Half asleep, I heard a fly buzzing against the window glass, thumping into it again and again, trying to find a way out. It kept at it, failing and trying again across the wide pane, droning the w...

They say Aquarius is extremely calm, extremely rational. But somehow, come summer, I turn sentimental. Maybe only warm sunshine and scorching heat can melt a heart of cold, glassy stuff. Only when summer arrives each year do I suddenly feel like a living creature. Every year, my personal emotional eruptions happen in this blazing summer — the days when school lets out for vacation. Lately I’ve been feeling down, tinged with a faint sadness. I’ve realized I’ve wasted so much of my youth and accomplished nothing. Right now my biggest wish on the work front is to build an interesting game product.

Woke up and the cat wasn’t at my feet. Weird. Come to think of it, I didn’t hear anything getting smashed last night either — could the cat have run off? So I flipped 180 degrees out of my groggy haze and got up to check whether the cat was still around. As usual, I pulled out the ham-sausage-slicing knife and slid it out of its sheath to make a noise. Normally that’s enough to summon the cat, who shows up demanding ham sausage. This time, nothing.