Today, at around 6 p.m., I was enjoying some grapes for dessert while drinking iced coffee. I love grapes. I was really happy eating them, one by one. While I was eating one of the grapes, it suddenly said to me, “Hey, kiss me.” I hesitated. But I obeyed. Hmm… not that bad. Then I picked up another grape, and she said to me, “Kiss me.” Again, I hesitated, but eventually I obeyed her request. And again… it wasn’t that bad. The same thing kept happening, over and over. And before I knew it… the grapes were eating me. And now, grapes love me. I hope so.

The other day, when I got home, I found that a mouth had grown out of the tabletop. So it goes. I didn’t actually say that, even though it’s one of my favorite phrases. It didn’t have a nose, but it consisted of lips, teeth, and all the usual parts of a mouth. Apparently, though, it didn’t have vocal cords, because it couldn’t speak. Still, it sometimes made something like a laugh or a low groaning sound. It seemed to be able to hear me. When I asked him, “Are you married, or are you happy?” he laughed. We became good friends. Maybe he was a good guy. He listened patiently to my stories without ever giving me any lip. When I told him a sad story, he tightened his lips sadly. When I told him something funny, he laughed. Best of all, he knew how to keep his mouth shut. That was very important to me. To be honest, I’m a CIA agent. I’m also a double agent working for a certain country. Not being able to tell anyone about it had been the biggest source of stress in my life. Learning English is just camouflage. A few years ago, someone became suspicious because my English was too good. Day after day, I opened up to him about my secrets while drinking. Oh, why am I calling him “he”? Because he had a mustache. Sometimes I trimmed his mustache with scissors. Thanks to him, my stress gradually eased. But it didn’t last long. My position became dangerous. Some bizarre mistake Agent George made accidentally led the CIA executive CS to suspect that I was a double agent. I took all sorts of measures to protect myself, but my stress reached its peak. And eventually, my silent friend started getting on my nerves. The other day, I finally forced him to drink and smoke with me. He looked like he was in pain. I finally managed to get Kramer, the formidable double agent and a real piece of work, on my side, and made it through the crisis. Tonight, when I got home, I poured myself a drink and tried to clink glasses with him to celebrate. Of course, I wasn’t going to make him drink this time.

Seasonal transition