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It’s raining. For one hour the rain is not stopping. For 60 minutes and 9 seconds my thoughts haven’t mollifying.  The room is dark. I stare at the ceiling, here two beams of light are projected. They vibrate, giving rhythm to drops and thoughts. I’m one of those drops, still anchored at the branch’s end. Not for much longer it will hold the gravity force. The other drops fall on me, and through the impact with my body, acquire weight and it feels like thorns. Their transition and contact combine pleasure and pain in a new way of perceiving. I imagine a remote image of my body as a fluo pink shapeless mass and pierced. Then the distraction is assisted by the slow motion of the beams of light, directed now to me, despite the awareness of not being able to grasp them. 

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I stand up. It is already dawn. I walk through the city, still empty and covered by a delicate light. It continues to rain but not enough to open the umbrella. The rain, as thin as a fresh shower, touches me. So light and slow that I do not realize that I am already covered by another surface, apparently flat, consisting of many tiny shiny and transparent spheres. 

It’s Sunday morning. I walk on a soft, sky-blue road, almost a pillow that at every step allows me to feel the water moving under my weight and to exit from hidden ways out. My ears are focused on continuous music but not harmonized with the outside world. I allow myself some dance steps, I’m alone on a rainy day, maybe some smoke in the corners but nothing more. Inside the shops that should be turned off, I see some clerks with long glossy and pastel dress, they seem to get ready for an usual ritual, maybe a funeral, to which they must attend. I feel their sad expectation, hidden under fear, of not being able to help themselves to be ready to that moment. Luckely, the churches are closed. 

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Even the few people on the streets seem worried, you can see it form the fast cadence of their steps and the rapid movement of air around their arms. After a short but slow moment of empathy I decide to continue straight. So many bridges are blocking me from following some points along a straight line towards a single direction: east. 

I could not get away from those feelings and now the air is warmer and warmer and the drops heavier and heavier, they have taken over my thoughts again. The increasement of the temperature is directly proportional to the size and frequency of rain and anxiety drops. The fresh dew shower blends in a sweat bath. 

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I pick up the pace. But also the floor seems to sweat. The water has now reached my knees and makes my step harder and harder. I am looking for a way out of these narrow streets where I continue to navigate without a place to reach and a road to follow. All the sales girls have now locked the front doors. I am in the sea of an urban labyrinth, without reason or time, I take the roads not yet flooded or blocked. In one of those dark alleys I see two creatures appearing covered in bay leaves, it seems they are flying in the dark, sea birds children of the earth. I follow them fascinated by the noise of the restless rustle generated by the rhythmic movement of their arms. Then I see them disappear, leaving behind a very strong perfume, memory of distant poets.  

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A boy stops in front of me and, looking at me with his eyes black as coals and a beard so raw as to make him look wise, opens his hand. He wanted to fight the future and the fear with an energy exchange. His warm hand warms mine (the other was forced to hold the umbrella), creating a bubble ready to explode. He smiles and grabs me by the hand. I have the vague impression of having already seen him. Even his accent, far from these places, seems familiar to me. For a moment I feel at home. 

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His house is wide but the ceilings are very low. He probably doesn’t live alone. There are many drying cloths full of stuff hanging to dry. He takes me to his room and puts the clean flannel sheets locked in a plastic bag inside a suitcase under the bed. The wall next to the bed is all purple, the imperial color. The paint has not been passed for a long time. The mirrors on the last walls are all lower than the height of his face. Perhaps he is not a reliable type or perhaps he is with more reason. Uncertainty drives me away. It follows me. It holds me tightly to itself, dragging me down from the bridge.  

My sheets are a piece of water.