Aphorisms from the Slovak writer Róbert Gál. Provocative, terse and paradoxical. They are thought crystallized in balanced contrasts, one of our favourite forms on Numéro Cinq (see earlier examples from Steven Heighton and Yahia Lababidi). Naked thought. Gál writes: "The obvious blinds." and "To give life meaning means to make something of it deliberately — and thereby go against it." Think about them; they unfold and refold like intricate origami birds.