might get stuck in

your throat.”

“So?”

“Well, it seems the two are linked. Like, you hate eggs because you are afraid that they are going to get stuck in your throat. This might have already happened to you.

Maybe in your early childhood that did happen, but you just don’t remember that. You know that we gain our first memories after the age of three, don’t you? Well, that is to say, if your mother started feeding you eggs when you were younger than three, maybe one of those eggs got stuck in your throat once, and you just don’t remember

that.”

“Come on, I do remember myself even before the age of three.”

“Oh really? And what is it that you remember?”

“Well, I remember lying in the crib and looking through the bars of the crib into the room, and there was no one in the room at that time, and I really wanted someone to

come in and get me out of the crib because I had to look at everything through those thick wooden bars, and that really sucked big time.”

“So you are saying that not only do you remember yourself at that age, but you also remember how you felt?”

“Well, sort of, yes.”

“But this is bullshit, dude. You don’t remember what you did yesterday and you are saying that you remember how you felt when you were lying in the crib with the bars.”

“Yes, I also remember trying to gnaw on those bars

incessantly. I would chew on them all the time. Apparently they enraged me so much that I wanted to destroy them. Or at least to get through them somewhere outside.”

“Yeah, like, striving for freedom.”

“Haha.”

“We all sit in cribs with bars, dude.”

“What?”

“I am saying that we all sit in cribs with bars, like, we look at the world through the bars. Everyone is stuck in such a crib for life. The difference between us and the ordinary people is that we understand that we sit in such a crib, while the ordinary people simply don’t get it. They don’t even gnaw at their bars. And they die in their cribs.”

“So, you think there are some people that make it out of their cribs?”

“Yes.”

“And who is it, I wonder?”

“Well, for example, those who do what they want to do.

I mean, what they really want to do. For example, my parents hate their jobs, but even so they have been going to work all these years. And it does not even occur to them that you can do something that you really want to, instead of that nonsense that they have spent their whole lives doing. They have no chance. But if you do what you think is right for you, then you would have a chance to get out of this shit.”

“And what is it that you think is right for you?”

“I love music, dude.”

“So you want to become a musician?”

“I am already a musician, I’m a musician right here, right now. I feel it, you know. I am hanging out with you, but I know that while I am hanging out with you, I remain a musician. It’s like a rhythm in your heart. Do you get it, man? A rhythm that never stops. Even if I had a job cleaning elephant shit at a circus I would remain a musician, I would be free in my soul.”

“But if you clean elephant shit at a circus, you will be a cleaner of elephant shit, not a musician.”

“Everything is a bit more complicated than how you describe it.”

“Oh, really.”

“You see, there is another level to things. I am not talking about a level higher or lower, but about an altogether different one. One level is where we all live, what we can see around us. But on a different level there is something that we do not see with our eyes, but it still exist, it is still there. It’s like a level of ideas or dreams. And these levels are connected, they are closely intertwined, and if you think that what we see is the only existing reality, then you are just a dumbass.”

“I know who you are. You are my dead cat but in a human body. When I got high I always thought that my cat was, like, talking to me mentally and what it was saying was very similar to what you are saying now. My cat died and became you, I’m telling you.”

“Your cat died last year, and so you think, it took up his abode in my body after that?”

“I have heard of such things happening—like, dead animals don’t want to leave their owners and their souls move into someone who lives next to the owners.”

“It sounds ridiculous. If so, what happens to the souls of those now possessed by the souls of dead animals? Where do they go? Like, an animal possesses a person, but what happens to this person and their own soul?”

“Well, it’s like two souls inhabiting one body, side by side.

The souls take turns manifesting themselves. And you can no longer tell who is it that is talking to you at the moment —your sister or your dead cat.”

“My sister should hear you now.”

“Okay, I got it, dudes, the main thing is to be yourself and not to stuff anything into your mouth that you are allergic to.”

“Yeah and not to stare with your mouth agape when birds fly above your head.”

“Damn, I’m starving.”

“Shall we order a pizza?”

Natalya Serkova