The Era of Bacteriophage

"The Age of Bacteria" is a novel with the theme of cognitive horror. A phenomenon called "bacteria" has descended on Earth. It doesn't kill the body - it digests the human meaning. Language breaks down first, then face recognition, then emotional connection, then the very concept of "me." A person who has been digested will not die, but will become an empty shell: a fragment that still breathes, still stands, and occasionally makes some movements, but the thing called "person" inside is no longer there. Survivors shrink into a thin band of meaning and learn not to name, not to acknowledge, not to remember. The rule is simple: the clearer the thought, the faster it will be eaten. There is no protagonist in the book. Seven observers - a physicist, a cashier, a firefighter, a philosophy graduate student, a child, a civil servant, and the bacteria themselves - record slices of the world being digested from their respective perspectives. There is no closure of cause and effect, no Armageddon. Just eyes in different positions, looking at the same gray sky.