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- Herausgeber: tredition
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
It tells the story of Jo, a man who increasingly feels trapped in a world where people are physically present but emotionally absent. As he observes everyday life—on buses, in cafés, online—he recognizes disturbing similarities to the downfall of Universe 25. His journey turns into a warning: that humanity may be heading toward the same collapse if we forget what it truly means to be human.
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Seitenzahl: 78
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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The Mirror in the Cage
-
Remembering what it means to be human
- a warning from Universe 25
© 2025 Bernhard Dechering
Druck und Distribution im Auftrag des Autors:tredition GmbH, Heinz-Beusen-Stieg 5, 22926 Ahrensburg, Deutschland
Das Werk, einschließlich seiner Teile, ist urheberrechtlich geschützt.Für die Inhalte ist der Autor verantwortlich. Jede Verwertung ist ohne seine Zustimmung unzulässig. Die Publikation und Verbreitung erfolgen im Auftrag des Autors, zu erreichen unter:
Bernhard Dechering, Oppelner Straße 2, 48268 Greven, Germany
Kontaktadresse nach EU-Produktsicherheitsverordnung: [email protected]
"In a paradise of abundance,
where nothing was lacking,
the mice found death in loneliness –
and so our story begins."
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Chapter 1 – A New Morning
The alarm blared. Once again. It was Monday.
My eyes felt as heavy as lead – as if the night had wrapped my consciousness in a thick, impenetrable fog.
“Good morning.”
I murmured it softly, still half-caught in the remnants of a dream. A dream that reminded me of nights long past – nights when everything still seemed to be in its place. My name is Jo. Thirty-four years old. In a relationship – or at least I think so. Until last night, I was sure of it. But now I’m stuck in a life that feels monotonous, like the endless beats of a drum reverberating relentlessly in my head.
Slowly, I opened my eyes and let my gaze wander through the small, familiar bedroom. Sunlight broke gently through the narrow curtains, painting fleeting golden patterns on the worn wooden floor – as if to greet me, to show me the beauty of the world. But on the horizon, grey, menacing rain clouds were already gathering – as if to challenge the promise of a new day.
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Outside, the distant, steady hum of the city drifted in – a sound both comforting and oppressive, reminding me that somewhere within those tones, something essential was missing.
I pushed the blanket aside and got up.
The cold, unyielding floor beneath my feet pulled me swiftly back into reality. Another day was about to begin. A day in a perfectly structured, yet inwardly fractured rhythm. I had no idea that this very day would mark the beginning of something that could change my entire life – and perhaps the whole world – forever.
As I slowly eased into the day, I gave a command – purely out of habit: “Alexa, play local radio.”
The device responded instantly. The well-known voice of technology. I could handle many things on my own. Alexa did exactly what I wanted. What I told her. No backtalk. No stress. No arguments about breathing too loudly or coffee cups placed in the wrong spot in the dishwasher. Like I said: these things are simply great.
I stepped to the window and looked out. My gaze followed the street down to the sidewalk, where two teenagers bumped into each other. Both were – how could it be otherwise – so absorbed in their phones that they practically walked straight into one another.
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I could barely suppress a loud laugh. This youth of today. I shook my head. But my laughter quickly gave way to a melancholy sigh. An expression of deep exhaustion spread across my face. It suited us so well – this society, this world. It’s a wonder we don’t all collide head-on while walking, so lost are we in our digital universes. From an outsider’s perspective, it could be quite entertaining – the perfect Sunday show, if you were, say, sitting in a café with a nice black coffee, watching it all unfold. But I digress.
“I should get dressed – after all, I’m standing here naked.” I murmured it into the silence and made my way to the wardrobe. As I left my bedroom, faint, muffled words drifted from the radio. Something about mice in a perfect world – Universe 25.
Man… a life in an ideal environment, where anything is possible. A world full of food, money, leisure activities. No annoying teenagers. No danger from deranged politicians… Just as I stepped into the next room, there was a deafening bang. I wasn’t even wearing pants yet – and already that bang was echoing through the streets.
Shit.
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Chapter 2 – Chaos at the Door
It was a bang – loud, abrupt, piercing. Like a fat Chinese firecracker on New Year’s Eve. Or like last night, when Susi – my ex, by the way – slammed her hand on the table in anger, sending my beer splashing across half the kitchen. It wasn’t even a brand-name beer, just a no-name from the discount store – but still:
It was beer. My beer. And it was cold. “Stupid cow,” I thought. Whatever. My mind was already drifting elsewhere.
Somehow, I feel like my attention span has been shrinking over the years, inching ever closer to that of a goldfish. Where was I? Oh right – putting on pants, the wardrobe.
I went to the closet and pulled on an old pair of jeans. Then I shuffled into the kitchen toward the coffee machine. I had almost forgotten the bang as my black elixir of life dripped into the pot.
But it still gnawed at me. So, out I went. I left the apartment and headed down the stairs. Outside, the air was damp, reeking of burnt rubber and exhaust fumes.
The moment I pulled the front door shut behind me, my gaze was drawn down the street. A few hundred meters away, pure chaos was
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already unfolding. There, on the asphalt, lay the wreckage of an accident – as sudden and gut-punching as a blow to the stomach.
The scene looked like something straight out of an action movie:
Two wrecked vehicles. Around them, the frantic blue flashing of ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars. Encircling it all, what felt like a thousand gawkers with their phones out, filming the scene as if they were witnessing some bizarre, once-in-a-lifetime spectacle. But helping? Doing anything useful? Not a chance. Why bother, when filming for your WhatsApp status is so much more important.
And as if that weren’t enough, right in the middle of this absurd tableau stood two women who clearly considered themselves the finest specimens of humankind. To be fair – they didn’t look bad. They probably came straight from the beauty salon. I immediately thought back to that “perfect world” from the radio, from “Universe 25,” where there must have been no shortage of “beautiful mice.”
The two of them posed with a selfie stick and duck-faces for their phones – utterly self-absorbed, without so much as a glance at the injured people or the suffering around them. I shook my head involuntarily and muttered bitterly, “Idiots. Pardon – idiot women! Sick world…”
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Just as I was about to wade deeper into the scene, my tongue ran over my teeth – and a banal, almost ridiculous thought struck me: “Oh crap – I forgot to brush my teeth.” With a resigned sigh, I turned around and went back to my apartment.
On the way to the bathroom, I felt the morning chill creeping into my body – as if to remind me that even in the smallest details of daily life, there’s a trace of mercilessness. In the bathroom, I was greeted by the cool white of the tiles and the dripping faucet I’d been meaning to fix for days.
A quick splash of water on my face helped – at least it worked as a wake-up call. But the thought of the accident outside wouldn’t leave me. With a slightly pounding heart and a restless mind, I grabbed my phone, sat down at the kitchen table, and opened Facebook – if only to find a bit of distraction. “At least there’s nothing about the accident here yet,” I thought, scrolling – as I did every morning – through the endless feed of trivialities: Cat videos. Ads for the new café in town. Some ill-informed comment riddled with spelling mistakes.
The usual. Suddenly, I came across a post that made my breath catch for a moment: A picture of mice on a wire-mesh floor in a large room, accompanied by a short text about the Universe 25
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experiment – that mysterious project from the radio – with the mice in a perfect world. Coincidence?
No idea. In that moment, it felt as though the image carried a subtle warning. As if it were telling me that our seemingly perfectly ordered reality was already in the process of turning into something inexplicable and unstoppable.
I stared at the screen, unable to look away, and felt something stir inside me – a mix of fascination and dark foreboding. I slipped into a kind of trance. For how long, I couldn’t say now. In those fleeting images, the world seemed to reveal more than it could at first glance. And as the first rays of sunlight timidly lit the horizon, a strange feeling – a thought – rose within me: Something was coming that could change everything.
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