It didn't happen really, yet it did

It didn’t happen yet it did.

It could have happened twenty-one years ago, or maybe twenty, or nineteen, or twenty-two years ago. It happened in Poland, in the country where I used to live, every Sunday about the same time

It happened on the footpath, which led from the gate to the building, which some people, who consider themselves as Roman Catholics, call the church. It happened on the footpath, which was surrounded by long masts, placed in equal distances from each other. One row on the right side and one on the left side, together forming a boundary, symmetrical and hermetic.

It happened before actual mass started. An accident, connected with one of the masts -specifically, the last one on the right side of the footpath. The mast was constructed from one vertical pillar and two cross-bars. The lower cross-bar was fixed at the height of the eyes of a five-year-old child, or maybe a three-year- old, or maybe six.

An accident happened when a four year-old child, or maybe a five year-old, was walking with its mother to the building called the church and had to turn right, just next to the mast, in order to access the building.

In the child’s way, in that very moment, when it had to turn right, there happened to be some kind of obstacle on the path. It might have been a huge rock or maybe just an uneven pavement. But, as a consequence the child stumbled and almost in slow motion, fell on the lower cross-bar of the mast. The accident wouldn’t have been dangerous had it not been for the fact, that at each end of the cross-bar was a metal hook, so as the child fell down on it, the hook cut through the only place not protected by the skull, which was the temple, causing serious damage to the brain and the child’s death.

It didn’t happen really, yet it did.