Chapter 16
Bright light poured from all sides, bleaching a broad wooden table, and twelve chairs with twelve people on them. I sat on the thirteenth. My feet did not feel for the floor, and my eyes did not rest either on the walls or the ceiling. In a thick opaque white porridge, as if in a vacuum, without any conditions and reasons, thirteen people existed there. Eight men, three women, one child, appearing to be around seven-years-old, sat down in armchairs in different ways and simultaneously opened their mouths – soundlessly, like fish, uttering every single word – for everyone and for no one specifically. One of the women wept bitterly, throwing up her shoulders, another, beautiful and light, was actively gesticulating, flirting with the men. The third, turning to the second, furious
