Feeling special is the worst kind of cage a person can build for himself.

The scene was set. All that was required was an action, a cold start, instant and brutal as beginnings always are.

She tried to open the bottle, but the top slipped through her fingers without moving. He took the bottle from her hand and opened it with his thumb and index finger. There was nothing special in the gesture and yet she found it strangely fascinating like a small heroic feat performed specially for her.

Mattia's voice no longer stirred anything in his stomach, but he was aware of the idea of him and always would be, as the only true benchmark for everything that had come afterward.

Why did you choose to stay here?" (...) "I don't know," he said. "It's as if there's more oxygen here.

You can fall ill with just a memory.

Mattia was right: the days had slipped over her skin like a solvent, one after the other, each removing a very thin layer of pigment from her tattoo, and from both of their memories. The outlines, like the circumstances, were still there, black and well delineated, but the colors had merged together until they faded into a dull, uniform tonality, a neutral absence of meaning.