I did nothing but wait for a week in mid-June, in a town on the last train stop out of Milan. It occurs to me now, no longer entrenched in that wait, that I was simply paralysed by this barrier between what we so desperately imagine life to be and who we are.
I accompanied my partner at the time, who was there to acquire work for men’s fashion week. The work, itself, involved much stalling between train stops and overground railcars, much waiting around in cafes and museums of natural history and gardens. It is a particular game of happenstance, to be the right person at the right time, to suspend this wait, to set life into its forward motion.
Those who take their chances must be prepared to spend the three euros on a coffee or a tea to reserve their spot for the next few hours, which may turn into a few more hours, and more hours after that. For those who have done this before, they bring a deck of cards, maybe a change of shoe, certainly a wardrobe of exclusively black, and sometimes white. It ends up that most, however, do not happen to be the right person.
I recall sitting on the train one day, and seeing at first one, then two, then many young men, with sharp features and curiously perpetual frowns, alone, dressed in all black despite the summer heat, slowly trickling into the train carriage. Existing elsewhere in the city, one would not have the slightest clue of the cluster of boys heading to this neighbourhood or that. If one was not looking for it, it would cease to be. And yet, all across the city could be spotted several young men, riding the train, or walking, or dining alone, none of whom carried with them an overwhelming sense of loneliness.
They lacked the what-comes-next, adopting a certain way of thinking of the years in springs and summers, falls and winters. It seemed, for them, not to be a matter of killing time, but a matter of time ceasing to exist. This is, perhaps, what is meant by young, an unshakeable disbelief that the clock will start ticking.
Some nights, I busied myself looking on the balcony for people on theirs. I did not know the point of this game except that it did not have one, which made it easier to sleep some nights, and other nights, all the same.
2026