Back to life

The screen flickers, then crackles before your eyes like an army of ants waging war, and finally falls silent. You run your palm across its smooth black back, annoyed. Then you sit, your mind hollow, emptied of thought.

The tragicomic fool of the modern age lifts his head. The universe unfolds around him. The picture changes, and once again he sees the world beyond himself. Through the narrow gap in the vertical blinds, life presses its way inside. A breeze-rustled tree caresses his ears, and the little goat in the garden—who has lived there for quite a few years now—keeps the wild grass in check.

The slats rattle as you tug the cord. The window swings open, and an unfamiliar scent floods your nostrils. You discover that the door behind you has, in fact, always opened, and you step outside, pressing your pale toes into the lush green turf.

It turns out that the strange smell is nothing more than fresh air woven together with the scent of earth, flowers, and hay, with just a faint hint of droppings from the little lawn keeper. It isn't so bad after all, decides one of your tiny nose hairs somewhere deep inside the caverns of your body.

You take your first step. A blade of grass, taut as a wire beneath your sole, tickles your senses. Your eyes are squeezed so tightly shut that the crow's feet at their corners seem clenched into fists. It is the light that makes your skin surge with life, filling your body with the urge to take flight.

But instead of launching into what feels like a dangerously tempting flight, you take one step, then another, then a third. The fourth comes faster, and before you know it, you are racing through a glowing birch grove like a madman, stumbling over your own feet as one desperate stride chases the next.

You are alive.

The dictator has fallen.