What if pigeons read fragments of our newspapers at the subway—and books in a dump? What if not only people, but also dogs, trees, and nameless fingers have developed consciousness? Platelets? Bricks, curtains? The crust of bread in a ripped pocket of a prisoner? A station platform where the living and the dead gather? What if all beings and objects in this world watch us, learn our language, understand us (though, of course, we don’t them), and speak? Don’t believe it? Everything will radically change after you step into the space of a brightly surreal—and frighteningly realistic—novel by Inga K. The author builds a shocking model—no, not of a conditional future (the future is a fake, the heroes insist). It’s the real model of tonight, at most tomorrow morning. When everywhere “prose” has already defeated “poetry,” and poetic groups, like youth subcultures, are hunted by armed berserker squads. When demonstrators are shot. When a great poet is kidnapped and forced into becoming a literary “Negro”…—someone holding the highest power, having everything (except talent), but dreaming of being a poet. How to survive in this furious-bright world? How to breathe? How to love and save? Listen—and think for yourself. Inga Kuznetsova is a poet and prose writer translated into eight languages of the world, a “Triumph” and “Moscow Account” prize laureate. Author of five poetry books and the widely discussed novel “Patchwork” (2017). “The Interval” is the author’s second novel.