We all know that Communism is a retrograde philosophy which is as good as dead, and the fact that it was pronounced dead in the early nineties saved us the effort to find out what it meant. But in some pockets, in certain islands, it still survives in different forms, sometimes just by name. Kerala [...]

It was at night that they came for you, always at night. The proper thing was to kill yourself before they got you. Undoubtedly some people did so. But it needed desperate courage to kill yourself in a world where firearms, or any quick and certain poison, were completely unprocurable. He thought with a kind [...]

JENSEN suddenly wheels to his audience of one and roarsout: JENSEN :You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale,and I won’t have it, is that clear?! You think you have merely stopped abusiness deal—that is not the case!The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, andnow they must put [...]

Fleas interest me so muchthat I let them bite me for hours. They are perfect, ancient, Sanskrit,machines that admit of no appeal. They do not bite to eat,they bite only to jump; they are the dancers of the celestial sphere,delicate acrobats in the softest and most profound circus;let them gallop on my skin, divulge their [...]

… Long before the lizards, before the dinosaurs, two spores set out onan incredible journey. They came to a valley bathed in the placid glowof sunset. My elder sister, said the little spore to the bigger spore, let us seewhat lies beyond. This valley is green, replied the bigger spore,I shall journey no farther. I [...]