Foreword

June 24; shattered.
The evening Ieronim’s body fell for the first time.
He was raised. And his body kept on falling ...

I turned as the sound of breaking glass startled me. Nim’s body collapsing along with the shattered crystal crumbles of what was once my praised Riedel & Schott Zwiesel wine set. His bones made a dry crackling noise as suddenly they were also crumbling glass and his flesh seemed to give away under its own weigh. With a puzzled look on his face he released a low, gurgling sound (He was trying to say sorry). As Yuri rushed to stop the fall, his chair resonant crush on the wood floors like parched foliage crushed by jackboots.

Few moments before, I was talking with Yuri and Annamari about the possibility of recession proof investments; we were trying to help with one of her papers, one she had good chances to publish in a specialty journal. Bored by our discussion, our two “English majors” started taking the dirty dishes to the kitchen. This was by now routine: since Annamari started to join us during the weekly dinners, Nim started to help with the dishes pretending our business talk bored him. Yuri claimed that the real reason was that he could not stand Annamari. (I think that he was becoming keen on Anaïs).

Shortly, he retrieved his balance ; his voice and quirky sense of humor:
" How are you feeling"
"Featherlight. I am free now - Hieronymus, the angel, has fallen"