It’s a beautiful day in May, the sun is shining, and the cathedral bells are chiming in the distance. The tournament lists are built, and the taverns have opened their shutters. All around, there is a to-and-fro of people, passing by merchants’ boutiques, candy stalls, jugglers, and acrobats. The town mayor, small but stately, is dressing for the ceremony. His garments are so vast that he almost disappears among them. He wears a fiery red greatcloak and a large collar, carries a scepter, and is searching for his fine, plumed hat. When he’s finally found it, he marches down the street, accompanied by buglers, bodyguards, and bowmen.
A few hundred miles away, a man with a long beard has just finished an illustration of a knight in chainmail, with a red cross on his surcoat. He looks over the product with satisfaction. Beyond the mountains, a youth with hair shaved down to his scalp (but obviously blond), has put on mail just like the kind drawn by the bearded man and has hidden himself in ambush among the tangled brush of the undergrowth. Even farther, to the East, a green-eyed child is buying bread. He counts his money and hands it to the baker, who glances at it distractedly before putting it away. The cash depicts the face of a sovereign with a crown of gold lilies. Somewhere, in another happy corner of the globe, a girl with red hair and a white dress is singing a ballad, accompanied by a harp: she sings a tale of love, death, and passion. Farther yet, in a land much nearer to the Pole, a group of men are drinking ale and laughing. The warriors bear colorful shields and horned helmets; their camp tents have carved dragons on the pales. Elsewhere, beyond the sea, a zealous preacher speaks to an attentive town square: “God wills it!” he cries to those present. “It is time to launch a crusade to reclaim our civilization and spread it throughout the world!” And then, there is a man wandering about the halls of a university. He catches snippets of lectures and conversations and finally sits, exhausted, with his head in his hands like a gargoyle of Notre Dame.
It’s a beautiful day in May, but what year is it? The mayor marches down the street surrounded by a retinue of bodyguards, but then he climbs into a car and drives to the parade that’s just about to set off from the historic district. The man with the long beard puts his drawing on a scanner and sees it reappear on the computer screen: it’s for the posters he’s designing. The hidden boy is playing wargames, along with his merry friends in the woods. When they’ve finished playing, he’ll recount his thrilling adventures on his blog. The boy buying bread with a king’s head is using a two-hundred-forint bill from the Republic of Hungary. The girl singing the Irish ballad is interrupted by the untimely ring of a