The older I get the more I realize there is no such thing as a nailed on reality. Rather, a temporary stage or a set-up we get to live in and experience. I have noticed that only recently, for example, living under the new Covid-19 rules which have managed to alter our surroundings quickly and significantly. Living in Poland, I have also experienced a switch of governments – from a more liberal and democratic to a right-winged and conservative one; all the way through it has seemed like a replacement of stage decoration for a new play to be acted out. This is exactly what Margaret Atwood’s celebrated book The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) is about: the change of reality. In the novel, however, this process is extreme, absurd, outrageous. Yet, the author manages to show that it is in fact possible…