The (Hypothetical) Prophets - Person To Person
Here are the elements of a story, put them together: a lonely man who does crossword puzzles in his free time. No job. Lives in a small room above a bookstore. Doesn't socialize with the bookstore owner. Makes friends with a pigeon, then the pigeon dies the next day. He starts to follow people around. Lots of descriptions of faces and clothes. Pop scientific philosophy peeks into the story once every two pages. Did you know you exchange all your cells once every seven years? Soon we'll be able to download our brains into hard drives. The lonely guy meets a girl, who reminds him of the pigeon, kind of a reverse "Passion in the Desert"-type scenario. The girl engages in multiple magical realist acts, turning noodles into snakes, generally peeling back the moldy wallpaper of the world to show the guy exposed bricks of wonderment, and she really does a number on our sad-headed cipher. She leaves, saying, "I feel different." Many descriptions of eggs, prepared in different ways for breakfast, follow. The secret is that the pigeon is actually a symbol for the author.[Buy Around the World with the Prophets]