The Next Chapter
The house I lived in with Gramma was surrounded by an orchard. It had been planted by the Protestant teacher in the first half of the 20th century. Once, when the house was being remodelled, it got infested by rats, who squeezed in through the gaps in the foundations. They kept disturbing my sleep, so I would go off to the orchard and lay down there beneath my favourite apple tree. It was there that I first dreamed that dream, which keeps recurring all my life long. I dreamt that I was at the cemetery in the village where my whole family comes from. There is a tiny grave there, and I am inside it, because I never did wake up inside that cardboard suitcase after all. The day after returning home, my father carried me, in that suitcase, to the priest. There was a funeral an
