The Polish Program (LSD, #2)

6. In The Shadows

In The Shadows

Café-bar «House of Beer» is a dark café in an old part of ancient Krakow. We find a more-or-less quiet table in the shadows at the back, where we can talk and drink. The drink comes first and is excellent: the House of Beer has so many different beers from so many different countries that it's not easy to make a choice. Scarlett advises me to try some Polish beers, which go from «surprisingly good» to «I have to remember this one, so I can order it next time». To repay the favour, I order for her my favourite Luxembourg's Triple, and at the second round, I tempt her to try a Belgian Kriek, which makes her fall in love at the first sip (not of me, in love of the beer, it's delicious).

Between drinking, we fill the time with talking.

"First, talk to me about the company, about your work there, your colleagues, and your boss.", I say.

"There isn't much to say. When I started there, we had fifteen people working for the company, but then computers came in, so we fired the typing department, and it would be cheaper to let specialists handle specialist's services, so we fired the bookkeeper and the cleaning lady, and we had an external company to look at our business model, so we fired some more colleagues... Three and a half years ago, it was just the Boss and me. We each had our task: I worked and made money, while he talked and spent it."

"Is he married? Children? Parents? Other relatives?"

"Not that I know of. What kind of woman wants a man who's always at work or travelling around the globe?"

This is a marvellous medicine for my moral worries. I promised Scarlett to help her with her revenge, but it feels better when we don't have to make arrangements for the crying widow and her orphans when the mission is over.

"What's the name of the company?"

"Look at the front page of the newspaper. It's on that table over there."

Suddenly I'm back into the real world, the world in which I'm getting paid for doing spy work, the world that has invented all the explanations of my mission of yesterday.

«Eco-terrorists put pressure on Climate Conference»

«The business centre of Krakow suffered a painful blow yesterday morning. At exactly 10:00 AM, the moment of the official start of the World Climate Conference about Global Warming, a bomb destroyed the office of Treesome Ltd, the Polish market leader of import of tropical wood from the Amazon rainforest. Several environmental organizations have claimed the action: they want attention for the ruthless way aggressive companies destroy nature on our planet. The attack puts pressure on the negotiations that take place during the conference. At the moment the bomb went off, there were no employees in the office. The rest of the building was evacuated immediately. Thanks to the efficient work of the emergency services, there were no injuries or casualties.»

Thinking about cutting down the rainforest, the metaphor of the sparrow comes to my mind. When a sparrow builds her nest in a tree with a «will be cut down next month»-sign, we laugh about the stupid animal; it's doing all that work for nothing. Human intelligence makes us feel superior to animals, but we don't read the signs, and we don't think about our future either. We cut down the tropical forest and burn as much oil as our energy addicted economy can afford, until there's no future left. I'm not sure about the measures, the bombing that the LSD ordered me, but I do feel proud and useful to be part of an organization that tries to convince others to think ahead, instead of brainwashing the world with their slogan «contamination first!». There are so many clean alternatives for burning oil. If we would only plant two trees for every one we cut... Our wood would be a bit more expensive, but it would be an investment in the future for our children...