| Marco
enters a city; |
| he
sees someone in a square living a life or an instant that could be his;
|
| he
could now be in that man's place, if he had stopped in time, |
| long
ago; |
| or
if, long ago, at a crossroads, |
| instead
of taking one road he had taken the |
| opposite
one, |
| and
after long wandering he had come to be in the place of |
| that
man in that square. |
| By
now, from that real or hypothetical past of his, |
| he
is excluded; |
| he
cannot stop; he must go on to another city. |
| Where
another of his pasts awaits him |
| or
something perhaps that had been a possible |
| future
of his and |
| is
now someone else's present. |
| Futures
not achieved are only branches of the past: |
| dead
branches. |
| Italo
Calvino - "Invisible Cities" |