I wanted to go on an immense journey, to travel night and day into 
the unknown until, forgetting my old self, I came into possession 
of a new self, one that I might have missed on my previous trav-
els. But the first step was beyond me. I lay in bed, unable to move, 
pondering, as one does at my age, the ways of melancholy—how it 
seeps into the spirit, how it disincarnates the will, how it banishes 
the senses to the chill of twilight, how even the best and worst 
intentions wither in its keep. I kept staring at the ceiling, then sud-
denly felt a blast of cold air, and I was gone.