The road to get there was rough, winding and full of steep climbs and descents. It was a place where time stood still, where nature mastered its own incessant rhythm. In this secluded corner, I was looking for peace, to regenerate and to learn new knowledge about health, while writing my Master's thesis on green jobs in the Kanal Kolovrat.
In those places, you are lost without a car. There was no shop and I could only get part of my food from the produce. The system demanded its own; every so often I had to go down to the valley to civilization. So that day was like any other day, until suddenly, without warning, the car stopped. I was driving up hills, the road descending steeply towards the valley. Panic seized me. I gripped the steering wheel convulsively and tried to restart the engine. Finally, as I was careering downhill, I finally managed it - I had barely made it home. The next morning, the car did not start again.
I was desperate. I called my friends to see if they could give me the contact details of a garage near me, but in vain, because they were all more than 20 kilometres away. One after the other, the repairers I called refused me, saying it was too far/too much work/too uncertain an outcome. I called my last acquaintance and he told me that he knew someone who was not a repairer, but could fix a car, but lived even a little further away from Kanal. "A nice man," he added.
I had no choice but to try. I called him. The voice on the other end was calm and confident. "I'll come today," he said without hesitation. And sure enough, two hours later, a thin, middle-aged man dressed in dirty workman's trousers appeared in my yard. Unshaven and with a modest toolbox in his hand. If I had met him anywhere in the city, I would never have trusted him to repair my car.
I looked at him in disbelief and asked, "Don't you have a computer for diagnostics?"
He smiled as if he knew something I didn't. "Even without that," he replied calmly.
Within a minute, he realised it was an electronic fault. With a deft hand, he bypassed the electrical system with bypass wires and the car roared to life. Then he pulled two relays out of their box. "I happen to have these with me," he said. As if he knew. He replaced them, and then taught me how to check and replace them if anything ever went wrong again.
When the work was finished, he was getting ready to leave. I wanted to pay him at least something. He defended himself modestly. "I didn't do much," he said. After a lot of arguing, he accepted 20 euros and nothing more.
When he left, I felt a squeeze on my heart. How quickly I was ready to judge him and how deeply wrong I was. He stood there in his simple appearance, but there was something magnificent in him - that rare priceless wealth that is not measured in money, but in kindness, sincerity and willingness to help one's fellow man. And he was a skilled craftsman.
When his car disappeared around the bend, I knew I would remember that encounter for the rest of my life, even though I don't even know his name.
Silva Požlep, 22. 3. 2025
English (UK) 
Slovenščina 
Italiano 
Magyar