Escape into the Past

...When I stepped outside, I drew a deep breath of the cold winter air.

It tasted sharp.

Biting.

I couldn't go home.

After the truth about my addiction had come to light, shame became the only force driving me forward.

For a brief moment, I stopped on the steps.

I inhaled slowly, feeling the icy air fill my lungs.

It was harsh and painful...

yet strangely pure.

As though it were the only tangible proof that I was still alive.

It was around midday.

The world carried on without the slightest hesitation.

People hurried along with shopping bags.

Someone carried a bag of fresh bread.

Another held a child's hand.

Somewhere in the distance, an ambulance siren echoed through the streets.

In that moment, I realized how unimaginably far away their reality had become from mine.

They were living.

I was merely drifting through my own emptiness.

Without thinking, I walked to my car, opened the door, and sat behind the wheel.

This journey was not an accident.

I had chosen it.

I knew exactly where I was going.

And I knew exactly why.

Tasov, near Brno.

The place where life had once made sense.

The place that still lived inside me as a faint reminder that I had once been more than a collection of bad decisions and broken promises.

The engine came to life, and I pulled onto the road.

The asphalt disappeared beneath the wheels.

Every turn.

Every bridge.

Every landscape beyond the windshield became nothing more than scenery.

None of it felt real anymore.

My mind held only one destination. Partway through the journey, I realized I had forgotten my car charger.

Without thinking, I turned toward Trenčín, stopped at the first electronics store I saw, stepped inside, and moved almost mechanically through the aisles.

The warmth of the shop stunned me for a moment.

It felt like stepping into another world.

A world where people worried only about ordinary things.

Choosing electronics.

Comparing prices.

Talking about appliances that had stopped working at home.

No debts.

No empty bank accounts.

No crushing guilt.

I picked up the first charger I saw, paid for it, walked back outside, and breathed in the cold air once more.

It felt even heavier than before.

I got back into the car, tossed the charger onto the passenger seat—

and that was when my eyes fell on my tablet.

It took only a single glance.

One heartbeat.

One thought.

Suddenly, everything became crystal clear.

An absurd idea exploded inside my mind with terrifying certainty.

I'll bet everything I still have available.

I'll win a fortune.

I'll come back as the victor who fixes everything.

My hand reached for the tablet as though it no longer belonged to me.

I didn't think.

I didn't question whether it was madness.

Whether it was wrong.

None of that mattered anymore.

My heart pounded wildly.

My breathing quickened.

My fingers trembled...

yet they moved with absolute confidence.

The stake was insane.

The potential winnings were enough to erase everything.

The nightmare would disappear.

The debts would be gone.

My father's eyes would never again have to look at me with that unbearable disappointment.

The world would finally return to its proper axis.

Everything would make sense again.

Sweat formed on my forehead.

My stomach tightened.

My mind burned with adrenaline.

Bet placed.

It's done.

I shifted into gear and continued driving toward my past.

Just beyond the border, I stopped at the first petrol station to buy a motorway vignette.

I didn't want to waste time.

Yet somehow, I needed those few seconds.

Just enough to catch my breath before moving on. 

Brno approached far more quickly than I realized.

When I was a child, every journey to Tasov felt endless.

Each kilometer crawled by.

Every road sign.

Every exit.

Every turn.

Each one was another step in the long anticipation of finally arriving.

This time, it was different.

Time itself seemed to accelerate.

The same road that had once felt endless now vanished beneath my wheels almost unnoticed.

Every passing mile was like the blink of an eye.

Like watching a film fast-forwarded beyond recognition.

During those months, my entire life had become one blurred streak.

Days dissolved into nights.

Nights disappeared into days.

Everything revolved around one endless cycle—

gamble...

lose...

find more money...

try again.

Every morning I woke up to an empty bank account.

Every evening I fell asleep believing that tomorrow I would win it all back.

Again.

And again.

Faster each time.

As I merged onto the motorway outside Brno and continued toward Tasov, my phone suddenly rang.

My hand reached for it instinctively.

Then I saw the name on the screen.

My cousin.

She never called me.

The phone rang once.

Twice.

Three times.

I couldn't answer.

A few seconds later, a message appeared.

"Hi, where are you? I need something from you."

In that instant...

I understood.

They knew.

The family was talking about me.

Perhaps they had already called each other.

Perhaps they were wondering where I might be.

Perhaps they were already looking for me.

I stared at the message.

It was only a simple question.

Nothing dramatic.

Yet beneath those ordinary words...

I could feel everything.

I didn't reply.

I placed the phone beside the tablet on the passenger seat.

Don't answer.

Don't reply.

Don't exist. The motorway stretched endlessly beneath my wheels as I kept driving.

Then I saw the first road sign.

TASOV.

My heart began pounding wildly, as though it were trying to outrun reality itself.

As though it were warning me that this would not be an ordinary moment.

I entered the village.

I drove through the familiar streets before turning onto the old dirt road that wound its way between open fields and alongside the forest until it disappeared among the trees.

The tires crunched over the dry earth.

My entire attention was fixed on what I was about to see.

The wooden cabins stood exactly where they had always been.

Simple.

Solid.

Built upon stone foundations.

Time itself seemed to have forgotten them.

The first cabin...

ours.

The place where we had spent most of our holidays.

Just below it stood the second one, where my cousins and other relatives stayed.

People who had not always been there...

yet somehow had always belonged to those endless summers of happiness I still carried inside me.

And now...

here I was.

My knees weakened.

My hands began to tremble as I stepped out of the car.

I couldn't stop it.

My eyes wandered across the cabin.

The roof.

The old wooden shutters that, as children, we opened with almost sacred excitement.

The veranda where we spent countless evenings laughing about everything...

and nothing at all.

Before me stretched the wide meadow that had once been our battlefield...

our playground...

our refuge.

The place where we played endless games, chased one another through the grass, conquered childhood fears, and slowly discovered the world.

And down below...

there flowed the Oslava River.

The very river where we drifted in small boats...

where we plunged into the icy water, shouting with joy...

where we spent endless hours believing nothing else in life could ever matter.

Back then, life had been simple.

Pure.

Carefree.

And now...

I stood there as someone completely different. I stood there as the shadow of the little boy who had once run barefoot across that meadow...

who had thrown himself laughing into the river...

who had fallen asleep beneath the stars believing the world was beautiful and that the future belonged to him.

Now I stood there as a man who had failed.

A man who had betrayed everyone who loved him.

My mother.

My father.

My sister.

My family.

All the people who had trusted me...

who had given me their love...

who had shared the happiest days of my life in this very place.

And I had betrayed them.

Not because I had lost money.

Not because I had fallen into debt.

But because I had lost myself.

Because I had allowed myself to become someone that little boy would never have recognized.

My throat tightened.

My eyes filled with tears, yet I couldn't let them fall.

What now?

Where do I even begin?

Before me stood the life I had once dreamed of.

A life filled with hope and endless possibilities.

And I had no idea how to find my way back to it.

I stood there, unable to move.

Trapped between the past and the present.

Between memories that warmed my heart...

and a reality that cut like a knife.

Then my eyes fell upon an old boat.

Worn.

Weathered.

And suddenly I saw it all again.

I saw the little boy I used to be, sitting proudly in the front, gripping the sides of the boat with both hands, his eyes wide open as he watched every movement of the river.

Then, without fail, he would shout:

"Watch out! Watch out! A rock!"

Every single time a rock appeared ahead of us, I shouted at the top of my lungs.

I wanted to protect everyone.

My whole family.

Everyone sharing that little boat with me.

And they laughed.

They laughed because I did it every single time...

with the same determination...

the same urgency...

as though every tiny stone hidden beneath the water was the greatest danger in the world. We still laugh about it today.

Whenever the family gets together and someone mentions Tasov, sooner or later one of us will smile and say,

"Watch out! Watch out! A rock!"

"Our little captain!" my aunt still laughs.

And then...

it struck me like lightning.

What would I give to have heard someone shout those very words before I destroyed everything?

Before I lost all that I had.

Before I shattered the trust of the people who loved me most.

Before I became someone that little boy sitting in the front of the boat would never have recognized.

But no one shouted.

No one warned me.

And so, years later, I found myself standing in the very place where I had once known pure happiness...

the place where I had later faced the harshest reality of my life.

It was there that I realized this might never have been just another story about a man who fell.

Perhaps this book, born out of all that pain, could become that warning for someone else.

Perhaps it could become my own voice crying out into the world.

My own attempt to stop another person from walking as far into the darkness as I did.

Perhaps this book will become the voice I never had the chance to hear.

Perhaps, one day, someone else will stand before the rock that could destroy their life...

and this book will be the voice that calls out to them:

"Watch out! Watch out!"

– JK –