THE TWENTY-FIRST
From past the office windows a scream is heard. It sounds from the void of the broken lamp near the roof of the ten-story building. In the round hole, among the dead electric wires, some white, downy little predators are screaming their heads off for their mother — who is returning to them with a dead mouse in her talons. The little tail flops in the wind like a piece of string. She brakes her flight with outstretched wings just before she reaches the large tilting window pane. For a moment, it’s as if she were hovering in the air. The feathers on the edge of her wings bristle menacingly. Mrs Tomská lifts her eyes from the computer to see that little wide-spread raptor just past her monitor. A flash in the black beady eyes; the mouse is hanging from the yellow claws like
