Chapter: The Game Begins

Book Introduction – REMÍZA: A Bet on Life

Chapter: The Game Begins

I had lost the job I had genuinely been excited about.

I had lost the routine that had finally begun to give my life structure and purpose.

Once again, I found myself standing still—this time knowing what it felt like to discover something that truly suited me, only to realise it was no longer in my hands.

It was another reminder that life rarely unfolds according to our plans.

Just when everything seems to be moving in the right direction, all it takes is one unexpected breakdown for everything to come to a halt.

At the time, I had no idea that those brief weeks behind the wheel were only the beginning of a journey that would shape me for many years to come.

Those first two weeks travelling across Europe left something inside me that could never be erased.

They taught me that the world was far bigger than my hometown.

Bigger than the conflicts within my own family.

Bigger than the ideologies I had once clung to as absolute truths.

Although I returned home, a part of me never truly came back.

And somewhere deep inside, something entirely new had already begun preparing for its return.

Amid all those turning points, disappointments, and moments of hope, life continued much as it always had for a group of young men who believed the world belonged to them—without realising just how fragile they actually were.

Most evenings were spent wandering the streets.

We drank cheap wine or beer on park benches, laughed louder than we should have, and ran from police officers whenever they caught us drinking in public.

Even that felt exciting.

We mistook adrenaline for freedom.

Those were the years when everything seemed possible and nothing appeared to have consequences.

The truth was that the consequences had already begun growing quietly in the background.

Whenever we could, we took temporary jobs.

Warehouse work.

Manual labour.

Anything that earned a little extra money.

Every young person wants to earn their own living.

To buy things with their own money.

To experience the feeling of independence.

At that age, financial freedom feels like the first real proof of adulthood.

None of us realised how easily the desire for independence can become the beginning of something far more dangerous.
Eventually, I took a job at a local company in Bánovce nad Bebravou, thanks to my brother-in-law.

For the first time in my life, I experienced something I had barely known before:

stability.

The work itself wasn't complicated.

I had fixed working hours, a regular salary that was respectable for that time, and—most importantly—I knew that every month my paycheck would arrive exactly when it was supposed to.

For someone who had spent years living through extremes, impulsive decisions, and constant uncertainty, that feeling was almost surreal.

Suddenly my days had structure.

Each morning looked much like the one before.

For the first time, the future seemed predictable.

That simple sense of order fascinated me.

For the first time, I could even pay for a holiday with money I had honestly earned through regular work.

Oddly enough, the feeling of paying for it myself meant more than the holiday itself.

A group of us decided to spend our vacation in Croatia, and naturally I became the driver.

Being behind the wheel already felt like the one place where I truly belonged.

It was where I felt in control.

The journey was filled with laughter, loud music, countless stops at petrol stations to stock up on snacks and drinks, and all the small moments of madness that inevitably accompany a group of young friends setting off on their first big trip abroad.

You can probably imagine that the stories from that holiday—and several others that followed—could easily fill an entire chapter of their own.

Youth.

Freedom.

Alcohol.

The feeling that nobody knows who you are.

It's the perfect recipe for memories that are hilarious years later...

...and, at the same time, painfully embarrassing.

Of course, Croatia wasn't our only holiday.

Once you discover that you can earn your own money and still enjoy life, you naturally start looking for the next adventure.

It was during my time at that stable company that another opportunity appeared.

A transport company in Bánovce nad Bebravou contacted me with an offer to return to driving—this time more regularly and on a much larger scale.

The moment I heard it, something inside me woke up again.

The road was calling.

And that call was louder than security.

Louder than routine.

Louder than a steady paycheck.

The decision wasn't easy.

I already had something many people my age were still searching for.

Stability.

But I also knew something else.

If I stayed...

...I'd eventually begin to feel trapped.

Routine gave me peace.

But it also took away the excitement that movement gave me.

So I resigned.

I walked away from security.

I climbed back into a van.

And I returned to the roads that had already changed me once before.

At the time, I believed I was simply changing jobs.

In reality, I was stepping onto another road that would challenge everything I believed about myself—and teach me lessons I hadn't yet imagined.

I had no idea that just as I was beginning to feel confident...

...just as I believed I had finally become experienced...

...one single night would show me how fragile life truly is.

It wasn't some grand philosophical turning point.

It wasn't destiny announcing itself with dramatic fanfare.

It began with something completely ordinary.

A camping trip near Považský Inovec.

A campfire.

A few bottles of alcohol.

And a group of young men convinced they had the world under control.

We sat around the fire while the flames crackled beneath the summer sky.

The forest was peaceful.

Only our laughter and the occasional stupid joke disturbed the silence.

The alcohol flowed naturally.

Nobody counted drinks.

Nobody asked who would be driving later.

Because asking that question would have meant admitting that something could actually go wrong.

And I felt unstoppable.

Confident.

Invincible.

After all, I had already driven across Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and France.

I had covered thousands of kilometres.

Long nights.

Foreign roads.

International deliveries.

Somewhere in my mind, I had started treating those kilometres as proof that I was a better driver than everyone else.

Looking back now...

...I wasn't experienced.

I was overconfident.

Then someone suggested we drive into town to pick up another friend.

I didn't hesitate for a single second.

Not once did it occur to me that I had been drinking.

I didn't see danger.

I saw another opportunity to prove that I could handle anything.

Two of the guys climbed into the van beside me.

Another stayed behind by the fire.

And together...

...we drove straight into the darkness.
I still remember turning the key in the ignition.

The sound of the engine felt like confirmation that everything was under my control.

The road was narrow, lined with trees on both sides. Beyond them stretched a dense forest swallowed by darkness.

But I felt no respect for it.

I believed I was in complete control.

The speedometer kept climbing.

100 kilometres per hour.

Drunk.

Two friends sitting beside me.

Night.

A narrow country road.

And yet I felt invincible.

I can still remember the rush of adrenaline mixing with the alcohol in my bloodstream.

I boasted that I had already driven across Europe.

That this road was nothing.

That I knew exactly what I was doing.

Today, those words shame me so deeply that, if I could, I would erase them from my memory forever.

Back then, I believed experience meant invincibility.

I had no idea that experience without humility is merely the beginning of disaster.

The moment I lost control came without warning.

Perhaps it was a small pothole.

Perhaps I turned the steering wheel just a little too sharply.

Or perhaps the alcohol had simply slowed my reactions enough for one tiny mistake to become irreversible.

Suddenly...

...the van stopped responding the way it should.

It drifted.

The steering wheel no longer felt as though it belonged to me.

Everything changed in a single heartbeat.

Time slowed.

I remember headlights flashing between the trees.

I remember one of my friends shouting.

I remember my own heartbeat crashing against my ribs so violently that I could feel it in my throat.

Then we left the road.

It wasn't gradual.

It was violent.

Impact.

A skid.

Darkness.

And then something happened that, even today, I can explain only as a miracle.

We passed directly between two trees.

Not into them.

Between them.

At that speed.

The van ploughed into a cornfield.

Metal screamed.

Glass shattered.

Yet the cabin remained intact.

When the vehicle finally came to a stop...

...there was silence.

A silence so complete and unnatural that none of us moved.

For several long seconds we simply sat there, unable to process the fact that we were still alive.

Then we all began breathing again.

Fast.

One of my friends asked whether I was alright.

I looked at both of them, trying to understand why we were still sitting there instead of lying dead among the trees.

Eventually we climbed out.

I stood in the middle of the cornfield.

The road was only a few metres away.

Behind us stood those two trees.

I turned around and stared at the narrow gap we had somehow passed through.

It couldn't have been more than a few centimetres wider than the van itself.

Had we been only slightly to the left...

...or slightly to the right...

...I would never have written these words.

People from a nearby house came running after hearing the crash.

They asked if we were hurt.

Whether they should call an ambulance.

Whether we needed help.

We tried to act as though nothing serious had happened.

Then someone asked if we had been drinking.

Fear immediately made us even more foolish.

We climbed back into the damaged van...

...and drove away.

The following day I had to return to the scene to search for my licence plate, which had fallen off during the crash.

I wandered through the field like a thief searching for evidence of his own shame, praying that nobody would see me.

The van had only a dented pillar.

"Only."

Today that word sounds almost absurd.

When I got home, I lied.

I told everyone I had hit a patch of ice while trying to avoid a quad bike near the reservoir.

It became one of the first lies I told simply to hide the truth.

Yet something inside me had already changed.

Standing there in that field, staring at those two trees, I suddenly remembered something my uncle had told me years earlier.

He had spent decades driving heavy trucks across Europe.

Despite hundreds of thousands of kilometres behind the wheel, he always said the same thing.

"Even today I don't think of myself as a great driver."

"Every time I get behind the wheel, I do it with humility."

"The road forgives no one."

"The biggest mistake any driver can make is believing they're completely in control."

At the time, I dismissed those words as clichés from an older man.

That night...

...I finally understood them.

I realised I could have killed two of my closest friends because of my own arrogance.

I could have destroyed families that had already endured enough pain.

I could have ended lives that had barely begun.

One journey.

One ego.

One sentence:

"I know what I'm doing."

As we left that field, I felt no pride.

No adrenaline.

Only shame...

...and a cold, silent fear of my own arrogance.

Outwardly, life continued.

I returned to work.

I laughed with my friends.

Everything appeared normal.

But deep inside I knew I had touched a boundary I should never cross again.

Sometimes people aren't stopped by the law.

Sometimes they aren't stopped by their parents.

Or by the police.

Sometimes they're stopped only by looking back at two trees...

...and realising they survived by only a few centimetres.

Today, when I think back to that night—between those trees, between twisted metal and rows of corn, between life and death—I no longer see it merely as the recklessness of a young man who overestimated his abilities.

I see something much deeper.

A painful paradox that would take me years to fully understand.

Imagine a child growing up at a kitchen table where bottles of wine appeared more often than peace.

Imagine a ten-year-old boy watching his father slowly disappear.

Watching his hero become a shadow.

Watching family trips into the mountains slowly turn into silent evenings with a man staring blankly at the television.

Imagine that same boy sitting alone with a notebook, writing himself a solemn promise.

"I will never become like him."

"I will never let alcohol control my life."

"I will never betray my family the way I felt betrayed."

That little boy...

...was me.

For years I repeated those promises.

I told myself I would never drink.

Never drive after drinking.

Never allow anything to control me the way alcohol had once controlled my father.

Those weren't empty words.

They were my shield.

The wall I believed would forever separate me from his mistakes.

In my young mind it all seemed so simple.

If I became everything my father wasn't...

...then I would save myself.

And perhaps one day...

...I would save my own family too.

— JK —