Well, it seems to me right and proper to start at the beginning…. The beginning, of course, is an arbitrary point just like any other… but is also the best way to call the idea of immersing oneself in a story at once – and the beginning was…

… most likely it was when Alice dropped by for a cup of coffee – I’d just leaned that the cute bronze pot with the wooden handle was actually called an Ibrik and this awaken a thereto dormant passion for Turkish Coffee – she dropped by, I was saying, bringing the exciting but hopelessly mistaken news: I was dead

Needless to say, I immediately made sure the opposite was actually true and, stirring the foam in and pulling the IBRIK out of the flame for a brief moment to allow the coffee grinds to settle, I begin to wonder what item from my rather scarce wardrobe would be adequate for the extraordinary circumstances… Alice was ecstatic. The black satin dress she bought when his mother died was still unused, courtesy of his cataleptic mother’s revival. Here at last she’d found the awaited occasion to wear it.

Truth be told, I did not stray too far out of my way to convince her I was alive – or that even in the event of my death, our relationship was not of such depth as to require mourning garments. I knew her well enough to know that nothing could dampen her enthusiasm, so the Ibrik returned to the stove and I started seriously considering about the bonanza of happy secondary effects my timely death should entail.