The Stone (excerpt)

Mika Seifert

You may have heard about it: This morning something curious happened at my house. It has already created quite a confusion, and it isn’t even noon yet.

I’m at the big kitchen window now; it’s on the ground floor, and I have a fairly good view from here: I can see the street, and Olrich’s Baking Goods on the other side. I can also see that they’ve cordoned my house off now—I watched them do it. Even an hour ago, many people were still at my window. My good friends, too, had come when they heard the news. They stood there and we chatted a bit about this and that, the way we always do, and it was awfully nice to be with friends on a sunny day like that. But since they’ve cordoned the house off now, that is no longer possible and no one can come to the window anymore. It seems they’ve made the whole thing much more serious than it really is.

The general feeling is that I’m in a sticky situation here, and of course the attention is only going to increase now. The trouble, you see, is that this morning a very large stone appeared on my doorstep, very effectively barring my way out of my house. I’m sure that even in the city, despite all the things that you hear, nothing stranger has ever happened.