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Everything happens in slow motion, which intensifies the horror. As the LP cuts through the pigeon’s neck, there are several distinct short notes. The sharp bones of the pigeon’s throat play a few seconds from the track on the record. Just the opening tune. Some sort of cabaret song, I don’t remember which one. ‘The Umbrellas of Cherbourg’? ‘Oh, Paris’? ‘The Café with the Three Pigeons’? I don’t remember. But there was definitely music. The severed head keeps flying (on momentum) a few yards further while the body tumbles to the ground around the garbage cans. There isn’t any blood.

In the dream, everything is simple. Emma bends down and hurls the next LP. Then I do. She does. I do. She does. Every LP repeats what happened to the first one. The sidewalk across the street is littered with bird heads, grey, identical, their eyes closed. With each severed head, the relatives behind us burst into enthusiastic applause. Mitza, our cat, stays by the window and salivates.

I woke up with a sore throat. At first, I wanted to tell Emma about my dream, then changed my mind. It was just a dream.


2





The apocalypse may take place in one particular country.

I bought a rocking chair one Saturday in early January 1997. I had just got my paycheck and half of it went into buying that chair. It was the last one at the old, comparatively low prices. The incredible inflation that winter made the craziness of my purchase even worse. The chair was a wicker bamboo-imitation, not particularly heavy but large and difficult to carry. It was unthinkable to give up the other half of salary for a taxi, so I hauled it like a basket-seller and started on my way home. I was walking, carrying the chair on my back and getting angry from passers-by for the luxury I had afforded myself. Someone has to describe the miserable winter of 1997, as well as all the other miseries — the winters of 1990 and 1992. I remember an elderly woman asking for half a lemon at the market. Others searched around the empty stalls at night for a potato that might have accidentally dropped. More and more well-dressed people overcame their shame and reached into garbage cans. Hungry dogs waited on the side or gathered in packs to attack pedestrians coming home late. As I write these fragmented sentences, I imagine big newspaper headlines in bold letters.

One night I came home and found that my apartment had been broken into. The only thing missing was the TV set. Strangely, my first concern was the rocking chair. It was still there. Perhaps they couldn’t get it through the door — it was too big, I had moved it in through the window. I spent the whole night in the chair. When Emma came back, she tried calling the police. To no avail. Nobody paid attention to burglary calls anymore. Fuck it. I sat in the rocking chair, caressed my two cats that were scared by the mess (where were they hiding when the thieves came?) and smoked a cigarette over the ruins of whatever was left of my male dignity. I was unable to protect even Emma and the cats. I wrote a story.

An apartment is broken into. At the time of burglary only the wife is home — fortyish, slightly fading, watching a soap opera on TV. The intruders — young, normal-looking guys — don’t expect to find anybody there, but they quickly figure it out. The woman is frightened enough anyway. She takes the money out of the closet herself. She doesn’t resist when they tell her to give them her jewelry. Wedding ring, too? Yes, the wedding ring too. She removes it with great difficulty because it is stuck on her finger. Suddenly, when the thieves try to take away the TV set (the soap opera is still on, by the way), the woman puts her arms around it. She speaks for the first time, pleading that they take anything except the TV set. She just stands there with her back to the two men, clasping the screen to her breasts, ready to do anything to protect it. The thieves could easily push her aside, but they are surprised by her sudden reaction. She senses their hesitation and says ambivalently that they could do anything to her if they only leave the TV set alone.

The deal is struck. We’ll fuck you, one of them says. She doesn’t move. They quickly lift her skirt. No reaction. Her ass is still tight. The first one comes right away. The second takes more time. The woman holds on to the TV and doesn’t move, only asks them to get on with it because her kids will soon be home from school. This, finally, discourages the second one and the men leave the apartment. The soap opera is over. Relieved, the woman lets go of the TV and heads for the bathroom.

How are the ‘90s going to end — as a thriller, a gangster movie, a black comedy, or a soap opera?