A Walk with a Knife

When I was a few years old and I was returning home with my mother, we were passed by a long-bearded man whose gait was full of weakness, even for his age. In the 1990s, there were many drunks, homeless people and other derelicts in the district of Jeżyce, so the sight of him was not particularly unusual. However, when we arrived alongside the man, we noticed that a long knife was sticking out of his belly and the blood around the wound had already soaked through the layers of clothes. Mom immediately called an ambulance, but the old man was insisting strongly that we shouldn’t. Eventually, he was taken to hospital against his will. But he gave the impression that if he had been left on his own, he could have walked off with that knife in his belly for quite a long way – to his house, maybe even to take a nap, have a bite to eat and read the newspaper.
A Walk with a Knife is the title of an oil painting, one of many shown at the exhibition.