Chapter: The Game Continues

Introducing the Book REMÍZA – A Bet on Life

Chapter: The Game Continues
 

Almost immediately, it became clear that we would have to leave that very weekend.

The plan was simple, and at the time it seemed perfectly thought out.

Ivanito was supposed to come to Trenčín, and from there we would board a coach together that had been arranged by the employment agency. Our tickets had already been paid for, all the way to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, where agency representatives were supposed to meet us and take us to our accommodation—the place where our new jobs were meant to begin.

Everything appeared to be well organized.

Highly professional.

And above all...

...full of hope.

The way I made that decision, however, was typical of that period of my life, when I still acted on impulse far more often than with careful thought.

When I returned, I casually informed my cousin that I was quitting and leaving to work abroad.

There was no long conversation.

No explanation.

No attempt to make plans together.

Just one simple sentence.

"I'm leaving."

I had arranged everything behind his back.

He had absolutely no idea what I had been planning, and today, looking back, I know it was a serious mistake.

At the time, though, I wasn't thinking that far ahead.

Perhaps I didn't entirely believe it myself.

Only a few days earlier it had been nothing more than an idea—something that existed somewhere between conversations and imagination.

And suddenly...

...it had become reality.

At the same time, another feeling had begun to grow inside me.

A strange fear of standing still.

I was terrified that if I let this opportunity slip away, I would remain trapped in the same routine forever—driving the same routes, paying off my debts little by little, watching my entire life spin endlessly in circles with no way out.

In that moment, the Netherlands looked like the chance to speed everything up.

Better money.

Faster debt repayment.

A fresh start.

So I packed my bags...

...and I left.

Today I honestly can't remember exactly how my parents reacted when I told them.

Some memories remain crystal clear for a lifetime.

Others slowly fade until only the feeling remains.

And the feeling I carry is that, at least for a moment, they were probably relieved.

It may sound strange.

But I believe it made sense from their point of view.

I was leaving to work abroad, which meant I would earn more money and perhaps pay off my debts much faster.

It also meant they would no longer have to watch over me every single day—wondering where I was, what I was doing, whether I was home, or whether I was still following the rules we had agreed upon after my treatment.

For a brief moment...

...it probably looked as though my life was finally moving in the right direction.

Of course, beneath that relief there must also have been fear.

Going abroad meant being far away from my family.

Far away from supervision.

Far away from all those small mechanisms that had been keeping me on the right path.

And there was undoubtedly another thought lurking in the background...

That if I found myself alone in a foreign country...

...I could very easily return to the very thing that had already destroyed me once before.

What none of them knew at that moment...

...and what perhaps I wasn't fully willing to admit even to myself...

...was that I had already returned to gambling.

As I sat on that coach heading west across Europe, the merry-go-round I was supposed to have stopped during treatment had already begun turning once again.

That day, a friend drove me to Trenčín.

It was a strange journey.

Quiet...

...yet filled with the anticipation people always feel when they're about to begin something new—something they believe might change their lives forever.

At the station I met Ivanito, and even as we stood there on the platform with our backpacks and tickets in our hands, we could both feel the same strange mixture of excitement and nervousness.

When the coach finally arrived and we found our seats, the journey gradually turned into one of those long conversations that only two people can have when an unknown future lies ahead of them.

Every mile carried us farther from home...

...and closer to whatever awaited us in the Netherlands.
Inside the coach, we occasionally opened small bottles of beer and talked for hours.

I told Ivanito stories from my years on the road driving the van—about nights spent in lonely parking areas surrounded by rows of trucks, about strange conversations with drivers from every corner of Europe, about unusual situations at border crossings, and about those rare moments when you find yourself standing somewhere in the middle of the continent with the overwhelming feeling that the whole world is suddenly open before you.

He listened with the kind of excitement only someone experiences before leaving home to work abroad for the very first time.

He told me he had never been to the Netherlands before.

He couldn't wait to experience something new.

There was hope in his voice.

Hope that everything would finally begin moving in the right direction.

That we would have decent jobs.

A good place to live.

And finally earn the money we had been missing back home.

When we arrived at the coach station in Rotterdam, the city greeted us with a typical Northern European day.

The air was damp.

The streets were alive with movement.

People hurried past us, each absorbed in lives of their own.

We didn't have to wait long.

After only a few minutes, a car pulled up beside the station, and a man stepped out.

He was supposed to be the link between the employment agency and our new lives.

We climbed into the car and headed toward a small town only a few kilometres outside Rotterdam.

During the drive, we naturally began asking questions.

Where would we be living?

What kind of work would we be doing?

How did everything operate?

They were the obvious questions anyone asks when arriving in a foreign country for work.

And that was precisely when the first problem appeared.

When we asked about our accommodation, the answer was nothing like we had expected.

The man who had arranged the job for us had confidently assured us that we would be sharing an apartment together.

He had spoken about it with such certainty that we had never once questioned him.

But the moment we mentioned the word apartment, our driver burst into laughter.

Not the kind of laugh someone fakes out of politeness.

He laughed so hard he could barely breathe.

Ivanito and I exchanged puzzled glances.

At that point we still believed it was simply a misunderstanding.

Reality arrived only a few minutes later.

The car first stopped in the centre of the town, where I was dropped off.

It was an older workers' accommodation tucked between narrow streets, already occupied by labourers from several different countries.

After a brief conversation, it became obvious...

...this was where I was supposed to stay.

Ivanito, however, remained in the car.

They drove him to the outskirts of town, to an entirely different house where another group of workers was living.

That was the moment we began to understand that almost everything we had been promised had been untrue.

That evening we managed to meet again.

We found our way to each other so we could figure out what was actually happening.

And that was when the second blow came.

After introducing myself to the men who had already been living there—our supposed future co-workers—one of them looked at us with genuine surprise and said something I can still hear to this day.

"We're actually wondering why you've come here."

"We've been without work ourselves for several days already."

That was the moment everything finally became clear.

We had been fooled.

All those promises about steady work...

The apartments...

The quick money...

...began falling apart before we had even completed our first working day in the Netherlands.

We sat together late into the evening, talking about what we should do next.

The longer we talked...

...the clearer the answer became.

There was no reason to stay.

The decision came quickly.

The following morning we packed our bags and returned to the coach station.

We boarded another coach.

This one wasn't taking us farther west.

It was taking us back east.

It felt like an entirely different journey from the one we had made only a day earlier.

The trip to Rotterdam had been filled with anticipation.

This journey...

...was filled with disappointment.

With the last money we had left, we managed to travel as far as Prague.

Beyond that, we simply couldn't afford another ticket.

So we stepped off the coach there, in a city that had suddenly become the symbol of one simple truth.

Our great adventure...

...had ended before it had even begun.
Even though our plan in the Netherlands had collapsed almost the moment we arrived, we were still fortunate in one respect.

We weren't left completely stranded in Prague.

After several phone calls and conversations, we managed to find another job—this time in Kralupy nad Vltavou, a small town not far from Prague.

The position we were offered was in a refrigerated warehouse.

We were hired as pickers—workers who moved through endless rows of shelves, collecting products according to customer orders, loading them onto carts, and preparing them for shipment.

On paper, it looked like the solution to the situation we had found ourselves in.

But after only a few hours, I knew this wasn't where I wanted to stay.

The cold inside the warehouse seeped through my gloves...

...through my clothes...

...all the way into my bones.

The work itself was endless.

Walking between identical shelves.

Picking one item after another.

Loading carts.

Repeating the same movements over and over again.

Perhaps someone else would have adjusted.

Perhaps, with enough time, I would have too.

But from the very first day, I carried the unmistakable feeling that I didn't belong there.

It felt as though I had arrived only temporarily...

...simply waiting for the moment when I could stand up and leave.

And, in truth...

...that was exactly what I was doing.

Leaving immediately, however, wasn't an option.

The agency had already paid for our accommodation, and we both knew we had to work at least long enough to avoid walking away in complete disgrace.

So I kept showing up every day.

I walked those freezing aisles.

Loaded products onto carts.

And all the while, I silently counted the days until I could finally move on.

At the same time, I immediately got back in touch with my cousin—the one I had driven the van for before leaving.

When I explained everything that had happened, he answered me directly, without unnecessary words.

He still hadn't found another driver.

If I wanted to come back...

...I could.

Then he added something that stayed with me.

"Next time," he said, "don't do stupid things like this."

There was no drama in his voice.

No shouting.

Just a firm...

...and fair...

...reminder.

I knew he was right.

By then, I already understood that my attempt to leave for the Netherlands had been nothing more than another impulsive decision made without thinking things through.

That was the moment I made a promise to myself.

I would return to driving.

And this time...

...I would stay loyal to my cousin.

He had given me another chance.

A chance I honestly hadn't earned.

There was no point chasing more reckless plans that could easily end even worse than the one in the Netherlands.

I wanted to stay out of trouble.

The truth, however...

...was that I had already created more than enough trouble for myself.

During that period, I also found myself talking more and more with my other cousin, Jozef.

We agreed that whenever his truck passed through Kralupy nad Vltavou, he would stop and take me home.

As it turned out, leaving that warehouse job proved to be the right decision almost immediately.

It quickly became obvious that the wages weren't nearly as good as we had been led to believe.

Certainly not enough to make any meaningful difference to the debts hanging over my head.

And definitely not at the speed I had imagined.

So I waited.

I waited for the day when I would see his truck pull in...

...open the passenger door...

...and begin the journey back home.

Back to the life I was trying to rebuild.

Even then, I already knew that the road back would be neither easy...

...nor short.

Eventually, that day arrived.

Jozef sent me a message saying he would be driving past Kralupy and could pick me up.

I remember that moment perfectly.

I stood on the edge of town with all my belongings packed into a few bags, searching for a place where such a massive truck could safely pull over.

There was no way a vehicle that size could squeeze into narrow streets or ordinary parking lots.

It was a strange feeling.

Standing in a foreign town with everything you owned packed into a handful of bags...

...waiting for the headlights of a truck that would carry you back home.

When I finally saw that enormous vehicle approaching, I stepped toward it and felt an overwhelming sense of relief.

It was as though one short, chaotic chapter of my life...

...a chapter that had barely even begun...

...was finally coming to an end.
The journey home was calm.

Jozef and I talked about all sorts of things.

About work.

About everything that had gone wrong in the Netherlands and later in the Czech Republic.

About how it would probably be better if I simply returned to driving and got my life back on track.

He didn't feel the need to lecture me.

He never did.

A few straightforward sentences were enough.

That was simply who he was.

When I arrived home, my parents didn't seem particularly surprised.

Perhaps by then they knew the pattern of my life well enough that sudden changes and failed plans no longer shocked them.

I didn't see anger in their eyes.

Not even disappointment.

What I saw was something different.

A quiet exhaustion...

...mixed with hope.

Hope that I would return to work...

...and that, this time, things might finally begin moving in the right direction again.

And for a while...

...they truly did.

I returned to driving.

Back to the endless roads.

Back to crossing borders.

Back to measuring my life in kilometres instead of days.

The highways slowly became part of me again.

Each journey gave my days structure.

Each delivery gave me another reason to keep moving forward.

From the outside, it looked as though I had found my direction once more.

As though I had learned my lesson.

As though I had finally begun rebuilding the life I had almost destroyed.

But while all of that was happening...

...something else quietly found its way back into my life.

Something that had no place there anymore.

Gambling.

It didn't return dramatically.

There was no single moment that changed everything overnight.

It crept back exactly the way addictions always do.

Quietly.

Patiently.

Almost invisibly.

One bet.

Then another.

A few euros.

Nothing serious...

...or so I kept telling myself.

After all, I had a job.

I was earning money again.

I was paying off my debts.

I convinced myself I was in control.

That this time it would be different.

That I had learned enough to stop before it went too far.

But addiction has never cared about promises.

Especially the promises we make to ourselves.

Looking back today, I know that I wasn't simply returning to gambling.

I was returning to the illusion that I could somehow control it.

And that illusion...

...would eventually cost me far more than money.

Because the most dangerous relapses don't begin with desperation.

They begin with confidence.

With the quiet belief that this time...

...you are stronger than the addiction.

I wasn't.

I simply hadn't realized it yet.

The game had never truly ended.

It had only been waiting...

...for me to sit back down at the table.

— JK —