'Yes and no. On the one hand, the super-werewolf is in the Rainbow Stream from the very beginning. But on the other, it is not possible to enter it at all, because the Rainbow Stream is simply an illusion. But this is only an apparent contradiction, because you and this world are one and the same.'

'Aha,' he said. 'Interesting. Okay, carry on.'

'The real super-werewolf is a heavenly being. A heavenly being never loses her connection with the heavens.'

'What does that mean?'

'In this world there is nothing but dust. But when a heavenly being sees the dust, she remembers the light that makes the dust visible. While a tailless monkey only sees the dust on which the light falls. That's why, when a heavenly being dies, she becomes light. But when a tailless monkey dies, he becomes dust.'

'Light, dust,' he said, 'so there is something there after all! There is some kind of individual personality. You've definitely got one, Ginger. I've felt that pretty strongly just recently. Or will you tell me I'm wrong?'

'This personality, with all its quirks and stupidities simply dances like a doll in the clear light of my mind. And the more stupid this doll's quirks, the clearer the light that I recognize over and over again.'

'Now you're saying "my mind". But you only just said it's not yours.'

'That's the way language works. It's the root from which infinite human stupidity grows. And we were-creatures suffer from it too, because we're always talking. It's not possible to open your mouth without being wrong. So you shouldn't haggle over words.'

'All right. But the personality that dances like a doll - that's you, isn't it?'

'No. I don't think of this personality as me, because I'm very far from being a doll. I am the light that makes it visible. But the light and the doll are only metaphors, and you shouldn't clutch at them.'

'Yes, Ginger,' he said. 'You've certainly been studying these questions for a long time . . . So tell me, how old are you really?'

'Old enough,' I said and blushed. 'And about the dog and the lion - don't be offended, please. It's a classical allegory, and a very ancient one, honestly. The dog watches the stick, but the lion watches the person who threw it. By the way, when you understand that, it makes it much easier to read our press . . .'

'I understand about the dogs and the lions, you needn't have told me again,' he replied sarcastically. 'And I know about the press without you. Better tell me which way foxes look.'

I smiled guiltily.

'We foxes keep one eye on the stick and the other on the person who throws it. Because we're not very strong creatures, and we don't just want to improve our souls, we want to live for a while too. That's the reason we're slightly cross-eyed ...'

'I'll have to toss a couple of sticks your way and see which way you look.'

'You're in good form today, comrade lieutenant general.'

Alexander scratched his chin.

'Right, where's the main conclusion?' he asked.

'What conclusion?'

'You know, how to control all this? So that we can benefit from it.'

'It's rather hard to control,' I said.

'Why?'

'You'll run yourself ragged trying to find the controller.'

'Yes, it looks that way all right,' he said. 'I'm not sure I like it.'

'What's wrong with it?'

'The Rainbow Stream, the super-werewolf - that's all fine. Let's say we've dealt with control too. But I still don't understand the most important thing. Who creates the world? God?'

'We do,' I said. 'More than that, we create God too.'

'That's taking things a bit far, Ginger,' he chuckled. 'You'll do anything to get by without God. What do we create the world with? Our tails?'

I froze on the spot.

It's hard to describe that second. All the surmises and insights of recent months, all my chaotic thoughts, all my presentiments - they all suddenly came together into a blindingly clear picture of the truth. I still didn't understand all the consequences of this epiphany, but I already knew that now the mystery was mine. I was so excited, my head started spinning. I must have turned pale.

'What's wrong with you?' he asked. 'Are you feeling unwell?'

'No,' I said, and forced myself to smile. 'I just need to be alone for a while. Right now. Please don't distract me. It's very, very important.'

The world works in a mysterious and incomprehensible fashion. Wishing to protect frogs from children's cruelty, adults tell children not to crush them because that will make it rain - and the result is that it rains all summer because the children crush frogs one after another. And sometimes it happens that you try with all your might to explain the truth to someone else, and suddenly you understand it yourself.

But then, for foxes the latter case is probably the rule rather than the exception. As I've already said, in order to understand something we foxes have to explain it to someone. This results from the specific qualities of our intellect, which is specifically designed to imitate human personalities, and is capable of mimicking the features of any culture. To put it more simply, it is our essential nature to constantly pretend. When we explain something to others, we are pretending that we have already understood it all. And since we are very clever creatures, we usually really do have to understand it, whether we wish to or not. They say that's what makes the silver hairs appear in our tails.

When I pretend, I am always acting in a perfectly natural manner. And so I always pretend - that way everything turns out far more plausibly than if I suddenly start behaving sincerely. After all, what does behaving sincerely mean? It means expressing your essential nature directly in your behaviour. And if it is my essential nature to simulate, then for me the only path to genuine sincerity lies through simulation. I don't mean to say by this that I never behave spontaneously. On the contrary, I simulate spontaneity with all the sincerity that I have in my heart. But words are proving tricky again - I am talking about something very simple, but it makes me seem like a dishonest creature with a double bottom. But it's not like that. I actually don't have any bottom at all.

Since a fox can pretend to be anything at all, she attains to the highest truth at the very moment when she pretends she has attained to it. And the best way to do this is in discussion with a less-developed being. But when I was talking to Alexander, I was not thinking about myself at all. I really was trying as hard as I could to help him. But as it turned out, he helped me. What an astonishing, incomprehensible paradox . . . But this paradox is the principal law of life.

I had approached the truth gradually:

1. as I observed Alexander, I realized that a werewolf directs his hypnotic impulse at his own mind. The werewolf suggests to himself that he is turning into a wolf, and after that he really does turn into one.

2. during the chicken hunt I noticed that my tail was directing its fluence at me. But I did not understand exactly what I was suggesting to myself: I thought it might be some kind of feedback loop that made me into a fox. I was already only two steps away from the truth, but I still couldn't see it.

3. in the course of my explanations, I told Alexander that he and this world were one and the same thing. I had everything I needed for final enlightenment. But I still needed Alexander to speak out and call things by their real names. It was only then that I attained to the truth.

I and the world are one and the same thing . . . What was it that I was suggesting to myself with my tail? That I was a fox? No, I realized in one blinding second, I was suggesting this entire world!

When I was left alone, I sat in the lotus position and withdrew into a state of profound concentration. I don't know how much time passed - perhaps several days. In a state like that there is no particular difference between a day and an hour. Now that I had seen the way things were, I understood why I had failed to spot this uroborus before (how apt that I had repeated that word all the time). I had not seen the truth because I was not seeing anything but the truth. The hypnotic impulse that my tail was directing at my mind was the entire world. Or rather, I had taken this impulse for the world.

I had always suspected that Stephen Hawking did not understand the words 'relict radiation' that occur on every second page of his books. Relict radiation is not a radio signal that can be captured using complex and expensive equipment. Relict radiation is the whole world that we see around us, no matter who we are, were-creatures or human beings.

Now that I had understood exactly how I was creating the world, I had to learn to control this effect somehow. But no matter how hard I focused my spiritual energy, I got nowhere. I ran through all the techniques that I knew - from the shamanic visualizations that are current among the mountain barbarians of Tibet to the sacred fire of the microcosmic orbit practised by the followers of the Tao. Nothing worked - it was like trying to move a mountain by pushing against it with my shoulder.

And then I remembered about the key. Yes indeed, the Yellow Master had mentioned a key . . . I had always thought that it was simply a metaphor for the correct understanding of the hidden nature of things. But if I'd blundered so terribly concerning the most essential point, I could have been mistaken here as well, couldn't I? What could it be, this key? I didn't know. So I still didn't understand anything, then?

My concentration was disrupted and my thoughts started to wander. I remembered about Alexander, who was waiting patiently in the next room - during my meditation he hadn't made a single sound, apprehensive of disturbing me. As always, the thought of him provoked a warm wave of love.

And then at last I understood what was absolutely the most vital point:

1. there was nothing in me that was stronger than this love - and since I was creating the world with my tail, there was nothing stronger in the entire world.

2. in the stream of energy that radiated from my tail, and which my mind took for the world, love was totally absent - and that was why the world appeared to me in the way that it was.

3. love was the key that I had been unable to find.

How had I failed to understand that immediately? Love was the only force capable of displacing my tail's relict radiation from my mind. I concentrated once again, visualized my love in the form of a little red, blazing heart and began slowly lowering it towards my tail. When I had lowered the heart of fire almost as far as its base, suddenly . . .

Suddenly something incredible happened. Inside my head, somewhere between the eyes, a shimmering rainbow of colour appeared. I did not perceive it with my physical vision - it was more like a dream that I had managed to smuggle in to the waking state. The shimmering was like a stream in the sunshine of spring. It sparkled with every possible shade of colour, and I could step into the caress of that kindly light. In order for the shimmering rainbow to engulf everything around me, I had to lower the flaming heart of love further, taking it beyond the point of the Great Limit that is located just three inches from the base of a fox's tail. I could have done it. But I sensed that afterwards, among those streaming torrents of rainbow light, I would never again be able to find this tiny city and Alexander who had been left behind in it. We had to leave this place together - otherwise what was our love worth? After all, he was the one who had given me the key to a new universe - without even knowing it . . .

I decided to tell him everything immediately. But it wasn't easy to get up - while I was sitting in the lotus position, my legs had become numb. I waited until the circulation was restored, struggled to my feet and walked towards the other room. It was dark in there.

'Sashenka,' I called. 'Hey! Sasha! Where are you?'

Nobody answered. I walked in and turned on the light. The room was empty. There was a sheet of paper lying on the wooden crate that served us as a table. I picked it up and, screwing up my eyes against the harsh electric light, I read this:

Adele!

I took no notice of the fact that you were concealing your age, although recently I'd begun to suspect you were more than seventeen - you're far too smart. So what, I thought, maybe you were just well preserved and really you were already twenty-five or even almost thirty, and you had a complex about it, like most girls. I was prepared for you to be a little more than thirty. I could probably even have come to terms with forty. But one thousand two hundred years! It's best if I just tell you straight out - I can never have sex with you again. Forgive me. And I'll forgive you for that blind dog thing. Maybe I am blind compared to you. But we can't help the way we are.

I'm going back to work tomorrow morning. Maybe I'll regret this decision. Or not even have time to regret it. But if everything goes the way I intend, the first thing I'll do is clarify a few issues that have come up in our department. And then I'll start clarifying the issues that have come up in all the other places. I shall devote the glorious power you have inadvertently helped me to obtain to the service of my country. Thank you for that - from me and our entire organization, against which you are so unjustly prejudiced. And thank you for all the amazing things that you have helped me to understand - although probably not completely and not for long. Time will show who the real superwerewolf is. Goodbye for ever. And thank you for calling me Grey One to the very end.

Sasha the Black

I remember that second. There was no confusion. I had always understood I couldn't keep him near me for ever, that this moment would come. But I hadn't thought it would be so painful.

My little moonchild . . . Play then, play your games, I thought in tender resignation. Some day you'll come to your senses all the same. But what a shame you will never learn the most important mystery from me. Although . . . Perhaps I should leave you a note? It will be longer than yours, and when you read it to the end you'll understand exactly what it was I didn't get a chance to tell you before you left. How else can I possibly repay you for the freedom that you have unwittingly given me.

Right then, I thought. I'll write a book, and sooner or later it's bound to reach you. You'll learn from it how to liberate yourself from icy gloom in which the oligarchs and the public prosecutors, the liberals and conservatives, the queers and straights, the Internet communists, werewolves in shoulder-straps and portfolio investors wail and gnash their teeth. And perhaps not just you, but other noble beings who have a heart and a tail will be able to learn something useful from this book . . . But in the meantime, thank you for revealing to me what the real score is. Thank you for love . . .

I couldn't hold back any longer - the tears gushed in a torrent down my cheeks and I cried for a long, long time, sitting on the wooden crate and looking at the white square of paper with the neat lines of his words on it. Until the very last day I had called him the grey one, afraid of hurting him. But he was strong. He didn't need any pity.

That was it. Two lonely hearts met among the pale blossoms of the Moscow spring. One told the other she was older than the city around, the other confessed that he had claws on his dick. For a short while they twined their tails together, spoke of the highest truth and howled at the moon, then went on their way, like two ships passing at sea . . .

Je ne regrette rien. But I know that I shall never again be as happy as I was in nineteen-sixties Hong Kong on the edge of the Bitsevsky forest, with a carefree bliss in my heart and his black tail in my hand.

When this book was almost finished, I met Mikhalich while I was out riding my bike. I was tired of turning the pedals, and I'd sat down for a rest on one of the massive log benches standing in the empty lot beside the Bitsevsky forest. My eye was caught by the kids jumping off the ramp on their bikes, and I spent a long time watching them. For some reason the saddles on all their bikes were set very low. Probably special bikes for jumping, I thought. But in every other way they were ordinary mountain bikes. When I turned away from the jumpers, Mikhalich was standing beside me.

He had changed a lot since the last time we'd seen each other. Now he had a fashionable haircut, and he was no longer dressed in retro-gangster gear, but wearing a stylish black suit from Diesel's 'rebel shareholder' collection. Under the jacket he had a black T-shirt with the words 'I Fucked Andy Warhol'. A gold chain peeped out from under the T-shirt - not really thick, and not really thin, just exactly right. A simple round, steel watch, black Nike Air trainers like Mick Jagger's on his feet. What a very long way the security services had come since those times when I used to travel to Yezhov's dacha for the latest Nabokov . . .

'Hi there, Mikhalich,' I said.

'Hello, Adele.'

'How did you find me?'

'With the instrument.'

'You haven't got any such instrument. Don't give me that. Sasha told me.'

He sat down beside me on the bench.

'I do have an instrument, Adele, I do, my girl. It's just that it's secret. And the comrade colonel general was following instructions when he spoke to you. I disobeyed those instructions when I showed it to you. And the comrade colonel general put me right afterwards, is that clear? As it happens, I'm disobeying instructions again now when I say that I do have an instrument. But the comrade colonel general always follows them very strictly.'

I couldn't tell any longer which of them was lying.

'And does the cleaning lady from the equestrian complex really work for you?'

'We have many different methods,' he said evasively. 'We couldn't manage otherwise. It's a very big country.'

'That's true.'

We sat there in silence for a minute or two. Mikhalich observed the kids jumping off the ramp with interest.

'And how's Pavel Ivanovich?' I asked, to my own surprise. 'Still consulting?'

Mikhalich nodded.

'He came to see us just the other day. He recommended a book, now what was it . . .'

He took a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and showed it to me. I saw the words: Martin Wolf: Why Globalisation Works written on it in ballpoint pen.

'He said things weren't really all that bad after all.'

'Really?' I said. 'Well, that's really great. I was starting to worry. Listen, I've been wanting to ask this for a long time. All those well-known figures, Wolfenson from the World Bank, Wolfovitz from the Defence Department - or maybe it was the other way around - were they all, you know, as well?'

'There are all sorts of wolves, just like people,' Mikhalich said. 'Only now they can't even come close to us. Our department's stepped up to a completely new level. There's only one Nagual Rinpoche in the world.'

'Who?'

'That's what we call the comrade colonel general.'

'How is he, by the way?' I couldn't help asking.

'Well.'

'What's he doing?'

'He's snowed under with work. And after work he sits in the archive. Analysing past experience.'

'Whose experience?'

'Comrade Sharikov's.'

'Ah, him. The one Bulgakov wrote about in A Dog's Heart?'

'Don't talk about things if you don't know anything,' Mikhalich said sternly. 'There are all sorts of lies going round about him, slanderous rumours. But no one knows the truth. When the comrade colonel general first turned up for work in his new uniform, the oldest members of staff even shed a few tears. They hadn't seen anything like it since nineteen fifty-nine. Not since comrade Sharikov was killed. It was after that everything fell to pieces. He was the one holding it all together.'

'And how was he killed?'

'He wanted to be the first to fly into space. And he went, just as soon as they made a cockpit big enough for a dog to fit into. You can't hold someone like that back . . . The risk was immense - during the early launches every second flight crashed. But he made his mind up anyway. And then . . .'

'The idiot,' I said. 'The vain nonentity.'

'Vanity has absolutely nothing to do with it. Why did comrade Sharikov fly into space? He wanted to happen to the void before the void happened to him. But he didn't get the chance. He was just three seconds of arc short . . .'

'And Alexander knows about Sharikov?' I asked.

'He does now. I told you, he spends days at a time in the archives.'

'And what has he said about it?'

'The comrade colonel general has said this: even titans have their limitations.'

'I see. And what questions do the titans have for me?'

'None, really. I was ordered to convey a verbal communication to you.'

'Well, convey it, then.'

'Seems you're putting it about that you're the super-werewolf.'

'Well, and what of it?'

'I'll tell you what. This is a unique country we live in, not like the rest of the world. Here everybody has to know who they answer to. People and werewolves.'

'And how am I interfering with that?'

'You're not. But there can only be one super-werewolf. Otherwise, what kind of super-werewolf is he?'

'That trivial kind of understanding of the word "super-werewolf", ' I said, 'smacks of prison-camp Nietzcheanism. I -'

'Listen,' said Mikhalich, raising his open hand, 'I wasn't sent here to jaw. I'm here to tell you.'

'I understand,' I sighed. 'And what am I supposed to do now? Hit the road?'

'No, why? Just leave it out. Remember who's the super-werewolf around here. And never put your foot in it again. So there's no confusion in anybody's mind . . . Get it?'

'I could take issue with you,' I said, 'over whose minds are filled with confusion. First of all -'

'We're not going to argue about it,' Mikhalich interrupted again. 'As Nagual Rinpoche says, if you meet the Buddha, don't kill him, but don't let him take you for a ride.'

'Okay then, if we're not going to argue, we're not. Is that all?'

'No, there's one more question. A personal one.'

'What is it?'

'Marry me.'

That was unexpected. I realized he wasn't joking and looked him over carefully.

The man sitting in front of me was in his fifties, still in robust health, braced for his final headlong rush at life, but he still had-n't understood (fortunately for him) just how that rush ended. I'd seen off plenty like him. They always see me as their last chance. Grown men, and they don't understand that they themselves are their last chance. But then, they aren't even aware what kind of chance it is. Sasha had understood something at least. But this one . . . Hardly.

Mikhalich was looking at me with insane hope in his eyes. I knew that look too. What a long time I have spent in this world, I thought sadly.

'It would be like living on your own island,' Mikhalich said in a husky voice. 'Or you could really live on your own island if you like. Your very own coconut Bounty bar. I'll do everything for you.'

'And what's this island called?' I asked.

'How do you mean?'

'An island has to have a name. Ultima Thule, for instance. Or Atlantis.'

'We can call it whatever you like,' he said with a grin. 'Is that really a problem?'

It was time to wind up the conversation.

'Okay, Mikhalich,' I said. 'This is a serious decision. I'll think about it, okay? For a week or so.'

'Do that,' he said. 'Only bear this in mind. In the first place, now I'm the big shot in the apparat when it comes to oil. That's a fact. It's my stopcock all those oligarchs suck their oil out of. And they'd suck the other thing too, if I so much as frowned. And in the second place, just remember this. You like wolves, don't you? I know about that. I'm a wolf, a real wolf. But the comrade colonel general . . . Of course, he holds a superior post, with immense responsibility. The whole department idolizes him. But just between you and me, my thing is twice as big.'

'Please don't go into detail.'

'Okay then, no detail. But you think about it anyway - maybe it's better with a decent detail after all? You know all about the comrade colonel general anyway . . .'

'I do,' I said.

'And bear in mind that he's vowed never to turn back into a man as long as the country has any external or internal enemies. Like comrade Sharikov did before . . . The whole department was in tears. But to be honest, I don't think the enemies have anything to do with it. He just gets bored now being a man.'

'I understand, Mikhalich. I understand everything.'

'I know.' He said. 'You're a clever one.'

'All right. You go now. I want to be alone for a while.'

'Why don't you teach me that thing,' he said wistfully, 'you know, the tailechery . . .'

'He told you about that as well?'

'Nah, he didn't tell me anything. We've got no time to waste on you now. We're up to our eyes in work, you ought to understand that.'

'And what sort of work is it?'

'The country needs purging. Until we catch all the offshore fat cats, there's no time for yapping.'

'How are you going to catch them, if they're offshore?'

'Nagual Rinpoche has a nose for them. He can smell them through the wall. And he really didn't tell me anything about the tails. I heard it on the instrument. You were arguing about them, about ... e-egh ... the best way to twist them together.'

'You heard it on the instrument, I see. Okay, go now, you shameless wolf.'

'I'll be waiting for your call. You be sure to keep in touch with us. Don't forget what country you live in.'

'As if I could.'

'All right then. Call me.'

He got up and walked towards the forest.

'Listen, Mikhalich,' I called to him when he was already a few metres away.

'Eh?' he asked, looking back.

'Don't wear that T-shirt. Andy Warhol died in nineteen eighty-seven. It makes it too obvious that you're getting on a bit.'

'I heard you have a few problems in that area yourself,' he said imperturbably. 'Only I still like you anyway. What difference does it make to me how old you are? Not going to shag your passport, am I? Especially since it's a fake.'

I smiled. I had to admit that he did have charm - a werewolf is a werewolf.

'Right Mikhalich, not the passport. You'll be shagging dead Andy Warhol.'

He laughed.

'Personally speaking, I've got nothing against it,' I went on. 'But it dismays me to think that you're looking for him in me. Even though I like you so much as a human being.'

I had hit him with the most terrible insult possible in our circles, but he simply roared with laughter. The dumb stud was probably totally impervious.

'So don't wear that T-shirt, Mikhalich, really. It positions you as a gay necrophile.'

'Can you say that in Russian?'

'Sure. A stiff-shagging faggot.'

He chuckled, stuck his tongue out, waved the end about suggestively in the air and repeated:

'Call, I'll be waiting. Maybe we'll get the entire department to think up an answer for you.'

Then he swung round and set off towards the forest. I watched the black square of his back until it dissolved into the greenery. Malevich sold here . . . But then, who needed these allusions any more.

I only have a very little left to say. I have lived in this country for a long time and I understand the significance of accidental meetings like this, of conversations ending with advice to keep in touch with the security services. I spent a few days sorting out my old manuscripts and burning them. In fact, the only sorting I did was to run my eye diagonally over the pages covered with writing before I threw them into the flames. I had accumulated an especially large number of poems:

She's not a wingless fly on someone's Thule,

He's not a one who fears the night around.

The two night prowlers are the fox A Hu-Li

And her dark friend, the sudden Pizdets hound.

It saddened me most of all to burn the poems: I never had a chance to read them to anyone. But what can I do - my dark friend is too busy. I have only one task left to carry out now, and that is already close to completion (which is why my narrative is shifting from the past tense into the present). It is the task of which the Yellow Master spoke to me twelve centuries ago. I must reveal to all foxes how they can attain freedom. In effect, I have almost done this already - it only remains to draw together everything that has been said into clear, precise instructions.

I have already said that foxes use their tails to implant the illusion of this world in their own minds. This is expressed symbolically by the sign of the uroborus, round which my mind has been circling for so many centuries, sensing the great mystery that is concealed within it. A snake biting its own tail . . .

The inviolable link between the tail and the mind - that is the foundation on which the world as we know it stands. There is nothing that can intervene in this circle of cause and effect and disrupt it. Except for one thing. Love.

We werefoxes are significantly superior to people in all respects. But like them, we almost never know true love. And therefore the secret path leading out of this world is hidden from us. But it is so simple that it is hard to believe: the circuit of self-hypnosis can be broken by a single movement of the mind.

I shall now transmit this unsurpassed teaching in the hope that it may serve as the cause of the liberation of all those who possess a heart and a tail. This technique, lost since time immemorial, has been discovered anew by me, the fox A Hu-Li, for the good of all beings, under the circumstances described in this book. Here is a full and complete exposition of the secret method of ancient foxes known as 'tail of the void'.

1. First the werefox must comprehend what love is. The world that we create by inertia day after day is full of evil. But we cannot break out of the vicious circle because we do not know how to create anything else. The nature of love is entirely different, and that is precisely why there is so little of it in our lives. Or rather, our lives are like that because there is so little love in them. And in most cases what people take for love is physical attraction and parental instinct, multiplied by social conceit. Werefox, do not become like a tailless monkey. Remember who you are!

2. When a werefox comprehends what love is, she can leave this dimension behind. But first she must settle all remaining accounts: thank those who have helped her on the way and help those who need help. Then the werefox must fast for ten days, pondering on the inscrutable mystery of the world and its infinite beauty. In addition, the werefox must recall her evil deeds and repent of them. She must remember at least the ten darkest deeds she has committed and repent of each of them. While the werefox does this, genuine tears must well up in her eyes at least three times. This is not a matter of banal sentimentality - crying purges the psychic channels that will be brought into play at the third stage.

3. When the preliminary practice has been completed, the werefox must wait for the day after the full moon. On that day she must rise early in the morning, perform ablutions and withdraw to a remote spot out of sight of all people. There, having freed her tail, the werefox must sit in the lotus position. If the werefox cannot sit in the lotus position, it does not matter - she can sit on a chair or a tree stump. The important thing is that the back must be straight and erect and the tail must be relaxed and free of restraint. Then the werefox must breathe in and out several times, engender in her heart love of the greatest possible power and, shouting out her own name in a loud voice, direct the love as deeply as possible into her own tail.

Any werefox will immediately understand what is meant by the words 'direct the love into her own tail'. But this is such a bizarre and inconceivable thing to do, such a gross violation of all the conventions, that I might be regarded as insane. Nonetheless, this is exactly the way things are - this way lies the secret road to freedom. The result will be similar to what happens when an air bubble gets into a blood vessel leading to the heart. It will be enough to stall the engine of the self-reproducing nightmare in which we have been wandering since the beginning of time.

If the love engendered was genuine, then following the shout, the tail will cease creating this world for a second. This second is the moment of freedom, which is more than enough to leave this realm of suffering behind for ever. When this second arrives, the werefox will know quite certainly what she should do next.

The same technique can be used by werewolves and pizdets hounds while in their lupine form.

I have also attained to comprehension of how tailless monkeys can escape from this world. At first I intended to leave detailed instructions for them too, but I do not have enough time. I will therefore briefly mention the most important elements. The key points of this teaching are the same as in the above. First the tailless monkey must engender love in his soul, beginning with its most simple forms and gradually ascending to the genuine love that knows no subject and no object. Then he must review his entire life and grasp the futility of his goals and the villainy of his ways. And since his repentance is usually false and short-lived, he must shed tears for his own dark deeds at least thirty times. And finally, the monkey must perform a magical action similar to the one described in point three, but amended to take account of the fact that he has no tail. The tailless monkey must therefore first grasp how he creates the world and in what way he imposes the illusion on himself. This is all rather simple, but I have absolutely no time left to dwell on it.

Let me say something more important. If any werefox, walking the Way, should discover a new road to the truth, she should not disguise it in all sorts of confusing symbols and tangled rituals, as the tailless monkeys do, but must immediately share this discovery with other were-creatures in the simplest and clearest form possible. But she should remember that the only true answer to the question 'what is truth' is silence, and anyone who opens his mouth simply doesn't know the score.

Well then, I think that is all. Now Nat King Cole will sing and I shall go. It will happen like this: I shall finish typing this page, save it, throw my laptop into my rucksack and get on my bike. Early in the morning there is never anybody at the ramp on the edge of the Bitsevsky forest. I've been wanting to jump from it for a long time, only I didn't think I'd be able to land. But now I've realized how to do it.

I shall ride out into the very centre of the empty field, gather all my love into my heart, pick up speed and go flying up the slope. And as soon as the wheels of my bicycle leave the ground, I shall call out my own name in a loud voice and cease to create this world. There will be an astonishing second, unlike any other. Then this world will disappear. And then, at last, I shall discover who I really am.

Born in 1962 in Moscow, Victor Pelevin has become recognized as the leading Russian novelist of his generation. His comic inventiveness and talent as a fabulist have won him comparisons to Kafka, Calvino, and Gogol, and Time magazine has described him as a "psychedelic Nabokov for the cyberage." Pelevin is the author of four novels (Omon Ra, The Life of Insects, Buddha's Little Finger, and Homo Zapiens), three collections of stories (The Blue Lantern, A Werewolf Problem in Central London, and 4 by Pelevin), a novella (The Yellow Arrow), and The Helmet of Horror: The Myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. In 1998, he was selected by The New Yorker as one of the best European writers under thirty-five, and in January of 2000 he was the subject of a New York Times Magazine profile entitled "Gogol a Go-Go." His 2000 novel, Buddha's Little Finger, was a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. He is the winner of the Nonino Prize and the Richard-Schonfeld Prize for literary satire, and his novels have been published in thirty-three countries.