When Animals Can Talk and Unicorns Dance on Monday

In the city where I live, and I am not going to tell you which one that is, there is a pub unlike all the others you know. The labels on the bottles are mirrored and the clocks run counter-clockwise. But that is not what is truly special about this pub.

But perhaps I should start again from the beginning: Have you ever wondered what it would be like if animals could talk, and where that would lead?

In this pub, which I hope you have not lost sight of while reading, that is exactly the case. It stood in a mirrored parallel universe, and through a strange quantum effect one could enter it from our world. That was how Cornelius had explained it to me; I will come back to him later.

Visitors from both worlds gathered there, and it felt like being in a Disney film. Here the animals could not only talk but also spin stories, screech, sing and swear. All animals? No, not arachnids and insects. That would have been too strange.

I used to end up there quite often, because of the dancing unicorns and whenever I had had enough of the destructive selfishness of our world, but primarily because of a female being, as tends to happen with men of my age.

One Monday I entered the taproom and heard a commotion from the corner. After a few steps in that direction I saw a mouse bleeding out in a mousetrap. At first I did not find it so terrible, because the little rodents were not my favourite creatures.

It was not the dying mouse making the fuss, but the other one beside it. "I always told you, do not be so greedy. If you steal in the kitchen, sooner or later he will notice and set a trap for you. Holger does not love you. But you never want to listen to me. You never listen to me."

I shook off the irritation, took a seat at a table not far from the bar and refused to let my good mood be spoiled. Other worlds, other customs.

Holger, the landlord, came over, and I ordered a chili beer. "Maybe I will have something to eat as well."

"Good," he replied. "Menu coming."

A grey cat prowled around his feet. He called her Schrödinger, and people said she had a tendency towards depression. That day I was grateful she did not stay with me to philosophise about quantum states. I was here for another reason, and that reason had something to do with the scorchingly hot blonde girl who brought me the beer and a blueberry schnapps on the house. In this case, "scorchingly hot" was not meant literally but only metaphorically.

Her name was Gretchen, and the landlord had freed her years ago from the claws of a tax collector. Her blue eyes and curves had captivated me, so I suppose I was in love with her.

With her came the pig Cornelius, who was more of a hybrid between bristle beast and human and pranced through the room on two legs. He brought the menu and added verbally: "I advise against the roast pork!"

At the time I took that for a joke, because I was young and still inexperienced in world-hopping.

"I will think about it," I replied, since I loved hearty food. But possibly that was not the best idea, and my money was better invested in chili beer and blueberry schnapps. Incidentally, this place did not take card payments.

I looked at the menu. It listed three dishes: the aforementioned roast pork, beaver steak and iguana legs, all with potatoes and broccoli.

Cornelius and Gretchen sat down with me. The pig was a good listener when one had worries and a good conversationalist when it came to life and many other things. And Gretchen was no fool either, while also offering other charms.

I told them about the absurdities of my homeland, the war in the east, the corruption of politicians who enriched themselves selling masks, the new enthusiasm for handwashing, flour and toilet paper, and the inability of my fellow humans to interpret numbers sensibly and replace their fears with evidence-based risk assessment.

"You lack the animals and their wisdom," Cornelius observed, "the healthy counterbalance to your human egocentrism. At least that is how it is here with us."

"I could not imagine a world without animals," Gretchen added.

"We do have animals."

"But you lock them in barns and cages."

Perhaps she would not like my world after all. The thought troubled me a little, because I had ideas concerning our future.

"Have you ever had sex with a pig?" Cornelius asked, and both of them looked at me with wide eyes. The thought associated with that troubled me even more.

"That is not customary where I come from. It is even rather frowned upon, I would say. We call it sodomy."

"Why so-dumb, eww?" Gretchen wanted to know.

"After the city of Sodom."

"And in this So-Dumb you do it with pigs?" Cornelius gave me a seductive smile. "My kind is very talented at such things."

"Sodom was destroyed, and that is an old story from a very old book."

The images in my head made my face turn red.

We changed the subject and I ordered more drinks for us. Pig and girl were fascinated that people in our world had been on the Moon. And I learned more about the form of government in their world, where judges, ministers and council beings were chosen by lot and ceremonially eaten at the end of their term.

Over the course of the evening I managed to move closer and closer to Gretchen, but I said nothing about my ideas, shy person that I was, and with every blueberry schnapps I felt a little more drawn to her.

After two chili beers and three schnapps I noticed that the nice lady at the neighbouring table, whose ball of wool kept rolling off the table, ordered the beaver steak.

Holger grabbed the beaver, with whom she had been discussing knitting patterns, by the scruff of the neck and dragged him into the kitchen. Shortly afterwards she had the steak with sweet potatoes and blueberry sauce in front of her.

I could not believe that people ate talking animals here, but Cornelius absolutely wanted to toast Buddy the beaver and his final journey. That dampened my mood a little, though at least Gretchen was sitting beside me and I was already close enough to catch the scent of her peppermint perfume. The courage to talk to her about my ideas had evaporated for the moment, however, and I ordered more drinks.

Then a brown bear shuffled through the place, sat down at the piano and played songs by Billy Joel, the Beatles and Beethoven. The unicorn with the pink streaks in its mane danced along, which made the mood at our table more romantic again. I placed my hand on Gretchen's soft thigh, and she did not push it away. My heart beat in three-four time, and in my drunken infatuation not even the limping three-legged iguana spoiled my mood.

After six beers and five blueberry schnapps I became rather hungry. That happened to me when I drank.

"Do you have anything that does not contain an animal?" I asked the landlord. He said yes and, after my order, looked at Gretchen: "Come with me, please."

She turned pale and stood up without another word, which frustrated me a little, since my hand was no longer resting on her thigh.

"I did not expect that," Cornelius said, irritated, and shortly afterwards a scream rang out from the kitchen that I will never forget.

"Are we having sex later then?" asked the pig.