›Vor uns die Sintflut‹ contains twenty-one ironical and enigmatic stories, modern fairy-tales and unobtrusive parables. At the approaching leap into the next millenium, Urs Widmer provides us with an urgent reminder that the world was once beautiful. The threshold of the second millenium is imminent, and the world is coming apart at the seams. Apocalyptic terror engenders strange fancies. Urs Widmer throws light on some contemporary phenomena: »Noah's Cult«, for example, which is enjoying increasing popularity and inspiring quite a few people to cultivate their own arks in the secrecy of their cellars. But the enemy's threat is not only water: extra-terrestrials experiment with our genes, and the hole in the ozone layer demands absurd survival strategies. And the computers have our future well under control. Man seems to be completely occupied with fleeing from himself, hunted, a refugee, a bizarre tourist or the inhabitant of an artificial paradise. The future? No time even for despair, but only Olympic laughter in the face of the gigantic stupidity of the human race? Orpheus, now speechless, begs for a few last francs in the guise of a confused old tramp…