Писатель Илья Розенфельд

 Next stop: Life and Death . The tabooest topic. We’re afraid of Death, even though it’s Death that gives Life its meaning. Without a deadline, no project (including life) would ever get finished. Let’s pull the Grim Reaper’s hood off and see who’s hiding under there. Spoiler: not a skeleton—an exhausted bureaucrat. The Legend of Life and Death (The Bureaucracy of Eternity) Doctors say: “Life is a sexually transmitted disease with a 100% fatality rate.” True. We’re all patients in a hospice called “Earth.” Yet we act like we’re going to live forever. We take out thirty-year mortgages, buy anti-wrinkle cream, and grind out abs—though the worms couldn’t care less whether we’ve got a six-pack or not. Death isn’t a villain. Death is a cleaner. Picture a party that goes on forever. The guests are drunk, the dishes are smashed, the music is blaring, everyone’s puking, and nobody leaves. Death is a kind woman with a mop who turns the music off, cracks the windows, and says, ...

They lived long. Longer than the biblical patriarchs. Many of them didn't even remember when they were born. On their planet, Hastalavista, there existed day and night, but everything was reversed: first came light, then darkness. Time flowed backward. The year didn't end with winter, but rather began with it. The count of days in a month didn't start from the 1st, but from the 30th or 31st, and the days in a year - from the 365th to the 1st. The calendar began at the end, the beginning of which few remembered. It wasn't plants that grew from seeds, but seeds from plants and their fruits. And it wasn't hens that laid eggs, but rather they themselves hatched from eggs. Men gave birth to children, and women provided for their families. The inhabitants of Hastalavista were born into the world already adults, possessing all the necessary knowledge and skills. If an earthling were to land on this planet, all of this would seem strange to him. But to the inhabitants...