the wedding (part four: rocks beneath the water)

I I once knew a pretty girl And she was in love with the world And she loved a young man Who loved her body but never saw her mind He took everything she had kept And then he took everything else that was left   But no one believed her No one believed her…

the wedding (part three: setting the course)

I At Pokoj We sit in the gloomy bar, cigarette smoke drifting over us, music barely heard. We’re the sole customers. Lukas’s university mates are here to bid us goodbye. Right now going back to Bulgaria sounds even exciting. Although we haven’t left yet, plans are being made at the table of a group coming…

the wedding (part two: high tides and low tides)

The tale of my wedding should start with the engagement. And, just like the wedding itself, it’s contradictory. Completely true and painful with the fact it had to happen thrice. Our engagement is a story about mistakes and the love that has the power to undo them. About strength and weakness. About high and low…

the wedding (part one: the lifeboat)

January 2016 Ústí nad Labem – Hněvice train Another day without sunrise. I look through the windows of the train towards the bare fields torn here and there by little forests and quiet villages. Without snow the winter here is grey and foggy. I think about the big chimneys of the paper factory where I…

the wedding speech – extended version

I wrote the following speech in Ruse, in a hotel by the bus station, just a week before my wedding. In short, my wedding went well. In “long” – you’re going to find out a bit later. It didn’t really go by plan. Not at all, actually. But it did become the first serious proof of…