III

Behind a gaze sleep the disappeared cities. They are lying down, their breath almost imperceptible, in a forest's clearing, years above us, crossing through youth and adolescence, infancy and inherited memories, those that exist like photographs of a time that passed without us. They sleep with a serene face, rosy cheeks, a clean gown. Upon opening the tunnel's last door, the air is dense, the silence feverish, there is a strange calm that tastes of waiting. The cities of your own past are lying down like sleeping beauties, and it is enough to lean over them and kiss their lips so that they rise once more to life, so that they embrace you and begin to dance with you to a music that once played and that lives where you live, behind everything, on the other side of your eyes.