Hans Magnus Enzensberger closely examines in these 99 meditations: The clouds are to him both foreign and a metaphor for human life. He captures the small, fleeting moments and grants them the dignity of the moment; he questions the eternal, seeking the law in which birth and death are merely two sides of the transient. "The end of the world comes without an observer," it is said, but as long as that is the case, Enzensberger does not let go of his curiosity. Nor does he lose the calmness to engage with a species of which one thing is certain: "that it will outlive us by a few million years, give or take.".