I go back to the reading room, where I sink down in the sofa and into the world of The Arabian Nights. Slowly, like a movie fadeout, the real world evaporates. I'm alone, inside the world of the story. My favourite feeling in the world.

The pillow smells like the sunlight, a precious smell.

I dream. Sometimes I think that's the only right thing to do.

The point is, not to resist the flow. You go up when you're supposed to go up and down when you're supposed to go down. When you're supposed to go up, find the highest tower and climb to the top. When you're supposed to go down, find the deepest well and go down to the bottom. When there's no flow, stay still. If you resist the flow, everything dries up. If everything dries up, the world is darkness.

Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?

We're all kind of weird and twisted and drowning.

Being alive, if you had to define it, meant emitting a variety of smells.