On Tuesday morning Kaja woke up bolder than usual and a little suspicious. There was a package waiting on the doormat, the smell of cardboard mixed with the smell of toast and thunderstorms. The sender was the enigmatic Tomorrow S.A., and the label said: instruction manual: Kaja L. Kaja poured the tea, opened the knife and decided to be reasonably suspicious. Inside lay a thin manual with blank pages that flicked as if trying to remember something. Ink flowed out of nowhere and formed a sentence: Put the kettle on, but don't turn it on right away. Kaja snorted, but turned off the tap, because kettles are an acutely sensible speciality of the universe. On the next page it appeared: Open it when the neighbour in third calls, she'll pretend to be a case. The bell sounded after four seconds, and Mrs Jola dropped the sugar exactly on the threshold. Kaja gave a cloth and an overly polite smile, while the kettle was obediently silent as a stone. The manual turned over on its own, rustling like a park in autumn, and suggested further minor logistical points. Don't run to tram number three because you'll be in time for four and won't injure your pride. Don't talk like you've won an argument when you're just correcting a comma in someone else's email. Eat a pear, not an apple, because pears are less likely to crumble their convictions on desks. Kaja followed the instructions with growing amusement until she felt something like a warm flicker of a plan. She paused when it appeared: Do not answer the phone from a number beginning with seven hundred and ninety-nine. The phone rang immediately and the display, faithful as a dog, obediently displayed 799 and something else. She didn't answer, then listened to the message about the tempting Silence Package, the cheapest in the province. The instructions picked up speed and she added: Prepare one clean sock, preferably with witty ribbing on the ankle. The bell rattled deeper, this time like a postman out of time, and the pages trembled obscenely. Another sentence appeared, this time like a handwritten request: don't open until the corridor blinks. Kaja approached the peephole and saw the cool light come on for half a second, go out, come back on. Behind the door, someone grunted and then said her name in a tone as if they knew Plan B. On an envelope under the doormat lay another package, described modestly: Amendment to instructions, humanitarian version. Kaja raised an eyebrow as the ink suddenly rushed and scribbled: Don't sign, unless you like accelerated calendars. A dry tap of a stamp sounded behind the door, then another, like the stamping of paper with a seal of unclear power. The instructions, meanwhile, lit up the margins and hastily added a single sentence in a sharp font: Decide now. Kaja tightened her fingers on the bolt, the kettle hissed a belated steam, and the corridor blinked one last time. And from behind the door came a protracted three, as if someone had just started a countdown without the possibility of a pause.