Short Story: Somersault by Gogol

Gogol shares a powerful story with twists and turns intact making it an eye-opening read.

The word we had to learn this week was Defenestration, and we weren’t particularly happy about it. The city is lonely, we conceded among ourselves, but finding an absolutely empty building with glass windows intact would be quite difficult. Adham even suggested we change the word, and we learn Somersault instead as that was his favourite word. It is at this conjecture that the planning picked up crescendo, because we realised Adham was being selfish for his own narrow interest and breaking the one cardinal rule of the game, changing the word. We rather deflected the suggestion tactfully – we asked him what his height preference was for getting defenestrated. He said he wanted the ground floor for he was a man of soil who liked his feet on the ground. Charles said this would defy the ancient customs where the windows were at least 12 feet above ground. Adham queried – “Can you give us an example?”