Ramadan 13th, 1441

                   Jakby to był zegarek, to po prostu wszystko rozłożone i każda sprężyna leży osobno.
                                                                                                                                        (a voice in Polish parliament)

Yesterday I went to a bookshop first time since the onset of the pandemic. I bought a recent co-authored volume of Mia Couto and Agualusa, O terrorista elegante, as well as Agualusa's diary O Paraiso e outros infernos. I'm not glad with the latter, I should have chosen another book. But anyway it has been a delight to include these two new covers in my LibraryThing catalogue.
Meanwhile, I've actually lost the track of Polish politics. I think they have lost it too. I lowered the risk estimation from 85% to 80%, since it requires much more careful planning to establish an authoritarian regime. Apparently. Or it's not like this? 
Anyway, it is unique to see a state dismantled like a watch, every single escape wheel laying separate on the table. Some of them, perhaps, under the table. Fallen in the gaps between the planks of the floor. 
Gosh, it is mesmerising to stare onto the catastrophe like this. Oh, there was that old German essay, Schiffbruch mit Zuschauer. On the essence of modernity. And after the Schiffbruch, we (they) will have to rebuild the boat from splinters, only to live the cycle all over again. Meanwhile, on the height of this Portuguese rock, I am the Zuschauer, a distant spectator of the widening gyre. 
I said 80 instead of 85%. I should have said 99 instead of 85%. Watches don't dismantle themselves just like this; there must have been some patient and purposeful watchmaker to do it. And I must admit that the work has been done thoroughly. Who is the watchmaker? A person? Agents of a foreign power in remaking, on the way toward a restitutio Imperii? Moscow as the Third Rome? Or rather our (their) self-perpetuating, helplessly autonomous identity of a dysfunctional nation?
As I think about it, one shining beacon appears on this foggy horizon. I have no knowledge nor insight in the domain of watchmaking. The only thing I can do is go back to my Netherlands, to my books, to my writings. In my inner ear, there is a song sounding clear. That old one by King Crimson:

Shine, shine....
The light of good works shine.