Once there was. Once there wasn't. A long, long time ago, in a land not so faraway, when the sieve was inside the straw, the donkey was the town crier,and the camel was the barber ... when I was older than my father so that I rocked his cradle upon hearing his cry ... when the world was upside down and time was a cycle that turned around and around so that the future was older than the past and the past was as pristine as newly sowed fields ... Once there was. Once there wasn't. God's creatures were as plentiful as grains and talking too much was a sin, for you could tell what you shouldn't remember and you could remember what you shouldn't tell....