025.03 VIKTOR – Gray Shores September 13 at 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM

The river freezes under a gray sky when I reach the concrete blocks near Výtoň. I can see them from afar – three figures sitting in a circle – like some ancient ritual. Veronika, Tom and Tony. A crew that didn't make sense even a month ago.

I sit down on the last available block. The concrete is surprisingly warm, as if it had soaked up all the sun's energy before the rain. I feel the warmth spreading up through my thighs.

Tony has his fingers interlocked in his lap, they are trembling. Without thinking, I reach out my hands and take his palms. His skin is cold, almost as if blood had stopped flowing to his fingertips. When I touch his wrist, I feel a pulse – fast, shallow, as if trying to catch up with time.

I want to say something, but the words dissolve before I can form them.

Tom sits opposite, his gaze darting between us. Between his fingers, he flips a medal he won at the last competition. He taps it against his knee in an irregular rhythm that agrees with nothing – neither my breath, nor the river, nor the way time passes us by.

Veronika is the calmest of us all. She takes out her phone and places it flat, leaning it against her backpack. She presses the red record button. She doesn't ask if she can. Maybe she knows that some images are better than sound. Maybe she understands that we need a witness who has no opinion of their own.

Tony's fingers tighten around mine. He swallows, as if trying to push down something stuck in his throat.

„Iris haunts, but the heart beats,“ he says finally. I don't know what it means, but I feel that it's important. Some sentences only make sense in a certain light, at a certain angle. Maybe one day I'll understand.

Veronika smiles. „I'll put it out without words, just breath, just the river, just the four of us.“

And then it hits me.

No one protests. We're simply here – at 3:35 PM, on the gray bank, four people who under normal circumstances would never have met. Who would never have sat this close together, in a circle, like some survivors.

The air is heavy after the rain, but I'm breathing better than at home. Better than anywhere else. I want to remember this moment – not because of the words, but because of the way Tony is holding my hands, the way Tom finally lifts his eyes and lets them soften when he looks at Tony. The way everything slows down for a moment.

At 3:55 PM, a train whirs over us across the railway bridge. I feel the air tremble, the concrete beneath us shake. The sound that carries across the river isn't the rattle of wheels or screeching – it's a deep, rumbling tone that echoes like the heartbeat of the tracks.

Veronika ends the recording, tapping the stop button with her finger. She names the file grey_river_breath. I don't know what she'll do with it, but I know it won't be anything that could hurt us.

Our grey shores gained a new rhythm – without shouting, but stronger than anything I've ever seen on my phone. Stronger than the trending feed. Stronger than the things I mock to cover up how much I want them.

I get up last. I don't want to let go of Tony's hands. I don't want to interrupt what just happened between the four of us. But I have to.

The river keeps flowing, gray and quiet, and I know I'll never be the same again.