Often my dogs lie

at the front door

and stare longingly

at the world

through the windowpane.



They can see clearly

freedom,

sunshine,

wide open spaces

outside.



It seems to be

right within reach,

yet something…

It is the middle of a sunny summer day

I am running down the stairs

quickly and excitedly, with my neighbours following me.

We all want to see the Sun

It just fell down in the front yard

I saw it coming down like an overripe cantaloupe,

staining the sky with sticky, succulent golden juices.

There it is,

lying on the ground,

a giant orange, trampling the grass it landed on,

squirting its warm…

There once was a shellfish, living out its days, together with all the other coastal creatures, in the intertidal zone, between the ocean and the shore. Its world being a tiny circumference of wet sand that it could claim as its own, the shellfish did not have lofty goals and was resigned to its lot in life.



One morning the Sun was shining brightly and the mollusk prepared itself for another ordinary day in its ordinary existence, stuck on the beach and nowhere to go. It…

It was widely known that Death had been ill for some time. Its poor health made it rather slipshod in the execution of its duties. Whole generations were being taken away in the flower of their youth, while other people were living for an extraordinarily long time, over 400 years in certain cases.



For a while Death hovered in a half-alive condition, with one foot in the grave, and mankind held its breath, fearing that it would rally and make a complete recovery.



And then…

One day a new type of phone that you could use to call yourself appeared on the market. All one had to do was dial a certain number and one would be connected straight away with oneself. The quality of the reception was so good that the voice on the other end of the line sounded as if it was coming from the very same room.



Inevitably, there was some initial apprehension about using this phone, for no one quite knew what kind of a response they would receive when…