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.

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

It was strange to find them here, still alive, with their shared bits of past that suddenly counted for nothing.

Mattia thought that he and Alice were like that, twin primes, alone and lost, close but not close enough to really touch each other.

In fact, they didn't talk much at all, but they spent time together, each in his own abyss, held safe and tight by the other's silence.

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

You can fall ill with just a memory.