The Carboniferous period, a time when vegetation actively removed carbon from the atmosphere and generated oxygen, is full of intriguing stories. For instance, the story of insects. It was a time not just of “giant dragonflies.” It was a time when, in general, could emerge flying insects. After all, when Continue Reading
Fairy Tales
Even scarier.
— “There is no quarantine,” Alice read. “You’ve been deceived. The planet has been conquered by space pirates. Don’t believe them. Report to the Galactic Center. Destroy this note.” K. Bulichev. “A Million Adventures of Alice” If I had to take over a planet and carefully eliminate the population, I Continue Reading
How to salt food?
Anarchism: Everyone takes a salt shaker for themselves and adds as much salt as they want. Democracy: Everyone votes for the right amount of salt, and they all season it in the same unpleasant way for everyone. European consensus: Everyone takes a long time to negotiate how much salt each Continue Reading
Striped Cat
Spring has arrived, and the owners have started letting their cats out. The cats roam the yards, yowling and marking everything around. There’s a terrible stench. Our front lawn has turned into some kind of arena. Cats regularly come here to determine who is stronger, whose urine smells more potent, Continue Reading
Ethics Commission
Do you know why three hundred years ago one scientist could manage to discover a dozen laws of physics and simultaneously push mathematics forward by centuries? In fact, even at the beginning of the 20th century, it was quite possible to create a new theory almost single-handedly. Because back then, Continue Reading
Firecracker
Setting A typical courtyard in a small town, situated between two parallel five-story buildings made of silicate brick from the 1970s. A slide shaped like a rocket, a wall made of sticks with rings, a little playhouse, a sandbox, benches, balconies—often glazed and frequently cluttered—mature trees, cats, stray dogs, cracked Continue Reading
When you want to stop wanting to want something.
A crisis is when you don’t want anything, and then you start wanting to want something. That’s fine, but when you don’t even want to want something, that’s a crisis. This is not a crisis. This is a disaster. Film “What Men Talk About” You look at Frida, the little Continue Reading
Biological or chemical weapons
For some time, we lived in an old house that was built in the early 20th century. It used to be a printing house before being converted into a residential building with eight apartments. The house had a small patio, so tiny that with the three-story height (plus the roof), Continue Reading
A gnat in amber
In this story, all names, events, places, and linguistic analogies have been altered beyond recognition for political reasons. Nevertheless, the people whose story I am telling are just as influential as they were before, if not more so. And yet, this is about something very symbolic, almost religious, and the Continue Reading
The Sorcerer’s Trail
Once, I had an acquaintance. I would never have met him under normal circumstances, as we were involved in very different things, but somehow I was lucky to know him. His name was Pavel, and his nickname was Zmey. He was an incredibly kind, open, and internally strong person, which Continue Reading