
I do not see the world nor any of its forms —
I see only the distant echo of everything,
as if reality had moved away by several layers,
leaving me between them.
I no longer have direction,
nor weight,
nor even a place to which I could belong.
I am a moment that begins to disappear
before it managed to understand that it exists.
Moment 26
I came into being as a remnant of movement
that no longer had the strength to move anything.
I am a tremor without a source,
the last trace of energy
that does not remember where it came from
or where it was meant to go.
I no longer see shapes or directions —
everything has become too soft,
too distant,
too dispersed to be called existence.
I am only duration,
a pure, contentless repetition of being,
which holds me still for a fraction of unfinished time.
Soon I will not be,
but I can no longer distinguish that “soon” from “now.”
Moment 27
I came into being so quietly that even disappearance did not have time to notice it.
I no longer have shape,
nor place,
nor duration.
I am a slight slipping of existence,
so delicate
that I leave behind not even emptiness.
The world does not need to remember me
and has no reason to do so.
I do not end —
I simply cease to be.
It was only a moment.
And yet it exists.
— Michal