In the mantissa

February 2024. Morning. I woke up, and the first news in one of the public pages was that Mr. N, its founder, had died. I made coffee and went out onto the balcony. The silence inside struggled with the crazy bird, whose singing angered the frosty February. The neighbors were sleeping, and I was thinking about how fragile and fleeting we people are: this bird will never know about the death of Mr. N. Years will pass, and she too will be gone, and the neighbors will never know about the feathered madwoman, but I will remember her singing and return to this February morning. The bird reminded me of J. Fowles' novel "Mantissa". Interesting word, isn't it? In short, the mantissa is an addition of relatively minor importance. Realizing the death of Mr. N, I suddenly thought that we are all mantissas of this Universe... The next day I collected all the poems written since 2007 and sat down to work. Thank you, Mr. N., for your last lesson! We are all mantissas of the Universe, and the existence of each of us is its mantissas. And I invite you to mine.