And you feel something unclench within and in that curated hotel room with warm yellow lights, loneliness runs free.

Among the millions and millions of people in this city, why doesn’t he know anyone? Is he himself alive? Do the dead have any memory?

Rosie put down her tea cup and fiddled with the sugar-free biscuits. She wondered if that was all for dinner. She grew restless at the constant drone of the beetle and the frogs and paced around the terrace.