I jumped into bus 103A, showed my fake ticket quickly enough for it to seem real and made my way to the back. Winter was starting to bite my cheeks.

When blood found its way back to my fingers the gloves became too hot. I removed them. It was after a few seconds of rubbing my newly warmed hands with each other that I remembered that mouse.

Lorenz took the mouse out of his sterile cage and laid the animal in the bench. Hold the head with the tip of your finger and pull the tail. Snap. The spinal cord detaches from the brain and the mouse is killed instantly. Painlessly. Cervical dislocation, its called. Lorenz had done this many times.

Snap. Turn them around. Rip the belly skin open and cut through the abdomen to harvest the organs. Heart, duodenum, spleen, thymus, thyroid. You name it. Lab mice are inbred so they look even more alike than you would expect.

That day, for some unknown and irrelevant reason, Lorenz dropped the mouse in the floor.

The creature must have been amazed with all that space. Millions of times larger than the cage he had lived all his controlled and sterile little life. Space to run, as far as the eye could see. Or maybe not. Some strains, like this particular one, are albino and the mice can barely see. Still, he went nowhere. He made absolutely no attempt to run for his life.
Lorenz picked it up. Snap. The soft belly skin opened. Almost no blood shed.


As I stroked my hands I felt the softness. Too soft, almost as if they'd never been used. Like a belly of a lab mouse.
I have had a perfectly nice controlled safe life. My muscles are soft. My body has no scars. I do not know how to hunt or grow food. In my head, mere shadows of ideas on how to build a shelter.

A cannon being used as a pot to grow flowers. That's me.
If someone dropped me in the real world I would probably wait to be culled.

I have decided to become a carnivorous capitalist and created my own merchandising. Yes, from now on some of my drawings are available as t-shirts.

Right here: [link]

So far I managed to sell four t-shirts. Three of those were bought by friends of mine, which reminded me of the days my friend and I used to bake cakes and sell them around the neighbourhood and our only costumers were our parents.

I would have made a terrible business man.

I have recently been to Barcelona.

The way I pictured Barcelona was mainly influenced by conversations with friends who visited or live there and George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia".

In my imagination, Orwell's description has always been the most romantic, even though it was set in the 1930's war-time. I pictured a city engulfed in a myst of culture and traditions. I imagined working men and women sitting in cafes, either whispering or shouting their political views. I thought of those brave simple people that 70 years ago took arms against fascism, driving taxis against military barricades. I thought of street artists.

I can not say I was entirely disappointed with Barcelona but its hard to hold a dream while standing at the door of designer clothes shops, McDonalds, KFCs, Irish pubs and souvenir shops selling the same snow-globes in every corner. Here and there I found niches of what my Barcelona would have looked like but the vast majority was a Spanish version of Oxford Street.
It is very likely that I was stuck in the tourist trail and missed all the places that could have filled my standards. Maybe it would have been different if a local had guided me away from the blond tourists wearing Che Guevara t-shirts and Gucci bags.

Nevertheless I found Barcelona's homage to Orwell. A dark little triangular square in the middle of the old town.

I sat there and thought of the International Brigades, the anarchists, the Republic. I thought about art, about life and about choices.

My day-dreaming was interrupted by a spanish-looking young man handing me flyers with discounts for yet another Irish Pub.

Any reference to the Treaty of Lisbon always leaves me in the greatest state of confusion. I have just read that the Irish have been consulted once again in a referendum but this time the answer to Lisbon is "yes".

Ireland was the only country in which the public was consulted for the approval of this document. All other EU members have ratified the treaty in parliament.

This topic absolutely confuses me for two main reasons: I have not read the treaty and all the scaremongering that people have been doing about it WITHOUT EVER EXPLAING WHAT THE TREATY IS ABOUT!

What are your thoughts on the Treaty of Lisbon? Or better, what is the damn thing?

I have stated my ignorance.

We sit in the spare room, me in the confy vibrating chair and my grandmother in the corner of the single bed. In the living room and in the kitchen two television sets tuned to the same station broadcast the same program but with one or two seconds delay from each other. In one hour, the V announces, the first prediction of the election results will be shown. The country awaits in the usual mixture of apathy and desdain.

Pedro - So who have you voted for?
Grandmother - Not in your party.
P - You dont even know which party I support...
She ponders.
G - Well, I have always supported the socialist party. Always. But this time I'm very disappointed at the Prime-Minister.
P - Does he know about that?
G - Yes, he knows.
Very very disappointed...
P - So...?
G - I would never vote right-wing, I'm not that kind of person.
I voted Bloco de Esquerda (left block), thats it.
P - Wow, BE huh? Why not the communists then?
G - Oh no, thats too much!

At seven the excitment grew on the TV broacast. The socialists won once again and our PM, the light-socialist named Socrates continues in power. The small parties on the left and on the right grew (BE doubled the number of MPs in parliament!) chopping off the socialists previous absolut majority. Will Socrates unite the left in a government coallition? Will he do the unthinkable and extend alliance to the right-wing? Portugal observes while sipping an espresso.

For me, it was the first time I didn't vote in blank.