A slice of salami. Just one slice of this salty, fatty miracle.

Recalling how salami melts on a human tongue sends Paul shivering with want. If there was any chance to taste salami again, just once, he would be prepared to climb the highest tower, and jump. One slice of salami is worth any effort and risk. A life for a slice. If only he could do this deal.

No beer, no problem. The same level of inebriation is perfectly achievable, and faster, by having the odd droplet of former fruit. Plums, especially the green ones, deliver the biggest oomph. The taste is soso, of course, but Paul has had enough stale beers and dubious doses of liquor in so many low key pubs, why would he get picky now? Beer, wine, schnaps, yes, they differ, but flavor isn‘t everything. At the end of the day, ethanolic beverages are for lightening the mood and dissolving mental barriers. Any gourmet experience is an extra, not the point.

As hard as he tries, Paul can’t keep his mind focused on the fun of getting drunk. His useless traitor of a brain comes up with salt and vinegar crisps instead.

Just one tiny blue and yellow, maddeningly overpriced sachet of salt and vinegar crisps. Paul used to order crisps at the pub, to distract his taste buds from the stale beer.

In his youth, he would have taken a shot of cheap liquor with his beer, to cleanse his mouth. The label on the bottle would have said something like Latvian Light or French Fire, suggesting official if foreign distillation. His brave younger self would have known there are no such brands, nowhere, and that he was risking at least his eyesight, perhaps his life, with moonshine. Little did he care. A soul can only cope with one existential emergency at a time, and in those days getting laid, or rather not getting laid enough, filled that slot, beyond capacity.

As hard as he tries, Paul can’t make his mind stay with the fun of having sex. The crisps muscle back in, now as maddeningly alluring as the salami.

Paul knows what’s wrong. Too much sweet. An overdose of sugary, in all imaginable shapes, textures and colors. Whatever he chews on, it will always taste sweet. Never sour, bitter or salty. The only dietary choice he gets, in this rotten hell of a life, is to have his daily dose of sweet associated with more or less starch. Calling that choice is like mistaking football for golf, because, hey, there’s a ball involved, and it’s competitive.

This football-golf analogy feels badly lopsided, even to Paul’s crisps obsessed mind, but he can’t make it right. He’s beyond making anything right. Has been like this for a while.

Yesterday, he nearly drowned on the beach, trying to sip a drop of salty water. The incoming wave was a very near miss, forcing him to perform his biggest jump ever, back towards dry sand, ad hoc, without the slightest bit of planning.

Having landed right next to a seagull, he was lucky the monster was as surprised as himself. By the time it had decided a snack would be welcome after all, even though free meals, and delivered right to the nest, scream trap at the bird, Paul had performed five more jumps and reached a nearby forest of maram grass.

A close call. And what for? To once again discover that even one hundred percent salty sea water doesn’t taste it. Just like human or pig sweat. Yes, pigs do sweat. Behind the ears, mostly.

Or the saltlick block of the cow that ignored Paul’s presence to the point of nearly feasting on him, accidentally of course. Cows don’t mind green stuff on their white lick, he learned. Made sense, on second thoughts, with most of their food being green.

Paul knows he should have listened to his research assistant.

The little lady in her always neat lab coat, like fresh from the cleaner, even after a day of hard work, she did point out it was early days. She did talk about the unknown unknowns of the transfer technology, many, many, many of them. She did warn of unforeseeable and therefore unforeseen downsides. All her concerns were founded, scientifically fair and fine.

Paul knew as much then and knows it all even better now. 

But he was getting old, and this was proving tedious. And there was this worry, meanwhile proven mistaken but big back then, that his aging body and brain would be less and less able to withstand the shock of the transfer. He had to take the leap, the sooner the better, and he took it.

As the assistant wouldn’t help him proceed, Paul transported the equipment to the forgotten barn at the far end of the farm of a former friend, a computer wizard who was wasting part of his fortune on letting very happy livestock breed themselves near nowhere in particular, on the coast. Lots of nature and pastures, food aplenty and no risk of pesticide exposure.

Having set up the experiment, Paul dithered for a long while.

More and more cows were crowding in on the barn, curious, perhaps hoping for an extra treat from a rare visitor, and he was struggling with a sudden lack of courage. Finally, his bladder broke the deadlock by clamoring for a pee. Instead of extricating himself from the transfer equipment to go, Paul pushed the button in one surge of bravery and ended life as he had known it.

The first hours in his brandnew and youthful grasshopper body where a marvel of well-being.

His mind had made it across fine, all higher functions had survived the neural miniaturization process intact. And all the rest was even better. No more heartburn. No more sore knees. All six legs easy to stretch, so ready to bounce him here and there. Jumping around, a marvellous experience after years of mostly useless sessions with his physiotherapist.

It all felt so fine, only to go downhill so fast.

Hungry from lots of joyful jumping, Paul had to eat.

No problem, there was a choice of hay right in the barn, and plenty more fresh greens outside.

He of course went for seasonal fresh. A couple of jumps later, he was sitting pretty amid lovely flowers and grasses. Never had he been in the presence of so much food, towering around and above him. Just like paradise, he thought, and dug right in.

Having expected a taste of some sort of salad, Rucola, perhaps, he was taken aback by an explosion of sweetness. Very much like an energy drink, only worse, and chewing boosted the effect.

Whichever plant Paul tasted, they all came across as sweet.

Marshmallowy, softdrinkily or candyflossy sweet.

Same for the hay. And bark. Even wood.

The shelves in the barn manage to taste sweet, despite having been treated with glaze. 

Sweetness all over, impossible to escape. Takes the mind of a natural born grasshopper to endure.

Paul has had enough. With salami and crisps at the top of his mind, he hops out into the open, to find himself a hungry seagul and suppress his flight reflex.